Tag: tonal energy

I am presenting at the Maryland Music Educators Association Conference this weekend!

2025 Annual State Conference Graphic (1).

I am thrilled to be presenting at the Maryland Music Educators Association Conference this weekend! My session focuses on teaching intonation in the music classroom with support of technology.

If you’d like to attend, the session is on Saturday, March 8 at 10:45 AM. If you’re already here or have attended, thank you for coming!

This post serves as a resource for session notes, including links to the primary tools I mention, and a complimentary podcast episode.

Complimentary Podcast Episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEKe44aNCuE

Where to Find Me

Subscribe to the Blog…RSS**** | Email Newsletter

Subscribe to the Podcast in…Apple Podcasts**** | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Support My Work

Become a Patron!

Session Outline and Links to Resources Mentioned in the Session

Teaching Intonation

Philosophy

  • Prioritize these…
  • Tone
  • Intonation
  • Balance/Blend
  • Melodic Accuracy
  • Rhythmic Accuracy
  • Expression/Phrasing
  • Technique/Articulation
  • Sound Over Sight
  • If we are asking students to use their ears, then why are we having them use their eyes?
  • Natural Learning – think about how children learn to speak. Through modeling from parental figures, constant repetition, and encountering these repetitions in various contexts.
  • Electronic tuners can only tune intervals of unisons and octaves accurately.
  • We are used to hearing the piano in its slightly “out-of-tune” tempered state.
  • Interval Adjustment
  • Pure intervals have varying degrees of adjustment from tempered intonation to make them in tune.
  • Scale Degree | Adjustment
  • 1 | 0
  • 2 | +3.9
  • 3 | -13.7
  • 4 | -2.0
  • 5 | +2.0
  • 6 | -15.6
  • 7 | -11.7
  • 8 | 0
  • We must teach our students to HEAR when something is out of tune by listening for beats. But how?
  • Resonant intonation is the result of two other important features: superior tone and balance.
  • Good tone comes first.
  • Learning balance is difficult in a room by yourself.
  • Use of an electric drone helps.
  • Turn the drone up to a level that equals the student.
  • Song based learning that utilizes lots of simple melodies in standard keys teaches students to understand basic consonance and dissonance.
  • Lots of repetition!!!
  • Patients!
  • Reinforce that one success does not mean that everything will be in tune from here on out.
  • Don’t strive for a perfect intonation system. Resist teaching students the theory of intervals and focus on them hearing consonance and dissonance through listening to the relationships of intervals.
  • Once you know what a 5th sounds like, you can tune it anywhere.
  • Avoid technical talk unless something is absolutely in a students way.
  • Daniel Kohut – Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy
  • Superior Concept
  • Relaxed Concentration
  • Focused Awareness
  • Reasons teachers give up on teaching intonation this way…
  • Fear of other areas of musical performance failing – wrong notes, rhythm, poor technique, inability to execute musically. The solution to this – pick easier music!!!
  • Abstract nature of these skills make them less concrete to student minds and harder to teach.
  • This is a long road. It takes time. But! – the end reward is ultimately better because students own their critical listening skills and now make musical adjustments themselves, even to features in the music that are not tone and intonation related. Each year will have an upswing towards the end. Independent musicianship is the result.

Features of Tonal Energy

  • Overview of each feature and setting – Live Demo
  • Strategies
  • Everything with drone
  • All music taught around tonal centers
  • Students tune down to the tonic most immediately beneath where the majority of their part sits
  • Students write tonal centers in their method books and concert music
  • Analyze mode – Students practice scale patterns and songs in this sequence…
  1. Visual and aural feedback
  2. Aural feedback only
  3. No drone at all

– Practice Guide

CleanShot 2022-01-09 at 12.45.41.png

  • You can balance to the drone

Tell students to match the volume of the drone at various levels.

  • Play along melodies with students on a keyboard or on the display

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.21.25@2x.png

A midi keyboard like the Xkey can play certain key areas in tune perfectly and can automatically tune chords to just intonation. Combined with an iPad, this is like owning a Yamaha Harmony Director.

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.21.47@2x.png

GarageBand for iOS allows easy creation of engaging play along tracks by using TE Tuner as a plugin and combining its sounds with other instruments.

Lightly Row with Tuning Drones

Recording Tonal Energy into GarageBand with Inter-App Audio

Embellishing the Drone Track with Drums

Embellishing Lightly Row

Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks with Trap Beats – Promotional Video

Image.png

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CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.23.30@2x.png

  • More Resources
  • Hal Leonard Intermediate Band Method
  • Beat Elimination as a Means of Teaching Intonation to Beginning Wind Instrumentalists, The Journal of Research in Music Education, Winer 1972
  • The Problem of Tonality in Seventheenth Century Music, Delbert M. Beswick, Music, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1950
  • Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy – Daniel Kohut
  • Automating Band Warmups, Teaching Auditory Skill, and Managing My Classroom… With Solfege Bingo

Extra Show Notes from the Podcast Episode:

App of the Week

Album of the Week

Tech Tip of the Week

Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy – OMEA 2025

CleanShot 2025-02-06 at 10.43.27@2x.

I am thrilled to be presenting four sessions at the Ohio Music Educators Association Professional Development Conference this weekend! My fourth session focuses on teaching intonation in the music classroom with support of technology.

If you’d like to attend, the session is on February 8 at 11 AM. If you’re already here or have attended, thank you for coming!

This post serves as a resource for session notes, including links to the primary tools I mention, and a complimentary podcast episode.

Complimentary Podcast Episode:

Where to Find Me

Subscribe to the Blog…RSS**** | Email Newsletter

Subscribe to the Podcast in…Apple Podcasts**** | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Support My Work

Become a Patron!

Session Outline and Links to Resources Mentioned in the Session

Teaching Intonation

Philosophy

  • Prioritize these…
    • Tone
    • Intonation
    • Balance/Blend
    • Melodic Accuracy
    • Rhythmic Accuracy
    • Expression/Phrasing
    • Technique/Articulation
  • Sound Over Sight
    • If we are asking students to use their ears, then why are we having them use their eyes?
    • Natural Learning – think about how children learn to speak. Through modeling from parental figures, constant repetition, and encountering these repetitions in various contexts.
    • Electronic tuners can only tune intervals of unisons and octaves accurately.
    • We are used to hearing the piano in its slightly “out-of-tune” tempered state.
  • Interval Adjustment
    • Pure intervals have varying degrees of adjustment from tempered intonation to make them in tune.
    • Scale Degree | Adjustment
      • 1 | 0
      • 2 | +3.9
      • 3 | -13.7
      • 4 | -2.0
      • 5 | +2.0
      • 6 | -15.6
      • 7 | -11.7
      • 8 | 0
  • We must teach our students to HEAR when something is out of tune by listening for beats. But how?
    • Resonant intonation is the result of two other important features: superior tone and balance.
    • Good tone comes first.
    • Learning balance is difficult in a room by yourself.
    • Use of an electric drone helps.
    • Turn the drone up to a level that equals the student.
    • Song based learning that utilizes lots of simple melodies in standard keys teaches students to understand basic consonance and dissonance.
    • Lots of repetition!!!
    • Patients!
    • Reinforce that one success does not mean that everything will be in tune from here on out.
    • Don’t strive for a perfect intonation system. Resist teaching students the theory of intervals and focus on them hearing consonance and dissonance through listening to the relationships of intervals.
    • Once you know what a 5th sounds like, you can tune it anywhere.
    • Avoid technical talk unless something is absolutely in a students way.
  • Daniel Kohut – Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy
    • Superior Concept
    • Relaxed Concentration
    • Focused Awareness
  • Reasons teachers give up on teaching intonation this way…
    • Fear of other areas of musical performance failing – wrong notes, rhythm, poor technique, inability to execute musically. The solution to this – pick easier music!!!
    • Abstract nature of these skills make them less concrete to student minds and harder to teach.
    • This is a long road. It takes time. But! – the end reward is ultimately better because students own their critical listening skills and now make musical adjustments themselves, even to features in the music that are not tone and intonation related. Each year will have an upswing towards the end. Independent musicianship is the result.

Features of Tonal Energy

  • Overview of each feature and setting – Live Demo
    • Strategies
  • Everything with drone
    • All music taught around tonal centers
    • Students tune down to the tonic most immediately beneath where the majority of their part sits
    • Students write tonal centers in their method books and concert music
  • Analyze mode – Students practice scale patterns and songs in this sequence…
    1. Visual and aural feedback
    2. Aural feedback only
    3. No drone at all
  • Practice Guide

CleanShot 2022-01-09 at 12.45.41.png

  • You can balance to the drone

    Tell students to match the volume of the drone at various levels.

  • Play along melodies with students on a keyboard or on the display

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.21.25@2x.png

A midi keyboard like the Xkey can play certain key areas in tune perfectly and can automatically tune chords to just intonation. Combined with an iPad, this is like owning a Yamaha Harmony Director.

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.21.47@2x.png

Lightly Row with Tuning Drones

Recording Tonal Energy into GarageBand with Inter-App Audio

Embellishing the Drone Track with Drums

Embellishing Lightly Row

Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks with Trap Beats – Promotional Video

Image.png

Image.png

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.23.30@2x.png

  • More Resources

Extra Show Notes from the Podcast Episode:

App of the Week

Album of the Week

Tech Tip of the Week

I’m presenting at TMEA 2023

Hello! I am pleased to say I am presenting at the Texas Music Educators Association conference next month. Will you be there? If so, I hope you will check out one of my two sessions.

Digital Organization Tips for Music Teachers – Wednesday, February 8 @ 4:15 pm, Room CC 214B

Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy – Friday, February 10 @ 11:30 am, Room CC 216

Stay tuned to the blog for complementary session notes and links.

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The Tunable Mac App is my Preferred Tuner on macOS

I have said a lot of positive words about the Tonal Energy Tuner app. Every day I yearn for them to release a Mac version of the app.

Playing just intonation tuning drones in combination with a metronome is one of my most common technology uses in the band classroom. Though I have a phone and a Mac wired into the sound system, my Mac is where I am most comfortable playing audio in class. In a few of my classrooms the Mac is my only device plugged into a sound system.

I’d like to give Tunable some love. Software developer Seth Sandler is killing it with this app. After speaking with him on the Music Ed Tech Talk podcast, he reminded me that there is a Mac version.

I have been using Tunable in my classes for the past few months and I really like it. It has great drones, metronome, multiple tuning systems, and design elements that make it feel like it lives on macOS.

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Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy (Session Notes, Podcast Episode, and Blog Post)

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 17.59.12@2x.png

Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy – OMEA 2022 (5:15 pm, Room 21)

This blog post, podcast episode, and presentation were prepared for the Ohio Music Educators Association Professional Development Conference 2022.

This blog post exists to serve as both session notes for conference attendees, show notes for listeners of the podcast episode, and any teacher who wishes to develop intonation in their performing ensemble.

Complimentary Podcast Episode:

Where to Find Me

Subscribe to the Blog…RSS** | Email Newsletter

Subscribe to the Podcast in…Apple Podcasts** | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Support My Work

Become a Patron!

Teaching Intonation

Philosophy

  • Prioritize these…
    • Tone
    • Intonation
    • Balance/Blend
    • Melodic Accuracy
    • Rhythmic Accuracy
    • Expression/Phrasing
    • Technique/Articulation
  • Sound Over Sight
    • If we are asking students to use their ears, then why are we having them use their eyes?
    • Natural Learning – think about how children learn to speak. Through modeling from parental figures, constant repetition, and encountering these repetitions in various contexts.
    • Electronic tuners can only tune intervals of unisons and octaves accurately.
    • We are used to hearing the piano in its slightly “out-of-tune” tempered state.
  • Interval Adjustment
    • Pure intervals have varying degrees of adjustment from tempered intonation to make them in tune.
    • Scale Degree | Adjustment
      • 1 | 0
      • 2 | +3.9
      • 3 | -13.7
      • 4 | -2.0
      • 5 | +2.0
      • 6 | -15.6
      • 7 | -11.7
      • 8 | 0
  • We must teach our students to HEAR when something is out of tune by listening for beats. But how?
    • Resonant intonation is the result of two other important features: superior tone and balance.
    • Good tone comes first.
    • Learning balance is difficult in a room by yourself.
    • Use of an electric drone helps.
    • Turn the drone up to a level that equals the student.
    • Song based learning that utilizes lots of simple melodies in standard keys teaches students to understand basic consonance and dissonance.
    • Lots of repetition!!!
    • Patients!
    • Reinforce that one success does not mean that everything will be in tune from here on out.
    • Don’t strive for a perfect intonation system. Resist teaching students the theory of intervals and focus on them hearing consonance and dissonance through listening to the relationships of intervals.
    • Once you know what a 5th sounds like, you can tune it anywhere.
    • Avoid technical talk unless something is absolutely in a students way.
  • Daniel Kohut – Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy
    • Superior Concept
    • Relaxed Concentration
    • Focused Awareness
  • Reasons teachers give up on teaching intonation this way…
    • Fear of other areas of musical performance failing – wrong notes, rhythm, poor technique, inability to execute musically. The solution to this – pick easier music!!!
    • Abstract nature of these skills make them less concrete to student minds and harder to teach.
    • This is a long road. It takes time. But! – the end reward is ultimately better because students own their critical listening skills and now make musical adjustments themselves, even to features in the music that are not tone and intonation related. Each year will have an upswing towards the end. Independent musicianship is the result.

Features of Tonal Energy

  • Overview of each feature and setting – Live Demo
    • Strategies
  • Everything with drone
    • All music taught around tonal centers
    • Students tune down to the tonic most immediately beneath where the majority of their part sits
    • Students write tonal centers in their method books and concert music
  • Analyze mode – Students practice scale patterns and songs in this sequence…
    1. Visual and aural feedback
    2. Aural feedback only
    3. No drone at all
  • Practice Guide

CleanShot 2022-01-09 at 12.45.41.png

  • You can balance to the drone

    Tell students to match the volume of the drone at various levels.

  • Play along melodies with students on a keyboard or on the display

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.21.25@2x.png

A midi keyboard like the Xkey can play certain key areas in tune perfectly and can automatically tune chords to just intonation. Combined with an iPad, this is like owning a Yamaha Harmony Director.

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.21.47@2x.png

Lightly Row with Tuning Drones

Recording Tonal Energy into GarageBand with Inter-App Audio

Embellishing the Drone Track with Drums

Embellishing Lightly Row

Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks with Trap Beats – Promotional Video

Image.png

Image.png

CleanShot 2022-02-03 at 18.23.30@2x.png

  • More Resources

Extra Show Notes from the Podcast Episode:

App of the Week

Album of the Week

Tech Tip of the Week

METT Episode 44 – Rehearsal Tech

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.

Subscribe to the Blog…

RSS | Email Newsletter

Subscribe to the Podcast in…

Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Support Music Ed Tech Talk

Become a Patron!

Buy me a coffee

Show Notes:

Music of the Week

Robby – Astor Piazzolla and Gary Burton – The New Tango

Peter – Tony Benett and Lady Gaga – Love for Sale)

App of the Week:

Robby – Craft

Peter – Izotope RX9

Where to Find Us:

Robby – Twitter | Blog | Book

Peter – Twitter | Website

Please don’t forget to rate the show and share it with others!

Making Tunable, with Seth Sandler (Music Ed Tech Talk Ep. 40)

Seth Sandler, maker of the poplar mobile tuner app Tunable, joins the show to talk about the process of making a tuning app, developing for iOS/Mac, and more!

Subscribe to Music Ed Tech Talk:

Subscribe to the Blog

Subscribe to the Podcast in…
Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Show Notes:

App of the Week:
BusyCal

Album of the Week:
Chris Thile – Laysongs
Acapella Musicals on Spotify

Where to Find Us:
Robby – Twitter | Blog | Book
Seth – Twitter

Please don’t forget to rate the show and share it with others!

Soundtrap for Instrumental Music Teachers (HCPSS PD August 23, 2021)

I am presenting at the Howard County Public School System Music Professional Development on August 23, 2021.

These are the notes for that session…

  1. “What Do We Keep?” – This presentation is an loosely adapted from a post I wrote for the NAfME blog titled “Take, Leave, Transform! What Do We Keep from Last School Year”, which was based on a presentation I gave at the Music Ed Tech Conference this past summer. Check it out for more resources and ideas, and most importantly, links to the software mentioned in today’s session.
  2. “What Do We Keep?”” Session Notes – If you want just the links and resources from the blog post above, click here.
  3. Getting Your Students to Compose – Click here to read more about implementing Putting the E in Ensemble and to listen to my interview with Alex Shapiro.
  4. “Develop Performance Skills Remotely” – TMEA Presentation Notes – Some of the videos in today’s presentation were taken from my TMEA presentation this past year. Click here to watch the entire thing and receive the session notes.
  5. Making Just Intonation Play-Alongs with Tonal Energy Tuner – Click here to read my blog post about making play-along tracks using the TE Tuner app.

These three podcast episodes also address the subject of using Soundtrap creatively in the performing arts contexts.

What Do We Keep? (Podcast version of the above NAfME post)

Interview with Alex Shapiro about her “Putting the E in Ensemble” Curriculum

3 Soundtrap Projects Your Students Will Love (more Soundtrap ideas for in and outside of the performing arts classroom)

Develop Performance Skills Remotely with Cloud Software – YouTube

Making a Play Along Track – YouTube

Making a Virtual Ensemble Video – YouTube

Set your iPhone to open a tuner or take a screenshot when you tap the Apple logo on back

I have been seeing this tip gain popularity with teachers online, so I feel obligated to share it here:

You can program your iPhone to do a nearly endless list of things by double or triple tapping the back of it. Go to Settings–>Accessibility–>Touch and then scroll down to the option called “Back Tap.”

Alternatively, you can swipe down in settings to reveal a search bar and then type in “back tap.”

You can program a tap of the Apple Logo on the back of your iPhone to do tons of system actions like going home, muting your phone, taking a screenshot, or launching Control Center. 

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        <div class="image-caption"><p class="">The Touch options in the accessibility settings.</p></div>
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        <div class="image-caption"><p class="">Setting a double and triple-tap.</p></div>
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        <div class="image-caption"><p class="">There are lots of options!</p></div>
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You can also choose a Shortcut to launch. And Shortcuts can do anything from launching an app to running JavaScript. So you can imagine the possibility…

Personally, I have a double-tap set to reveal Control Center and a triple tap set to initiate open a new note in my note-taking app, Drafts.

To open a specific app, you will first need to make a Shortcut that performs the “Open App” action and then select that Shortcut from the available options in the Back Tap settings. To do that, open the Shortcuts app (pre-installed on every iPhone or available from the App Store on older versions of iOS).

Once in Shortcuts, create a new one with the plus icon in the upper right. Name your shortcut if you want (by pressing the three-dots “More” button), and then press “Add Action.” There is an overwhelming number of options if you are unfamiliar with Shortcuts, so just use the search and look for the action called “Open App.” Select this action from the search results and then a block will appear with a blue “Choose” option where you can choose the app you want it to open. Choose your tuner of choice.

Once saved, this Shortcut will be available as an option in the Back Tap settings.

***Note: The Tonal Energy app actually allows you to set up Shortcuts that jump to specific places within the app like the Analysis or Metronome section. You can find this in the TE settings. It will save you a bunch of extra taps.

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        <div class="image-caption"><p class="">Creating a new Shortcut.</p></div>
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            <img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5595df9ce4b0ce9ff9ecd1a8/1608565028662-3UNS3SDR1AHYL5TYGF5T/IMG_5107.PNG" alt="Search for the Open App action." width="1284" height="2778" style="display:block;object-fit: cover;width: 100%;height: 100%;object-position: 50% 50%" loading="lazy">

        </div>
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      <figcaption class="image-caption-wrapper">
        <div class="image-caption"><p class="">Search for the Open App action.</p></div>
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<div class="
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            <img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5595df9ce4b0ce9ff9ecd1a8/1608565049152-C3300UYIFHO6GDN04RY0/IMG_5108.jpg" alt="Tonal Energy allows you to make Shortcuts that launch to specific parts of their app in the settings." width="1284" height="2778" style="display:block;object-fit: cover;width: 100%;height: 100%;object-position: 50% 50%" loading="lazy">

        </div>
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      <figcaption class="image-caption-wrapper">
        <div class="image-caption"><p class="">Tonal Energy allows you to make Shortcuts that launch to specific parts of their app in the settings.</p></div>
      </figcaption>


    </figure>


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New iPad Air and iPhone

A number of teachers have asked me about the new iPad Air that Apple announced last month. It has been updated to look and function a lot more like the iPad Pro line and many are wondering if they need to go Pro or if the Air will satisfy their needs.

iPad Air and iPhone 12 (announced last week) reviews are out, and I have been reading through them this morning. Here are a few that stood out to me:

2020 iPad Air review: Almost Pro | Sixcolors.com

iPad Air Review: Forward-Looking | MacStories.net 

The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro | Daring Fireball

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro Review: The Best iPhones-but Note for the 5G

Based on everything I have learned so far, there has never been a better time to buy Apple’s entry level products. The regular iPhone 12 and iPad Air are spectacular products, and I am guessing that a very large majority of users, even tech nerds, and professionals, are going to feel totally satisfied with them.

I have not tested pro apps like StaffPad, Ferrite, or LumaFusion on the iPad Air because I am still using the 2018 model iPad Pro. My educated guess is that you would not feel limited by the iPad Air, even if you use these apps. You would especially not feel limited using music apps like Tonal Energy and forScore.

When it comes to the iPhone, I am more compelled by the new Mini size and the Pro Max size (which comes with a much better camera system than the regular 12 Pro). Reviews for these are not out yet.

I will probably upgrade my phone, and it will probably be the Pro Max, just because I have a 9-month-old and want to take the best pictures possible of him. That said, I really miss the iPhone 5 days of the tiny phone and might consider a Mini in a future year if I read good things about it later this season.

I am going to keep my iPad Pro around for a bit, but if the Mac were ever to come equipped with a touch screen and Apple Pencil support, I would have to re-evaluate needing the larger-sized iPad Pro and whether or not I need an iPad altogether. I do miss the comfort of the smaller iPad size, particularly for reading, and my gut says that this iPad Air might satisfy my needs down the road.

Conclusion – You probably won’t regret not going Pro on Apple’s fall lineup of products, but the differences are definitely in the details so make sure you read up on them first.