waves – Music Ed Tech Talk

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.

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Developing An Inner Ear for Diatonic Intervals

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.

Making Play Along Tracks in GarageBand

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.

Conclusion

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!”

The Ravenscoft 275 is a piano app for iOS that I just learned about. It sounds truly fantastic. I do not do any of my audio power lifting on an iPad so I am not sure the price ($35.99) is worth it.

Apps like this make me dream for a day when the iPad can run a real digital audio workstation with full plugin support. I have dumped a lot of money into Waves and Native Instruments plugins over the years and I like having them at my disposal. iOS technically does support something like audio plugins. It is called inter-app audio apps (a mouthful,I know) and it allows third party audio plugins to be run in GarageBand. The app Audiobus allows you to make third party plugin apps work with third party DAWs (and more). I did a brief video demonstrating the feature a few years back. You can watch it here.

Tag: waves

Making Just Intonation Play Along Tracks for Your Performing Ensemble (Using Tonal Energy and GarageBand)

Tonal Energy Tuner

Developing An Inner Ear for Diatonic Intervals

Making Play Along Tracks in GarageBand

Inter-App Audio Apps and Audio Extensions in GarageBand

Recording an Inter-App Audio App Directly Into A GarageBand Project

Accurate Note Input with MIDI Controllers

Embellishing The Track with Other Instruments

Conclusion

🔗 Ravenscoft 275 for iOS, a Fantastic Piano App