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Technology: DAW Bundles
Dr. John Kuzmich, Jr. | October 18, 2014Hardware & software kits for school music educators
The term “Digital Audio Workstation” (DAW) refers to an electronic setup for recording, editing, and producing audio files. You might think of it as a complete recording studio connected to a computer or tablet. These workstations often bundle hardware with software that may have a published curriculum including lesson plans designed to work right out of the box. Here’s what a basic DAW might include:- DAW Software (Magix Music Maker, Studio One, Pro Tools, Logic, and so on)
- Notation Software (such as Notion, Sibelius, Finale, or Encore)
- Audio Interface (AudioBox USB, M-Box, MicU Solo, Scarlett) Read More...
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Technology: Rehearsal Software II
Marc Jacoby | September 17, 2014Practice software roundup #2: The Jazz Edition
In my last article, we looked at three software packages used for performance training. These practice aids have advanced assessment options that “listen” to the performer and evaluate for correct pitch and rhythm. While each has its strengths and weaknesses, they all could find a place in the student’s toolkit of practice aids.SmartMusic, the most full-featured of the three, provides an ever-growing library of titles of both solo and ensemble music as well as a cloud-based grade book solution for the teacher. The cost, while not outrageous, is a subscription model that the student would need to pay every year in order to gain access to the SmartMusic library.
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Technology: Ear Training
Dr. John Kuzmich, Jr. | August 14, 2014Six ear training programs for classroom and at-home use
"Garbage in, garbage out” is a guiding mantra for building computers and apps. It’s also true for our students’ brains. We are in the business of empowering young minds with healthy, useful information. Thanks to significant new developments, music educators can effectively combine music theory and aural training to empower students with ownership of their music creating experiences.Ear training can cover a broad spectrum of useful music tools. These include pitch recognition, intonation, rhythmic drills, harmonic understanding of how music fits together vertically, better understanding of triads, complex chords, intervals, scale recognition, and how chord progressions are linked together.
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Technology: Rehearsal Software
Marc Jacoby | July 21, 2014Practice Software Roundup #1
"Practice makes perfect!" That’s what my fourth-grade band director said as I struggled to play a BH major scale on my trombone. Practicing was boring – and quite frankly, the only thing I wanted to do was play the glissando at the end of the song. Now that was fun! But practice I did. In between weekly lessons, I diligently went through the scales, exercises, and songs from the Rubank Method book each day, never really sure if I was doing anything correctly because I was too wrapped up in the process of playing; holding the horn, moving the slide, breathing, embouchure, and so on. This was way too much for a fourth grader to be thinking about, let alone evaluating what was coming out at the end of the bell.
Wouldn’t it have been great if there were somebody or something that could listen to me practice and at least tell me if what I was playing was correct? Well, today, with the ever-increasing power of computers, the patient “listener” can sit beside your students and let them know if they’ve played correctly – to a point. Let’s look at three software applications that purport to do just that.
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Technology: Drill Prep Apps
Dr. John Kuzmich, Jr. | June 18, 2014The secrets to OSU’s paperless marching band rehearsals, increased efficiency, and much more
Have you ever dreamt of a paperless marching band rehearsal, perhaps during a windy day that had printouts flying across the field? Or thought about a way to decrease the time and expense of printing and coordinating sheets for every step and set of a drill design for each student? Fortunately, technology can now make these dreams a reality. New apps for iPads and Androids make paperless instruction easy, so you can funnel all of your creative energy directly into the marching band show.
The marching band at The Ohio State University took the world by storm when their extraordinary marching routines of Michael Jackson’s moonwalk and T-Rex walking across the field were featured on national TV news spotlights. Their innovative introduction of iPads on the rehearsal field paid off. The band’s Oct. 26 performance of “Hollywood Blockbusters,” including Jurassic Park, has received more than 15 million views on YouTube:
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Technology: Hearing Loss
Marc Jacoby | May 19, 2014Protect Your Ears Without Losing the Sound
About a year ago, my family had had it with me always asking them to repeat themselves whenever we were talking together. While I thought it funny to learn how to say “What?” in multiple languages, I brushed off their complaints until a recent visit with my doctor; without prompting, she asked if I had trouble hearing her questions. That’s when I decided to act.
Now, I’m a drummer by training and grew up playing in marching band and drum and bugle corps, not to mention regular jamming in garage bands with my friends and going out to clubs and concerts. Then followed years of teaching drum corps where we would rehearse in indoor spaces such as high school gyms or auditoriums, especially in the winter months.
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Report: Online Lesson Opportunities
Eliahu Sussman | April 21, 2014From video curricula to videoconferencing, technology expands the options for private instruction
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Having a hard time finding good private lesson teachers in your area? While that used to be a major obstacle for school band and orchestra directors, particularly those in more remote locations, innovation in what is now commonplace technology has dramatically shifted the private lesson landscape. Remote lessons and interactive learning through videoconferencing, video instruction, and related online offerings have created an incredible opportunity for sharing information, no matter where students and teachers may be located. -
Technology: Music Ed Apps
John Kuzmich, Jr. | April 17, 2014The Best Music Apps for Educators
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These are exciting times for music educators. Desktop computers and laptop notebooks have slowly changed our modes of creating, teaching, and assessing music. But tablets and smartphones have ramped up the music experience faster and farther than we could have imagined. The iPad and table computers are destined to change the way we teach and interact with students and technology. Today’s touchscreen sensitivity, which eliminates the need for a mouse, has also changed the way we work. This is important because it is gives us a more tactile surface which directly influences how we interface with data and music. -
Technology: YouTube
Dr. Jay Dorfman | March 17, 2014Using YouTube in the Music Classroom
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YouTube is among the most popular and ubiquitous sites on the Internet. According to the site’s own statistics, more than one billion unique visitors use YouTube each month, and it reaches more adults than any single cable network. Almost half of the traffic on YouTube can be accounted for through mobile devices such as phones and tablets. It is a powerful tool for storing video, communicating, marketing and promoting music, and tracking social trends in media. YouTube use in the classroom has recently been shown to positively influence several types of educational engagement. -
Technology: Power-User Synthesis
John Kuzmich, Jr. and C.J. Garcia | February 11, 2014From Scanning to Notation to Customized Creativity & Beyond
Ever wish that technology could change the way you prepare, teach, and assess your students? Or maybe help create customized instruction to better define how well all of your students are learning and progressing? Without a user-friendly assessment environment to enable this, teachers rarely have the time to be creative about exploring new solutions. But we are here to help!Innovative new products now go beyond individual music software applications, incorporating power-user applications for targeted instruction. The key to creating music projects with the power-user concept is in converting files that can be used to transfer data across different software apps for enhanced instructional opportunities.
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Technology: Digital Audio Workstations
Dr. Marc Jacoby | January 21, 2014Web-based apps for the music classroom
In a previous edition of SBO, Dr. Jay Dorfman wrote about the growth of cloud-based computing and its impact on education. This model of computing leverages access to networks (both local and internet) for most, if not all, activities that a user may do on his or her computer. Very little is actually stored on the user’s computer. Instead, applications and documents are accessed from remote servers. The netbooks (i.e. Google Chrome) are a good example of this new trend. It’s almost as if we’ve come full circle from the early 1970s when mainframe computers handled tasks sent from “terminals,” primitive keyboard and printer devices. Of course, today we have media-rich experiences with images, audio, and video at our beck and call, which can be invaluable resources for the music classroom.
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Technology: Videoconferencing
John Kuzmich, Jr. | December 16, 2013Videoconferencing and Remote Music Instruction
The widespread use of computers and the Internet today has made distance learning so much easier and faster that now, in addition to virtual schools and universities, even brick-and-mortar schools are delivering more and more curricula online. Interaction with the instructor and other students can now take place via email and class message boards, as well as synchronous “live” interactive instruction, also known as videoconferencing. And the best part is that one doesn’t need to purchase expensive proprietary equipment in order to access these tools. Believe it or not, there are almost 30,000 video conferencing systems in U.S. schools, service centers, district offices, and departments of education. Many are used every day to connect students and teachers around the world.Videoconferencing allows two (point-to-point) or more locations (multipoint) to communicate by simultaneous, interactive video and audio transmissions. An increasing number of schools across the country teach music technology classes via online classes locally and long-distance simultaneously.
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