Category: Link Post

What Does It Mean To Be Creative? – Off the Beaten Path

Theresa is addressing important questions on her blog this week. Stay tuned for a near future episode of Music Ed Tech Talk. She is the next guest.

What Does It Mean To Be Creative? – Off the Beaten Path:

Creativity is a word we hear often in education, especially in music education, and it’s something I’ve become quite passionate about in the last few years. How are we, as music educators, offering opportunities for students to be creative? When do students get to create their own music and make their own musical decisions, instead of only recreating someone else’s music and performing music as dictated by someone else?
Keep reading here…

9to5 Mac: Notability for iPad adds new ‘Pencil’ feature for a ‘lifelike handwriting experience’

9to5 Mac reports on an update to Notability. For a few years, I have been solidly in the GoodNotes camp when it comes to handwritten notes on iPad. It is great to see that there is still competition in this space.

Notability for iPad adds new ‘Pencil’ feature for a ‘lifelike handwriting experience’:

Notability, the popular note-taking app for iPhone and iPad, has been updated today with a new “Pencil” feature. According to the company, this feature brings “the most paper-like sketching experience to digital notetakers,” including support for the Apple Pencil as well.

MacStories -> The Practicality of Art in Software

This blog post from Federico Viticci over at MacStories is worth a read.

This part jumped out at me:

In bringing this back to software, it’s evident that – again, historically – Apple doesn’t believe in art as a veneer to make something “look good”. Art – whereby “art” we refer to the human care behind the design of software – is intrinsically tied to the technology that powers the computer. It’s the intersection of technology and liberal arts: skew toward one side more than the other, and you risk of losing the balance many of us like about Apple. Art in Apple’s software isn’t some secret ingredient that can just be added at the end of the process, like a spice: great design _is_ the process itself. Case in point: the Dynamic Island.

Federico argues that the iPad is not striking a balance between beautiful and useful. I agree with this point. After trying to use it like an equal counterpart to macOS in 2016-2019, I have been back to the Mac (so to speak) ever since.

The iPad makes a great digital piece of paper. And I think I am leveraging its strengths best when I use it exactly like that.

A few AI music proejcts

On a recent episode of Music Ed Tech Talk, David MacDonald and I discussed the possibility of AI Chatbots coming to music.

The future is already here, apparently, as numerous AI music projects have made it on to my radar over the past few weeks. Here are links to a few intersting (or terrifying) ones, depending on your perspective.

NAMM –> John Mlynczak Named President and CEO of The National Association of Music Merchants

Congratulations John!

After a comprehensive year-long search, The NAMM Executive Committee and CEO Search Committee is pleased to announce industry veteran and music education advocate John Mlynczak as the next President and CEO of The National Association of Music Merchants.

Read the entire announcement here.

Listen to John as a guest on the Music Ed Tech Talk Podcast:

Eric Jimenez Joins Hal Leonard Team

Press Releases – Eric Jimenez Joins Hal Leonard Team | Hal Leonard Online:

12.16.22—Hal Leonard is excited to announce that Eric Jiminez has joined their education team as Account Manager – Education Technology. In this role, Eric will focus on serving school districts with the resources, curriculum, technology, methods, repertoire, and professional development that Hal Leonard has to offer.

Congratulations to Eric! Check out his podcast The Score.

Scale Dice by Way of Dice by PCalc – Ehler

I use the app Dice by PCalc to simulate the rolling of various dice while playing tabletop and role playing games. It is good fun, but not something I have used in the classroom. Ehler has the very cool idea of using it for assigning scales. You could use these similarly for any kind of classroom need where you have to randomize an order of something (and make it fun).

You can check out the app here and read Ehler’s post below, which includes a link to download the scale dice into the Dice app.

Scale Dice by Way of Dice by PCalc – Ehler

I’ve known many directors over time to use “scale dice” to help students practice their major scales with an element of randomness. In Iowa, this is a useful preparation for All-State auditions, but it can be a handy thing to do in sectionals and small-group lessons too. Dice by PCalc has support for custom dice, and these wind up looking great.

Currently, the app supports six distinct dice designs on screen at a time (so it would be easy and practical to have six different students at once get assigned a scale with a single roll)

You can configure these dice yourself, but I’ll save you the work by sharing my “custom dice” export here.

The 50 Best Albums Of 2022: NPR

Ever since NPR started putting these playlists on Apple Music and Spotify, I haven’t been compiling them. I guess there was some value in that process, because I almost forgot to check out the list this year!

Read more, and find music streaming links below.

The 50 Best Albums Of 2022 (50-41) : NPR

A year like this one makes hand-wringing about the death of the album seem silly (if anything we should be concerned about the single). Musicians gave us experiences in 2022. Immersive, ambitious, focused, sprawling, explosive, swerving albums expressed their power in any number of ways: Vibes to make summer stretch on into the year’s cold months. Bottomless layers of invention. History lessons that sparkled like the best party you could imagine. There were too many great albums to count, let alone narrow down to a round number. But here are 50 that made us feel awe, ache or adoration, selected and ranked by the contributors, public radio partners and staff of NPR Music. (Oh, and we also ranked the 100 Best Songs of 2022.)

Scripting SDK in Pro Tools

I do a lot of automation. I have always felt like the tools for automating basic computer productivity are more vast and varied than those for the more advanced creative professional software.

Pro Tools has a new update, and while I have not used it in many years, I took note of this particular addition, which will allow third parties to create their own scripting tools, which could improve and streamline cumbersome workflows in the DAW.

It would be very cool to see some other DAWs do something like this. I wonder, often, why Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro do not have any support for Shortcuts, Apple’s new and cross-platform system for automation. Shortcuts has eliminated countless hours of work and stress from my email, calendar, writing, and task workflows. Why should their creative pro software be any different?

What’s New in Pro Tools – Avid Technology:

Scripting SDK

The Pro Tools 2022.12 software release includes support for a new Scripting SDK (software development kit) that enables high-end facilities and application developers for scripting Pro Tools to help automate repetitive tasks and create whole new workflows. This new free Pro Tools Scripting SDK provides developers with everything they need to get up and running.