Christopher Bill joins the show to talk about the musicianship, hardware, software, and creative process behind his viral YouTube channel, Classical Trombone.
Check out the latest episode of Music Ed Tech Talk!
Dr. Peter Perry joins the show to talk about the software and hardware we use in rehearsals, his book Technology Tips for Ensemble Directors, and our recent favorite music, apps, and tech tips.
Robby explains the software, hardware, and teaching strategies he uses to run engaging and effective music rehearsals in a remote or hybrid environment.
This information was presented earlier this month at the Maryland Music Educators Association conference. The notes and links below are from the session notes of that presentation.
Learn the strategies and technologies to run engaging synchronous rehearsals. Engage students visually and speed up your flow using Open Broadcasting Software. Pump the sound video/music/play-along tracks directly through Zoom or Google Meet for a lag-free experience. Explore play along with resources, student reflection with Google Docs, effective camera/mic practices, and have students working collaboratively in synchronous chamber ensembles with Soundtrap! Software discussed includes: Keynote, Google Slides, Loopback, Soundsource, Farrago, AnyTune, Soundtrap, Smartmusic!
Tip! – In order to zoom in on your screen on a Mac while presenting, you can do the following: Go to System Preferences—>Accessibility—>Zoom and check on “Use scroll gesture with moifier keys to zoom.” I set up my modifier key as Control so that when I hold Control and scroll up, my screen zooms in.
Technology trainer and speaker, Katie Wardrobe, joins the show to talk about producing technology training and resources for music teachers. (And way more)
Paul Kafasis, CEO of Rogue Amoeba, joins Robby to talk about the stellar audio apps they make and how Robby is using them in the music classroom both before and during COVID.
I am announcing a new section of this website. A STORE! Starting today, I will be selling digital products and services I have created for musicians and music teachers. Check it out here!
Here is the product description from the sale page:
This collection contains over 70 major scale play-along tracks for your ensemble.
Each track includes a tuning drone playing the tonic with a scale overtop in just intonation so that you can reinforce flawless intonation, tone production, and blend amongst your students. Every exercise includes a count-off and a trap beat underneath to engage your students while reinforcing slower playing and subdividing!
The audio-only version of this package includes mp3 files of the following recordings in all twelve major keys, at 70bpm.
Whole note scale
Half note scale
Quarter note scale
Eighth note scale
Scale Exercise in Thirds
Mini-Scale with Arpeggio
Also included:
Remington at three different speeds! Perfect for playing underneath many of the exercises that come from popular band methods.
The premium version of this product includes the audio tracks above in addition to the Logic Pro and GarageBand stems so you can edit every element of the tracks, including speed, pitch, and instrumentation.
These are perfect for running through your Zoom/Google Meet/Virtual Classroom to keep kids playing as much as possible.
I have been using tracks like these with my band students for years now and they LOVE them. The trap beat resonates with them. Its popularity in hip hop music aside, there is something compelling about them, musically. The backbeat on three, combined with the busy hi-hat activity, helps kids subdivide slower tempos and keeps them motivated to practice stuff like long tones and scales. The strong 808 baseline asserts the beat while adding fun syncopation.
It was essential to me that the drones were in just intonation because I teach my students to hear and adjust to the beats that result when unison pitches and diatonic intervals are in/out of tune. The Yamaha Harmony Director was definitely the tool for the job. Here’s a really brief blog post I shared earlier this month about the process if you want to take a stab at making something like this.
You can alternatively do this process using the (excellent) Tonal Energy Tuner App, a MIDI keyboard, and GarageBand on iOS. I wrote about that here. I prefer the Tonal Energy experience, but the Yamaha’s hardware keys made it easier to “perform” the drones and allowed me to create in Logic Pro, which I am more proficient in.
The original concept for this was very ambitious initially, and I simplified the vision a ton to help myself “ship it.” I have seen music teachers asking for something like this on social media a lot lately, and it seemed like time to do the work. I am happy with how they turned out and I hope to create more of these down the road in varying style, tempo, and exercise patterns.
A few notes:
Due to file upload limitations on Squarespace, buying the stems directs you to download a text file instead of the audio files. The text file contains a link to a third-party hosting source. A little inelegant, I know, but setting up a Squarespace store was otherwise the most comfortable choice.
These are incredibly effective for engaging synchronous ensemble rehearsals. No, we still can’t play at once, but running rehearsal tracks through your Google Meet or Zoom call while students are muted is a great way to keep them playing. These tracks are slow enough that I have had success having groups of 3-6 unmute while playing along, and it is not total chaos. Between these, my Solfege Bingo tracks, and The Breathing Gym DVD, we can be synchronously active for more than 80 percent of each class. I get the audio to route directly through to the call using Loopback.
Many of these tracks, particularly the scale exercise in thirds, mini-scale, and Remington tracks, pair perfectly with a multitude of examples in the Foundation for Superior Performance band method books series. I did not title them as such because the book and my project are in no way connected. I bring it up here because I know those exercises are ubiquitous in band rehearsals, and it’s for this reason, many directors have their students purchase those books.
I made the arrangements of these tracks simple to keep the appeal as wide-reaching and flexible as possible. My hope is that people who really want to change the style, edit the beat, change the speed, or any other kind of alternation, will buy the version that comes with the GarageBand and Logic stems. Tip: If you want to use software instruments to create your own accompaniment, and want them to be justly in tune with my tracks, Logic Pro has support for tuning systems. That means that if you mute my trap beat and add your own samba tracks, you can have the instruments play in the key area you select instead of their usual equal tempered tuning.
My band classes meet online using Google Meet once a day for 45 minutes. I am trying to keep them playing as much of this time as possible while slowly introducing the tech tools we will be using to submit work this semester.
Using the Yamaha Harmony Director, plugged in through Logic (along with some trap beats and 808 bass lines I recorded in with software instruments), I have started to make some play-along tracks to route through the Google Meet via Loopback.
See below for the Logic Pro setup. I am using a drummer track for the trap beat, an 808 bass instrument as a software instrument to record the bass line, and the Harmony Director is being recorded live as an audio track. The HD is plugged directly into my audio interface to do this.
I decided to keep the bass part droning in the key area of the scale because that software instrument plays in equal temperament by default. It also sounds more like an authentic trap beat this way, where the bass line functions similar to a bass drum.
I already used this method in my first period class this morning and the band loved it. This is just the beginning. I whipped this together in a hot minute and anticipate making a variety of scale patterns in different musical styles.
David MacDonald returns to the show to talk about the hardware and software in our virtual teaching setups. Then we speculate about touchscreen Macs and consider how Apple’s recent App Store policies might impact the future of creative professional software on iOS.
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