🔗 Business Chat Now Available to All Zendesk Customers

From MacRumors:

Apple Business Chat Now Available to All Zendesk Customers:

Apple and Zendesk today made Business Chat generally available for all businesses that use Zendesk Support, over two years since the service first went into beta.

Business chat is a really useful feature that lets you connect with customer support right in the Apple Messages app.

The feature takes email out of the equation and improves the entire user experience to where contacting support feels as simple as texting a friend.

I have used it to get a hold of Apple and Home Depot and it’s a dream. By Zendesk integrating it, it will become easy for the numerous large and small companies to take advantage of it. The more widespread this becomes, the less often you will need to search Google for the exact page of a companies website you are looking for, fill out a web form, get tons of confirmation responses, and wait forever.

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🔗 MuseScore Announces Version 4, and Transition from Notation Software to Composition Software

In case you didn’t see it, MuseScore made a big announcement last month.

MuseScore 4. Moving from notation software to composition software. | MuseScore:

Although notation is always of paramount importance to MuseScore, we want to expand our capabilities to include other areas of modern composition: experimentation, sharing & collaboration, working with mixed media, sophisticated organisation and being able to produce high-quality audio. MuseScore 4 is the first step in achieving this expanded focus.

However, this does not mean that we are going to start adding new features at the expense of existing ones. In order to achieve our goals, we need to look ‘inwards’ first. Armed with two years of user feedback on MuseScore 3, we have begun the process of making significant improvements to almost all aspects of the application: improved engraving defaults, simplification of the interface, more powerful functionality and an overhaul of its appearance, to name a few.

I don’t use MuseScore often, but I know it is widely respected as a lightweight and accessible notation editor. It really resonates with a lot of the teachers in my district, particularly those who are comfortable with using apps over web browsers to compose, and who don’t want something over the top and expensive like Sibelius or Finale.

This is exciting news for MuseScore and I am curious to see where their development goes.

Some of the folks from MuseScore appeared on a recently released episode of the Scoring Notes podcast, which I haven’t listened to yet, but suspect they go into more detail about the transition to version 4.

🔗 Noteflight Announces Soundcheck, Bringing New Pitch and Rhythm Analysis Features You Can Add to Your Assignments

Web based music notation editor, Noteflight, recently launched a new feature called SoundCheck. It works with Noteflight Learn to add the same pitch and rhythm analysis to your assignments that services like Smartmusic and PracticeFirst are capable of.

My understanding is that it works like this: Noteflight is still a standalone service for writing notation, publishing it, and sharing it within the Noteflight community. Noteflight Learn is the service that can be added to your Noteflight subscription which gives you access to content libraries and some LMS features like managing students and assigning work. SoundCheck is a third offering that can be added to your existing Noteflight Learn subscription, that adds the practice and analysis tools to your assignments.

It seems like it should be very easy to make assignments out of your Noteflight scores, which can be imported via the XML format.

John Mlynczak, Managing Director of Noteflight, is coming on the podcast this week to discuss more. Stay tuned.

SoundCheck Check One Two – Noteflight Notes:

We are so excited to announce our partnership with MatchMySound™ technology to bring SoundCheck™ to Noteflight! This proven solution for performance assessment will be available for use with any Noteflight score, and provide ratings and feedback for pitch, rhythm, and intonation – which can be used for assessment.
All Noteflight scores will be available in SoundCheck with just the click of a button. All current Noteflight Learn integrations with Google Classroom and LTI tools such as Canvas, Schoology, Moodle, etc, will still be supported for creating and turning in SoundCheck assignments. We are actively integrating this feature now and are committed to having the first version available for use in June.

🔗 Apple honors StaffPad with annual Apple Design Award – Apple

Old news now but I just wanted to give a shout-out to StaffPad for winning an Apple Design Award this year. It is so completely deserved in every way. If you want to hear more of my thoughts on StaffPad, try one of the following posts:

First Impressions of StaffPad

StaffPad Comes to iOS (Reflections on App Store Pricing and Touch Screen Operating Systems)

Music Ed Tech Talk Podcast #7 – Working with StaffPad

Read more about Design Award winners below. They are very focused on pro apps for the iPad this year.

Apple honors eight developers with annual Apple Design Awards:

StaffPad, from StaffPad Ltd., brilliantly converts handwritten musical notations into digital sheet music. Designed for composers who want an easy solution for writing and composing music digitally, the app uses Apple technologies such as Apple Pencil, drag and drop, and Core ML to transform each bar into beautifully typeset music notation that can be edited using intuitive touch or Apple Pencil tools.

🔗 Institute for Composer Diversity: State Repertoire Lists (Wind Band)

The Institute for Composer Diversity is curating special lists from their database, and their first one features wind band music! I am especially excited that this list includes works for beginners, an area that I find it typically challenging to program for. There is a lot of beginning music on this list to pick from.

State Lists — Institute for Composer Diversity:

Required state repertoire lists exist differently in every state in the U.S. and ICD, along with our partners in On The List and many others, wants to help to make sure those solo, chamber, and large ensemble lists appropriately provide students with music from many diverse voices. We’re starting with wind band works, but will grow this project to include choir, orchestra, jazz ensembles, and chamber works!

The lists below comprise a growing list of works for wind band composed or arranged by either a woman composer or a composer/arranger from an underrepresented heritage which have been selected by one or more U.S. state for repertoire lists. K-12 schools are required to perform works from these lists at district-and state-wide band festivals and competitions. Most of these works are in our Works Diversity Database (and those that aren’t will soon be)!

🔗 Gizmodo: 6 Free Final Cut Pro Alternatives for Making Your Own MoVies

While Final Cut Pro still gets my vote, this list will probably be useful to my music teaching friends looking to make virtual ensemble videos.

6 Free Final Cut Pro Alternatives for Making Your Own Movies

Video editing is easier than it’s ever been, with the barrier to entry becoming less pricey every year. As long as you have some decent footage to work with, you can turn it into something presentable—and dare we say professional—using programs that won’t cost you anything. Here are six of the best free video editors to help you unleash your inner Oscar-winning director.

https://kit.fontawesome.com/9a5419fedc.js

🔗 Concertino- classical music front end for apple music

As much as I love IDAGIO for classical music streaming, it is mostly solving the metadata problem for me. In other words, the issue of being able to sort and filter by time period, composer, conductor, etc.

I still find Apple Music's library for classical to be decent, and I already pay for it.

I am looking forward to trying out Concertino in the coming days.

Concertino – Classical music front-end for Apple Music

Transform Apple Music into a magical classical music jukebox – browse composers, genres and periods, create playlists of multi-movement works, start no-nonsense radio stations and much, much more, for free!

🔗 New version of Logic Pro released today

Major upgrade to Logic Pro today. New non-linear loop composing, new drum machine, and sampling features… it sure does feel like this release is a response to some of the features that make Abelton Live such a compelling experience.

From the Logic Pro page today…

Logic Pro – Apple:

Live Loops is a dynamic way to create and arrange music in real time. Kick off your composition by adding loops, samples, or your recorded performances into a grid of cells. Trigger different cells to play with your ideas without worrying about a timeline or arrangement. Once you find combinations that work well together you can create song sections, then move everything into the Tracks area to continue production and finish your song.

We redesigned and improved our most popular plug-in — the EXS24 Sampler — and renamed it Sampler. The new single-window design makes it easier to create and edit sampler instruments while remaining backward compatible with all EXS24 files. An expanded synthesis section with sound-shaping controls brings more depth and dynamics to your instruments. The reimagined mapping editor adds powerful, time-saving features that speed the creation of complex instruments. Use the zone waveform editor to make precise edits to sample start/end, loop ranges, and crossfades. And save hours of tedious editing with new drag-and-drop hot zones.

Quick Sampler is a fast and easy way to work with a single sample. Drag and drop an audio file from the Finder, Voice Memos, or anywhere within Logic Pro X. Or record audio directly into Quick Sampler using a turntable, microphone, musical instrument, or even channel strips playing in Logic Pro X. In a few steps, you can transform an individual sample into a fully playable instrument. And with Slice Mode, you can split a single sample into multiple slices — perfect for chopping up vocals or breaking up and resequencing drum loops.

The new Sampler and Quick Sampler seem especially interesting. Making these kinds of (usually advanced) workflows dead simple is something that Apple is unmatched at when it comes to software design.

🔗 Dorico SE – A free version for everyone

Users who have been previously intrigued by the professional score editor Dorico but has been afraid to try it can now rejoice! Dorico now has a free version, Dorico SE, for all users. It only has basic functionality, but I suspect you will want to take the plunge after getting familiar with it.

Most people I know are hesitant to take the plunge on Dorico either because of its price (hard to beat free software like Musescore and Noteflight), or because they are hanging on to the comfort of Sibelius or Finale. Well now you don’t have to pay a dime to try the latest and greatest score editor. Seriously, it blows the others out of the water.

My only complaints:

Annoying installation (but Avid’s is still way worse)
Only one computer (so sad)
No iOS app… but who has one other than Notion?

Try it today.

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🔗 Black Friday App Store Deals (MDMDeals.com)

One of my favorite things to browse on Black Friday are app deals. I love exploring new software in my free time away from school, and there’s nothing cozier than purchasing a new app and downloading it right from the comfort of my bed or couch.

If you're looking for App Store deals today, look no further than this post from MDM Deals.

The best Black Friday sales on iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps, movies, and more! – Discover great deals on fantastic apps & movies:

This Black Friday, there are over 6,000 iOS, iPadOS, & macOS apps on sale in just the App Stores. I’ve spent dozens of hours going through them all to find you just the ones worth your time and money.

My favorites on this list are:

TextExpander
Deliveries
BeFocusedPro
Pixelmator Pro
Pocelmator Photo
Paprika Recipe Manager
Cardhop
BusyCal
Fantastical 2
7 Minute Workout
LaunchBar (though I prefer Alfred)
Screens 4
PDF Expert
Civilization VI