Music Is Not for Insects

Did I get your attention? I have to admit, I am bugged when someone starts their post title with “50 ways to leave your Lover” or “30 must have web plug-ins for middle aged music directors”.  I’m a sucker for the list post title, and no matter what it says, I will click on it or star it as a favorite in Google Reader….

198 PERFORMANCES IN ONE CONVENIENT LOCATION

I love it when technology makes my life as a choral director easier. And ACDA (The American Choral Director’s Association) has finally figured out how to use the internet and mp3 files to make great choral performances available to anyone via their web-site, or, behold, the amazing 2gb flashdrive:

I know, what’s the big deal with a 2 gb flashdrive? Nothing, until you load it with the ENTIRE COLLECTION of 2009 ACDA National Conference recordings (all choirs) in MP3 format. Sweet! And check out the cool logo on the drive. That’s some nice bling!

And these are the finest national and international choirs around; it’s quite an honor to be invited to sing at an ACDA National Conference. All kinds of choir are represented on this flashdrive from women’s choirs to men’s choirs, high school choirs, junior high/middle school honor choirs, madrigal singers, college ensembles, professional and community singers, jazz groups, children’s choirs- they’re all represented.  I’ve listed all the choirs on this 2gb resources at the end of this post.

ACDA JUMPS INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

If you haven’t been to the ACDA website in awhile, you need to check it out. Not only can you download mp3’s of great performances, but check out videos too. This is an incredible resource for choral directors looking for quality literature and performances of this literature. BRAVO to ACDA for jumping into the 21st century. Members also have access to forums, resources, and publications that are invaluable for choral educators. And if all this music and technology is still new to you, check out this fun video on how to access mp3 files and get the most from the new ACDA site:

198 PERFORMANCES- THE LIST OF CHOIRS FROM THE 2009 ACDA NATIONAL CONFERENCE

Alamire, David Skinner, England.

American Boychoir, Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, New Jersey.

Cantoria Alberto Grau, Maria Guinand, Venezula.

Children’s Chorus of Greater Dallas, Cynthia Nott, Texas.

Chor Leoni, Diane Loomer, Canada.

Clear Creek High School Symphonic Chorale, Kyle Pullen and Sean Pullen, Texas.

Cornell University Glee Club, Scott Tucker, New York.

Green Valley High School Madrigal Singers/Chamber Singers, Kimberly Barclay Drusedum, Nevada.

Hamilton High School Chamber Singers, R. John Hamilton, California.

High School Honor Choir, Christine Bass, conductor.

High School Honor Choir, Tim Sharp, conducutor.

Incheon City Chorale, Hak Won Yoon, Korea.

Iowa State Singers, James Rodde, Iowa.

Junior High/Middle School Honor Choir, Judy Bowers, conductor.

Lawrence Children’s Choir, Janeal Krehbiel, Kansas.

Lawrence University Concert Choir, Richard Bjella, Wisconsin.

Luther College Nordic Choir, Craig Arnold, Iowa.

Mirinesse Women’s Choir, Rebecca Rottsolk and Beth Ann Bonnecroy, Washingon-  (I created this web-site!).

Michigan State University Women’s Chamber Ensemble, Sandra Snow, Michigan.

OneVoice, Stephen Widenfofer, Illinois.

Pacific Youth Choir – Coro Pacifica, Mia Hall Savage, Oregon.

Phil Mattson Singers, Phil Mattson, Iowa.

St. Mary’s Varsity Ensemble, Randy Stenson, Tokyo, Japan.

Tascosa High School Women’s Choir, Billy Talley, Texas.

Taylor Festival Choir, Robert Taylor, South Carolina.

Unity Singers, Ruth Palmer, Minnesota.

University of Texas at Austin Chamber Singers, James Morrow, Texas.

The Vocal Majority, Jim Clancy, Texas.

Voces8, Barnaby Smith, England.

Not really a music post but one for you Blackberry users, there is now a Wordpress blogging app for Blackberry smartphones. I’m using it right now to create this post on my Storm. You can even upload pictures from your photo library on your phone or take a picture and it will insert the photo into your post (like the goofy one posted here…) . Seems to work on Edublogs which is a Wordpress MU site. More information about the Wordpress mobile blogging app here: http://crackberry.com/hot-new-wordpress-blogging-application-released-beta-form

If you have been watching “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” you may have seen his Twitter Tracker sketch…

While it’s easy to poke fun at Twitter and the mindless tweets that are floating in the twittersphere, I was able to make some cool music connections with neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin on Twitter last week that were fun and surprising while I was watching “The Music Instinct: Science and Song“…

HOW DO YOU HAVE TIME TO TWEET?
I usually don’t have any time during the school year to Twitter, but last week I downloaded a new Twitter client for my Mac and iPod Touch called Tweetdeck. It’s easy to customize and create columns in Tweetdeck to organize your tweets at a glance:

So you can have a column with all the messages of people you follow; another called “Mentions” that only shows @messages to you; and “Direct Messages” that only you can read (Don’t know how Twitter works? Check out Twitter in Plain English)

“HEY THAT GUY ON T.V. IS TWITTERING ME RIGHT NOW!”

So with my laptop in hand and Tweetdeck up and running, I start Twittering while I’m watching the much anticipated PBS documentary “The Music Instinct: Science and Song” on my new television. I happen to tweet “Watching the music instinct science and sound on pbs remarkable show” with no intention of anyone responding, when about 3 minutes later I receive the following Tweet:

Did you see who the message was from? danlevitin is Daniel J. Levitin, the guy who is co-hosting the show I’m watching right at that very moment! I exclaim to my wife, pointing wildly at the television “Hey! That guy  there on t.v. is twittering me right now!” I was embarrassingly giddy.

LET THE CONNECTIONS BEGIN

So now I can send a message directly to Dr. Levitin as I’m watching this show. Not only that, but I can see others who are interested in this fascinating show (with excellent lesson plan resources for music educators) and interact with them as well. As part of the live Q & A mentioned in the tweet, Twitter allows you to create what’s called a #Hashtag. As myself and others were twittering, Levitin designated the hashtag #musicinstinct for anyone who was Twittering about the show. Any tweets with #musicinstinct in the message can now be searched and filtered in the Twitterverse. (This is a great idea if you end up Twittering about a specific topic with several different people.)

TIME WELL SPENT?

Considering I had access to Dr. Daniel J. Levitin and met some fellow music educator’s with similar interests, I think my time on Twitter was well spent. In fact, I’ll be Twittering about this blog post soon…