Music Is Not for Insects

Digital-Blonde - The Place For Musicians

The great thing about conferences these days are live bloggers who report back almost in real time about what they have seen and heard. Their insights and summary are a great way to “virtually attend” a conference you may not be able to be at in person.

I am bummed that I can’t attend NCCE 2008 especially since it’s right here in Seattle. But as a subscriber to Wesley Fryer’s excellent blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity, I was able to read about a great workshop he was recording and blogging about and glean some music resources for this blog post. You should really add Wesley’s blog to your RSS reader; his podcasts are great too.

Below are just three music resources from Karen Fasimpaur’s workshop at NCCE 2008, “Free Content + Open Tools + Massive Collaboration = Learning for All.” You can find more resources from her presentation here: http://www.k12opened.com/wiki/index.php/Learn_About

Musopen - Free Public Domain Classical Music

ccMixter-remixes licensed under Creative Commons

Commons:Media of the Day

The Northwest Council for Computer Education is hosting their 2008 conference in our fair city of Seattle starting today.

Distinguished ed-tech blogger and fellow Seattle Public School teacher *Mark Ahlness and I are hosting a meet-up Thursday night after the NCCE workshops from 8:30 p.m. until ? at The Palomino Bistro in downtown Seattle on 5th ave. between Pike and Union, a short walk from the WA State Convention Center. Join us for some downtime and great conversation. See the link below for a map to the restaurant:

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*Mark will be presenting at NCCE on Thursday and is doing some incredible things with his students and blogging. Check out his blog and his latests posts on using XO laptops with his students.

Today while I was rehearsing with my students, I needed to slow down one of the songs we were singing. There is a great feature in the free version of Quicktime that allows you to slow down the tempo of a song and keep the pitch the same. It’s much cheaper than any tempo adjustment software you can buy and is great for slowing down those tricky sections on any piece of music; guitar hacks like me love this software for breaking down those Clapton licks- Here is what you do: (the screenshots are from my Mac but the process is the same on a PC)

1) Open up a file in Quicktime.

2) Click on Window>Show A/V Controls

3) Slide Playback Speed control to slow down or speed up

If you slow it way down, the sound gets a bit “crunchy” but the pitch remains the same. Loop those tough sections, slow ‘em down, and you’ll get your chops up in no time.

In case you missed my post about the new Google Survey Feature in Google Docs, I decided to create my own survey so you can see how this works.

Please fill-out my simple survey and I will blog the results with some screenshots so you can see how this cool Google Docs tool works.

Another great post from Engadget…is this how we will make music with our kids? Check out the video and follow the link at the end for the entire story.

iBand: like the Velvet Underground, but with iPhones - Engadget

MediaFuturist: My new book “Music2.0″ is now available (so hurry up and order the real thing, or be cheap and download the free pdf!)

Ok- maybe Google docs can’t save your life, but it will surely save you time.
And it’s much more than an online alternative to Word and other word processing programs.
(If you already use Google docs, skip ahead to the NEW SURVEY FEATURE section)

For example: you are in charge of editing the district honor band/choir/jazz program for the upcoming festival.
BEFORE GOOGLE DOCS: send out an email with an attachment of the program to your colleagues for review and revision. Then you wait for a reply email with an attached document from 3 or 4 colleagues. Oh wait- Joe Smith at Central High doesn’t have Word on his computer and can’t read your document. Oh shoot- you can’t remember which revision you sent to Mary Jones at West High. @#$! I can’t find those stupid emails…who did I send the final revision to? I have to search through my sent items- wait I’m at home and can’t log-on to my district email.
AARRRGH!

AFTER GOOGLE DOCS:
You create the draft program for the district festival in Google docs. Then you share the document allowing others to become collaboraters.

You send one email to the people with a link to the document.

Then when your invitees receive the email, they will be directed to the document via a link where they can add, revise and make changes to a document on-line.

No more stacks of emails and confusing attachments.

NEW SURVEY FEATURE-

Now this is really cool! Here is an excerpt from the Official Google Docs Blog:

…we’ve noticed that, in some cases, you want to collect just a tiny bit of information from dozens, scores, or even hundreds of users or more. Some of them are Google Docs users. Some of them are not. Either way, you don’t always want them all mucking around with the whole spreadsheet and you’re tired of telling those new to Google Docs that they don’t need to switch to Gmail just to use Docs (huh? you didn’t know that either?).

Enter the new Survey Tool. In conjunction with the Google Docs speadsheet forms, you can easily create an on-line survey that allows users to input data via a simple form that is then entered directly to a spreadsheet that you control. It is so easy to generate a simple form using fill-in-the blank or check box responses, or multiple choice according to your need. Immediate applications could include:

*Survey parents about your program with multiple choice items.

*Find out what pieces are your students favorites with a simple survey.

*Create a list of possible repertoire for an upcoming festival; create a survey; email your colleagues for responses; compile and publish the results.

More advanced applications could include:

*After uploading honor band or choir applicant mp3’s to an online hosting service like imeem, create a survey form with responses such as mp301, mp302, mp303 etc. to anonymously represent each applicant; email the form to your adjudicators who listen to the mp3’s and then score each applicant via the on-line survey. Each response entered on-line via the survey form is given a time stamp that shows up in your spreadsheet and each respondent can see what the other respondent, in this case adjudicator, has entered.

This is important for adjudicators who want to see if their score is in line with the other scores. Think about it: no more all day Saturday honor band/choir cd listening sessions- each judge could listen to and score applicants on-line from home.

Check out the links below for some screen-shots of the new survey tool and some other in-depth uses of this tool. How will you use this Web 2.0 goodness in your program. Comment below.

Google Docs Survey Tool

Google Spreadsheet Forms

Stop sharing spreadsheets, start collecting information

Discovered this post over at engadget:

Guitar Hero Caribiner hands on

I am in the midst of a much needed mid-winter break with my family, enjoying some time with old friends and catching up on some leisure reading (”Leisure? What does that mean?”) and being blown away by a piece of juvenile fiction that really touched my heart.

A parent at my school recommended a book to me that she and her family read over Winter break. “You have to read this book!” I gave a polite nod and filed it in the back of my mind and forgot to follow up with the school librarian. Big mistake. For the next three weeks, this persistent parent kept asking me, “Have you read the book? What did you think?” I kept coming up with excuses week after week until finally our school librarian walked into my room and gave me the book with an exasperated look on his face. This parent had been dogging him too.

I finally read the book last night on the plane when I had my first free moment. In spite of this book being a piece of fiction aimed at pre-teen readers, I was struck by the honest and accurate portrayal of the life of a music edcator.

The main character is a 6th grade boy named Hart; a very poplular and well meaning boy whose “coolness” and charm get him out of most jams when he misbehaves. But a misfired rubber band at the neck of Mr. Meinert, the chorus teacher, lands Hart into an unexpected situation. The usually forgiving Mr. Meinert has just been given notice that funding for his position has been cut and he will no longer have a job after the first of the year. This mid-year lay off, and the pressure to have a winter concert ready with a group of ungrateful 6th graders singers pushes Mr. Meinert over the edge.

Unaware of the music teacher’s budget cut depression, Hart is chosen to replace Mr. Meinert who has declared that the students can produce the winter concert on their own.

What follows is a cast of characters that you will identify with; from the dejected middle school chorus teacher who has aspirations to become the high school chorus director; to the spouse encouraging her husband to quit right now because he is deserving of a better school and is much too talented to teach in this ungrateful town; and the administrator whose hands are tied as he loses another great teacher from his school due to budget cuts.

So, along with that parent that wouldn’t leave me alone, I say “You must read this book!” It will take you less than two hours (only 176 pages) and as you watch the lives of Hart and Mr. Meinert change in unexpected ways, I think you will be touched by the not too sentimental story of many music educators that you know. The Last Holiday Concert by Andrew Clements.