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.
“Intuition, I realized, was the certainty with which a skill instantly worked on the basis of rational experience. Without training, intuition does not develop. People only think that intuition is inborn. If intuition unexpectedly reveals itself, however, it is because unconscious training has been amassed somewhere along the way. ”
— Shinichi Suzuki , Nutured by Love
What is Solfege Bingo
Solfege Bingo is a game for young music students. You can play in class to help develop audiation, pitch recognition, and solfege.
The book comes with a series of bingo cards, each of which with three-note Solfege patterns in each square. “Do re mi, fa sol do, etc…” With the book comes a CD that has many different recorded examples of a singer singing these patterns, with space in between each pattern. Students match the three-note patterns they hear with the ones on their card until they get bingo.
The CD features a second set of recorded examples in which a clarinet plays the patterns so that the students must recognize the patterns by ear, not by syllable.
I first learned about this series as a student teacher, where the choir teacher would use them as warm-ups. She would use them as ear training examples to familiarize her ensembles with solfege. On the recorded examples, the space between each pattern is equal to the length of the patterns themselves, so you can use them as a call and response. The recording models the pattern, the choir sings it back.
Transposing the Tracks for Bands and Adding a Drone
A few years ago, I got the idea to transpose these recordings into band keys using GarageBand. I added a clarinet drone on the key center (using one of the software MIDI instruments) to help students hear the relationships of the pitches not only to each other but also to the tonic.
In band, I start the year by implementing these play-along tracks during warm-ups, starting in concert Bb. I first use the vocalist track and have students sing back. Then they play it back, with brass buzzing on mouthpieces. Then with brass on instruments. (The repetition of this has the side effect of reinforcing fingerings.) Eventually, once I feel like they have begun to internalize the pitches, I play them the clarinet version of the recording. The clarinet drone rings through my entire track, which takes the place of my usual Tonal Energy Tuner drone.
It sounds like this when it’s done…
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<div class="image-caption"><p class="">In GarageBand, I dragged in the audio file I wanted to edit, creating an audio track. Then, I created a second software instrument track, selected clarinet as the instrument, and held out the note Bb on my MIDI keyboard for the drone. Double-clicking an audio region reveals a transpose option on the left. Dragging the slider moves the pitch up of the selected region up or down by a semitone.</p></div>
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Classroom Management (Making Two of Me)
I recall a year where I was struggling with engaging one of my band classes during the warm-ups. I needed a way to create some structure and reinforce expectations for the first 10 minutes of class, while making sure that the winds got the tone and ear development I wanted them to have. It is always easy to assume that students are against you when they are talking amongst themselves, wandering the back of the room, and slouching in their seats. I have come to find that, more often than not, my students aren’t against me, they just flat out didn’t understand my expectations for participation, posture, and technique and that they needed my support (even when it seems my expectations should be obvious).
My solution was to duplicate myself. I needed there to be one of me on the podium guiding the rehearsal sequence, and another of me walking the room to adjust students’ expectations of themselves.
I added the Solfege Bingo play-along tracks to slides in my daily agenda presentation, which is always on display at the front of the room through a projector. I make all of my slides in Apple’s Keynote. I found that I could embed an mp3 of one of my tracks into a slide and set the presentation to automatically skip to the next slide after a certain length of time had passed. So I created a sequence of these Solfege Bingo tracks, and a couple of other typical warm-ups I do, and embedded them all in Keynote slides so that the warm-up would happen automatically.
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<div class="image-caption"><p class="">In the upper right corner, click the Transitions button to reveal transitions. From the Start Transition dropdown menu, you can choose to have a slide start automatically after a certain amount of time, using the Delay timer. You might have to tweak this a little bit to get it right, but the result is that these couple of Keynote slides play in a row, automatically, while I walk around the band room and give feedback to students.</p></div>
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This allows me to work the room. While warm-ups were taking place, I can walk in the percussion section and remind them what instrument they play for warm-ups that day (it’s on the chart in the back of the room 🤷♂️). I can give postural feedback to my trombones. I can high five the tuba player. I can fit someone for a concert shirt. I can do nearly anything. And this is all while reinforcing audiation, tone development, and proper intonation.
I recommend the Solfege Bingo book. It’s effortless to modulate tracks with software. You can use the pitch-flex feature in GarageBand, as I mentioned above. But you can also use apps like Transcribe!, The Amazing Slow Downer, or Anytune.
Adding a clarinet drone is easy. I added a software instrument track in GarageBand, set it to a clarinet, and played the tonic along to the recording. But you could also use Tonal Energy as a GarageBand instrument.
Conclusion
Given the time I am posting this, it is worth mentioning that I totally intend to use these warmup play-along tracks in my online band classes this fall, which will be taking place in Google Meet. I am using the Loopback app to route the audio of Keynote through to the call, and a soundboard app called Farrago to trigger them. I can run the tracks through Google Meet and everyone plays along while on mute. I am hoping to blog about Farrago soon.
I am also planning to blog about another version of this workflow I have tried in especially needy classrooms, where I go as far as to record myself giving instructions to the band in between transitions, and even program the tracks to rehearse concert music for me while the real ‘me’ works the room. I have run up to 40 minutes of a band rehearsal through pre-recorded instructions and play along tracks before!
John Mlynczak returns to the show to discuss Noteflight’s new integration with Sound Check and offers advice to educators about teaching online this fall, and what we can learn from it.
Show Notes:
Could not find the exact article I read on Zoom fatigue but there are plenty. Here’s one.
My wife gave me a Luna Display for my birthday and I have been really impressed with it so far. Luna is a USB-C dongle that plugs into a Mac. Using the companion app on iPad, you can access the entirety of macOS, wirelessly.
I cannot wait to use this device this coming school year. I teach in about five different classrooms which makes transporting my Mac cumbersome. It is heavy, always running out of battery, and is missing some of my iOS music apps like forScore and Tonal Energy. The light form factor of my iPad Pro is perfect for toting around the building in one hand.
There are a few problems with this. I am still faster on macOS for one. And more importantly, there is software on the Mac that I cannot take full advantage of on the iPad. I depend heavily on FileMaker for a tracking student data, assessments, and assignments. I have discussed that workflow on two episodes of The Class Nerd podcast. This episode on tracking student data and this episode, which is a bit miscellaneous. For whatever reason, keyboard input on certain parts of the user interface is slow on FileMaker Go, the iOS version of the app. Even though I can do 90 percent of the things I need to with my database on iOS, the typing speed slows me down.
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<div class="image-caption"><p class="">Luna Display puts macOS right on the screen of my iPad.</p></div>
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It is for reasons like this that I am thrilled to use Luna Display in school next year. The experience of using the app is so smooth that at times I forget I am not using my Mac. Are there issues? Tons. But I stop to wonder every now and then why it is again that macOS can’t work with touch.
I also use a score editing app called Dorico on my Mac. Not as often as FileMaker, but enough that it is sorely missed on iOS. I have not tried to operate this application on the Luna Display but in full screen mode I suspect it isn’t so bad. Once I give it a shot I will report back.
There are a few things that would be helpful to know about my music teaching philosophy before reading this post.
1. I believe that tone production, intonation, balance and blend are central to teaching performing musicians. I prioritize them much higher than fingering technique, rhythmic precision, and even reading comprehension.
2. The way I structure my band classes starts with, is focused on, and always revisits those core ideas.
3. I have accumulated a vast variety of tools and teaching strategies to meet my goals of having superior tone quality, intonation, balance and blend. One of the most essential tools I use is the Tonal Energy Tuning app.
Tonal Energy Tuner
What is Tonal Energy? A hyper charged, power-user app for musicians that has many advanced features, including…
– Tuning drones that can be triggered polyphonically
– Feedback as to how in tune a performer is, which includes a delightful happy face to depict good or questionable intonation
– Drones and feedback can be adjusted to different temperaments
– A metronome (with more features than nearly any alternative on the App Store) that can be used separately or at the same time as the tuning drones
– Analysis tools that depict amplitude and intonation on an easy to read visual graph
– Recording and play back practice tools for musicians to listen back to their performance
– Automated metronome pre-sets that can be sequenced
See the video below. I will first depict the tuner playing a Bb drone, then I will show how it can model a Bb major triad all at once. Then I will turn the tuner to just intonation mode, and you will hear that the third and fifth of the chord are appropriately adjusted so that they are in tune with the Bb root. Next, the video will demonstrate how the metronome can be used in combination with these drones.
Imagine now that a student is playing a scale along with Tonal Energy. By leaving the tuner in just intonation, and centering around the key area of Bb major, every note of the scale that I touch will resonate accurately with the Bb, giving the student an accurate reference to blend into.
Much of music is made up of scales. For a student to learn how to most accurately tune different intervals and chords, I have the drone running in the background during most of my teaching in whatever key area we are working in. I then move my finger to the correct notes of the melody to model and reinforce what good intonation would sound like. See below for an excerpt of a song my beginning students might play.
In the video below, watch as I play this song by dragging my finger along to the melody. This happens with a metronome to reinforce the beat. I like that TE has the option to speak counts out loud. In my experience, this really reinforces a concept of strong beats, weak beats, where in the measure the performer is. Other tuning apps have the counting feature as an option, but the sounds in TE sound more natural and less computerized.
As you can imagine, I am doing a lot of dragging my finger along while students play for me. This gets tedious. I also want my students to be able to hear these pitch relationships when they practice, so I have begun recording them into play along tracks. How do I do this?
Inter-App Audio Apps and Audio Extensions in GarageBand
In the iOS GarageBand app, audio input is usually performed using either software instruments or by recording audio directly into the device with the microphone. But what you might not know is that you can also create a track that is based on the audio output of a third party audio app. If you have ever used a DAW, think of Inter-App Audio Apps and Audio Extensions like plugins. Once launched, you are kicked into a third party interface (much like using a reverb plugin from Waves or a synthesizer from Native Instruments) which then adds to or alters the sound of your overall project. In a more recent GarageBand update, Apple categorizes Inter-App Audio and Audio Extensions under the External option when you create a new track.
Audio Extensions are effects that alter your tracks like reverbs and EQs, while Inter-App Audio captures the audio of a third party app and records it into its own track in GarageBand. You can browse the App-Store for Audio Extensions that work with GarageBand.
Recording an Inter-App Audio App Directly Into A GarageBand Project
Watch in the video below as I set up an Inter-App Audio App track with Tonal Energy. What I am going to do next is press record, and record my justly in tune play along of Lightly Row into my GarageBand project. I will do this using the euphonium sound. The euphonium drone is one of the roundest, darkest, and fullest sounds, while also containing a great range, so it is effective for most instruments to play along to while also modeling a rich, full, resonant sound.
In this video, you can really hear how sloppy the transition from one pitch to the next is when I drag my finger. Notice also that I did not play repeat notes. It is difficult to play the same pitch twice in a row without Tonal Energy changing itself to that key area. One way around these challenges this is to set up a portable MIDI keyboard with Tonal Energy. The one I have settled in is the CME X-Key with Bluetooth.
It has a sleek look, is very small, and has low key travel. It has buttons for pitch shifting and octave jumping. And Tonal Energy adapts to it in just intonation mode! Watch in the video below. As I change which chord I am playing, TE automatically snaps the third and fifth of each triad in tune, relative to the root. For my Lightly Row performance, I can now hold a Bb drone on in one hand, while playing a melody in the other.
We can make it even more fun by embellishing with bass and other instruments. I like to change up the style of these play alongs. Sometimes I don’t even pre-record them, I just improvise along with my students to keep things fresh. Be careful though. These software instruments are NOT justly in tune, so too many of them can defeat the purpose. I try to combat this by having the drone be the loudest thing in the mix. Notice in this recording I have tried not to create any motion in the accompaniment that interferes with the consonant intervals in the melody, so that the listeners ears can remain focused on the drone for their reference.
Well, that’s it! I can trigger these in rehearsal, sectional, and even share them with my students for home practice. Regular practice with tuning drones has really turned around my band’s sound, and gives students the foundations for long term ear skills that will help them to HEAR what is in tune, not just respond to the commands “you’re sharp!” and “you’re flat!”
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has a great track record of reporting Apple scoops, wrote a few months ago that Apple was working on a new approach to app development that would let developers “design a single application that works with a touchscreen or mouse and trackpad depending on whether it’s running on the iPhone and iPad operating system or on Mac hardware.”
Accepting that Apple could change direction at any time and that this project—code-named Marzipan—might not even be announced this year, it’s an intriguing possibility. Obviously iOS has a much more thriving app store than the one on the Mac, so if Apple could make it easier for iOS developers to deploy their apps on the Mac, it might help the platform thrive. Merging the approach to developing apps on Apple’s two platforms also may make sense in light of the report that Apple may be replacing Intel processors with Apple-designed ARM processors in future Macs.
A lot of rumors and speculation, to be sure. But let’s go back to the root premise of this entire story: The Mac could be improved if it was much easier for iOS developers to bring their apps over. Which got me thinking, what iOS apps do I use today that I wish were on my Mac?
I have been giving this a lot of thought since reading Bloomberg's report. I think this is a big deal. In music education, a lot of useful apps are iOS only. I would die to have the utility of some of them on my Mac. Here are a few examples.
Tonal Energy Tuner:
This may be my most used rehearsal tool in the band room. I constantly have a drone and or a metronome running in the background while my students play. The problem is that my Mac is my device that is usually plugged into the mixer at the front of the band room. I would be able to much more efficiently manage TE alongside my Keynote slides and iTunes library if it were piping audio through the same speakers and had support for tactile keyboard shortcuts.
forScore:
forScore is one of the only apps I use exclusively on iPad. The form factor of the tablet is perfectly suited to it. That being said, there would be times where it would be easier to manage files in bulk if there was a version for Mac that I could open up and drag stuff into. This, of course, would assume that a forScore library would sync across devices. This is something it currently cannot do (which is good because it is one of the only things keeping me from buying a second, smaller iPad).
Tempo and Tempo Advance:
There is a shortage of good metronomes on macOS. There are a lot of good ones on iOS. For the same reason that Tonal Energy would rock on a Mac, so would Tempo. And nothing like Tempo Advance exists on Mac.
I would imagine that Marzipan could work the other way around, making Mac apps easier to develop for iOS. If this were the case, I could do an entire second blog post on Mac apps I would love to see on iOS. Logic Pro, are you out there?
I am pumped to be spending the next four days in Nashville to present at the Tennessee Music Educators Association Conference. I am presenting three sessions tomorrow, Friday, April 13th. One of these sessions is brand new and focused entirely on teaching intonation to student musicians with the support of the Tonal Energy tuning app. Scroll down for links to all of my session notes.
Road Trip!!!
My wife and I are making a road trip out of this event. In addition to eating and drinking our way through the city over the next few days, I am excited to be seeing old friends and new. Tomorrow night we will be seeing the Nashville Symphony Orchestra performing a program of Elgar, Mozart, and Bach. I will get to watch a friend of mine from grad school, Joshua Hickman (Principal Timpanist), performing with the ensemble.
I will also get to meet friend, Craig McClellan, in person for the first time. Craig has an awesome education/technology blog called The Class Nerd and has been a recent regular on my podcast. (Listen here and here).
Craig and I may or may not have a very special project we are cooking up for teachers later this year…
Session Notes
Here are the session notes for my three sessions. Check them out!!!
Music Ed Tech Talk 