Automating My Rehearsal Tech Setup

One of my favorite sources for tech news, MacStories.net, held an automation contest last April called Automation April. I thought it would be fun to submit an automation I have been working on that sets up all of my necessary tech at the beginning of band class, simply by plugging my computer in. Now that the competition is over, I thought I would write about the automation here.

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The first minutes of a middle school band rehearsal define chaos. 40-70 students enter, setup in a confined space, ask questions all at once, all while I have my own equipment and procedural responsibilities. Any part of this that can be automated goes a long way towards saving time and mental bandwidth.

My “Rehearsal Focus Automation” Shortcut automates my classroom setup on Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch in one (or zero) keystrokes.

Click here to download the Shortcut.

This automation is made using the Shortcuts app on Apple platforms. It strings together multiple system and app actions that I do every class period into one workflow.

Note: This Shortcut is intented for reference and will not automatically work on your devices without the same hardware and software.

What Happens on Mac

Triggering the Shortcut

• I run this Shortcut on Mac. After it is run, my device goes into a Focus Mode called "Rehearsal." Rehearsal Focus Mode is a custom Do Not Disturb variant that can be set up in the Settings app under Focus. My Rehearsal Focus Mode allows only my wife and music team to reach me, as well as time sensitive notifications like alarms.
• When one device goes into a Focus Mode, all devices linked to that same Apple ID also go into the same Focus Mode. In the Shortcuts app, under the Automation tab, I have an automation set up that will run this shortcut when a device kicks into Rehearsal Focus Mode. This means that running the shortcut on one device effectively runs it on all of them simultaneously.

After that

• Once run, an action from the time tracking app Timery starts logging a timer I use to track teaching hours.
• Next the shortcut looks to see which device it is being run from to determine which set of actions should take place.
• Closes apps with sensitive data so students don’t see them on screen.
• Opens Farrago (which includes warmup play-alongs).
• Sets the computer output to my Scarlet Solo audio interface (which outputs to the speakers in the room) and the volume of my computer to 50%. This is done using the SoundSource app.
• Opens Deckset (My lesson plan is in a Markdown file called Daily Agenda that can be both read in Obsidian on iPad and presented as a slide deck on Mac).
• Better Touch Tool action: initiates the Deckset keyboard shortcut to run the Daily Agenda file in presentation mode so that my students can see what we are doing that day.

See it in action below...

What Happens on iPhone and Apple Watch

• Opens Tonal Energy Tuner/Metronome app, to play through the speakers.
• Shuffles a Music playlist of concert band repertoire through the speakers while students enter.
• Sets my watch face to a Siri Watch Face which shows me a linear card-view of the start/end times of my classes (which are in my calendar) as well as alarms to help me end class on time. The digital watch face helps me accurately interpret awkward end times like 10:13am at a glance.

In Rehearsal Focus, my iPhone homescreen shows me education apps, an OmniFocus Perspective widget including school-related tasks, and a music widget to see the current playing track.

What Happens on iPad

• Opens forScore on the left side of my screen for sheet music. This action opens a specific playlist of scores I need for class.
• Opens a seating chart document in GoodNotes on the right side of the screen. I created this template in OmniGraffle and draw on it with Apple Pencil to take notes about students. I depend on this informally collected data when entering weekly grades.
• Opens my Daily Note in Slide Over using the Obsidian app. Obsidian allows me to create a template for my Daily Note that I customized to show the school schedule, an embedded Daily Agenda note (which is the same data that feeds the Deckset presentation), and an area for taking notes and processing tasks.

See it in action below. One of the benefits of writing my daily agenda in plain text is that the same data can be viewed as a beautifully formatted note in Obsidian on the iPad, while looking like a presentation on the Mac using Deckset.

Triggering the Shortcut

I can trigger this Shortcut in the menu bar, by a keystroke, a button in my Obsidian Daily Note (using the Buttons and Obsidian Shortcuts Launcher community plugins).

My current preference is to use Keyboard Maestro, another great automation tool for the Mac. I have created a macro that runs the Shortcut when it connects to my audio interface, something I already do when plugging into the USB C dock at the front of the room.

This Shortcut perfectly balances the amount of time I have spent building it with the amount of time it saves, but more importantly, the amount of mental overhead that it preserves during a stressful part of my day.

Keyboard Maestro macros are created with a similar user interface as Shortcuts, but there are a lot more available actions, and some of them are more are deeply tied into the operating system. In a recent update, Keyboard Maestro macros can run as steps inside Shortcuts, and Shortcuts can also be actions inside of Keyboard Maestro macros.

PlayScore, with Anthony Wilkes

Anthony Wilkes joins the show to talk about PlayScore 2, a sheet music scanning app. Anthony is the CEO of PlayScore, and in the conversation we talked all about what it can do, the challenges of developing music scanning software, and practical uses for teachers and students.

Patreon supporters receive bonus conversation about machine learning, the future of score scanning software, and automation.

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Support Music Ed Tech Talk

Become a Patron!

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Thanks to my sponsors this month, Scale Exercise Play Alongs.

Show Notes:

• PlayScore 2
• ReadScoreLib
• Dorico 2.2
• An interview with PlayScore creator Anthony Wilkes | Dorico Blog
• Scanner Pro
• PDF Expert
• Documents by Readdle
• Spark Mail
• forScore
• Sheet Music Scanner
• Michael Good, inventor of MusicXML | Scoring Notes podcast interview
• Music XML
• Apple Shortcuts User Guide
• OmniGroup JavaScript Automation
• My Audio Hijack blog post - Audio Hijack 4, Shortcuts, Podcasting Automation
• What's New in Audio Hijack 4

App of the Week:
Robby - Audio Hijack 4
Anthony - Dorico

Music of the Week:
Robby - Listen to This - Audio Guide Anthony - On BBC's first ever live broadcast of Beatrice Harrison, featuring cellist Clare Deniz

Tech Tip of the Week:
Robby - Universal Control
Anthony - iPad multitasking

Where to Find Us:
Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book
Anthony - Twitter | Website

Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!

Music Ed Tech Talk #52 - Dorico Updates! with Daniel Spreadbury

Daniel returns to the show to discuss the release of Dorico 4 for desktop, Dorico 2 for iPad, Steinberg licensing, and other updates!

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Subscribe to the Podcast in... Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Support Music Ed Tech Talk

Become a Patron!

Buy me a coffee

Show Notes:

• Dorico 4
• Dorico 2 for iPad
• Dorico YouTube Channel
• Introducing Steinberg Licensing
• Scoring Notes Review of Dorico 4
• Dorico 4 | Music Ed Tech Talk
• Previous Appearances on this show from Daniel - Dorico | Dorico for iPad
• Club MacStories

Album of the Week:
Robby - Dilla Time Book | Slum Village - Fan-Tas-Tic Vol. 1 | Vol. 2 | Jay Dilla Essentials | J Dilla Influences | Inspired by J Dilla
Daniel - Horizon Forbidden West Soundtrack Volume 1

App of the Week:
Robby - Audible
Daniel - Raycast

Tech Tip of the Week:
Robby - Whispersync
Daniel - Pi-hole

Where to Find Us:
Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book
Daniel - Twitter | Website

Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!

Always Start from the Beginning: Developing Tone Quality, Intonation, Concert Repertoire, and Classroom Management through Unison Playing in Performing Ensembles

This post first appeared on the NAfME Blog on December 7, 2021. You can read it there by clicking here.

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Always Start from the Beginning

Every year I teach band, I start from the beginning. I find that if I rebuild the ensemble, focusing on fundamentals, it is impossible to fail.

This is especially true after many programs have lost over a year of in-person instruction. Even if students' skills have been sustained or improved, they are likely returning to the classroom with less handle on things that they can only learn in a group: intonation, balance, blend, and even basic rehearsal expectations.

They will have to relearn how to listen outside their comfortable bubble of one.

Caption: A mixer at the front of the room allows me to pump my voice, computer, and phone through a stereo and mix them to taste.

I want to describe some of the teaching strategies that have been most helpful this fall (and long since before COVID) while also sharing some technological tips I have taken from virtual learning into this year. I will explain how I am implementing them in my beginning band class to ensure that they develop great ears, strong ensemble sound, musicianship, and all while preparing concert music.

Developing the Ear

All excellent music-making starts with the ear. In Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy, Daniel Kohut claims that students need a “superior concept” of the sound they wish to make. I believe this is much easier to achieve while playing in unison. Young musicians often learn this way by nature of beginning method books focusing on familiar, unison melodies, which elementary school teachers teach in instrument-specific sectionals. But when students first join a large ensemble, they can lose their independent sense of tone, intonation, and balance if too many separate voices start happening in their concert literature too soon.

Caption: The Tonal Energy Tuner app is only a few dollars, and it play justly in-tune polyphonic drones and a metronome simultaneously.

My Concert Band class has 50 6th and 7th-grade students. Many of these students are first-year players. This year, most of them had only experienced a half year of in-person band before walking into my classroom.

I decided to keep them playing in unison for as long as I could keep them interested. I wanted to emphasize tone quality, intonation, balance, and bend, while somehow managing the classroom and preparing them for a December concert. And I wanted to keep things fun. Was it possible to do all of this? Yes!

Caption: Dorico’s popovers, like this one for dynamics, allow you to enter notation naturally and quickly. Adding solfege with the Lyrics popover was equally easy.

Transforming Concert Literature into Unison Melodies

I started by ensuring that I centered instruction around accessible melodic material from the method book rather than technical exercises and drills. Additionally, I took the pieces I was planning for our winter concert and wrote out every person's part for every instrument using Dorico. Dorico’s keyboard shortcuts and flow-based composing make it easy to design supplemental resources as quickly as you can think.

Caption: Last school year, my team purchased some equipment to support hybrid teaching. This year, we have repurposed that gear to integrate audio technology into traditional rehearsals seamlessly.

The guides are organized by rehearsal marking. For example, Part 1 has everyone in the band playing the bass line of measures 1-8. By playing each part of the music sequentially, students get more practice sight-reading while learning who in the band plays which notes. By playing in unison, they leverage their strength in numbers to develop firmer and more stable tone quality while learning to hear what an ensemble blend should sound like for the first time.

Caption: This is what an individual part looks like in Dorico once completed. Instead of isolating sections of the band during rehearsal, I can have everyone playing at all times. For example, if I want to work with the tuba part in measure one, I can tell the entire band to play “Part 1. Lower Voice” and keep everyone engaged.

I write solfege into these practice guides and alternate between the students singing and playing. In a year without any COVID concerns, I would also encourage the brass to buzz these melodies on mouthpieces to develop their inner ear and flexibility.

Play-Along Resources Help Model Tone, Intonation, and Tempo

There is always a drone prominently playing through our sound system using the Tonal Energy Tuner app. The polyphonic drones can model justly in-tune intervals. Students can subtly adjust their pitch by making the “beats” that result between two out-of-tune pitches slow down and eventually dissolve.

Caption: One of the easiest and most engaging ways to encourage metronome practice is to play along to the Drummer Tracks in GarageBand. There are numerous styles, beats, and editing tools at your disposal. Beats are way more fun to play with and provide more musical feeling than a metronome.

I have created play-along tracks that combine trap beats with tuning drones. I like to pump them through the speakers during warm-ups and throughout rehearsal. You can make these too using the free GarageBand app on iOS.

Sometimes, I will have Tonal Energy coming through my phone and the beats coming through my Mac. This allows me to mix the drone and the metronome independently, as they are plugged into two separate channels of my mixer.

Speaking Calmly, Being Everywhere

A Shure wireless microphone goes into a third channel of the mixer, allowing me to speak in a comfortable room voice and be heard over the sound of loud drones, beats, and a full band of 50-65 students playing.

Caption: This Shure wireless headset microphone has been a game-changer this year. I don’t ever have to raise my voice to be understood. I can speak comfortably and be heard over the sound of a pumping drone and 60 students playing.

This technique works wonders for classroom management. Flowing from one part of our daily agenda to the next is nearly seamless because of how easy it is to keep everyone playing most of the rehearsal. With these persistent play-alongs underlying most of the rehearsal, my role could be described less like a traditional director and more like a spin instructor.

This might sound ridiculous at first, but it is true. A spin instructor curates music, keeps the beat moving you forward and paces instruction, all while making you sweat. This is precisely how I want my role to feel in the band room. I like to think of myself as a “coach” who directs students towards the goal while they work for it, rather than a “director” who beats the music into them.

Caption: My colleague, Ben Denne, teaches from our “command station” at the front of the room.

The wireless mic allows me to step off the podium and be heard from anywhere in the room. While the band is playing, I can be high-fiving students, sizing a student for concert attire, helping percussionists find their place, encouraging good trombone posture, or any other need. I can be everywhere and still keep the flow of rehearsal moving even when I’m off the podium.

Caption: Farrago is a useful app for queuing play-along material in a soundboard-style audio launcher. I keep my scale tracks organized and color-coded by key and rhythmic patterns to find them more easily.

Taking the Slow Road Gets Maximum Results

Once it is time to hand out concert music, I'm delighted to hear students say things like, "wait, we know this!." By this point, they can sing every part, play every part, and can now split into three or four unique voices because they are more confident in their melody from having practiced it with the strength of 60 musicians in unison.

Caption: AnyTune is another excellent app that can change the speed and pitch of a play-along track independently.

The results are clear. I have never had a more engaging, fun, and tightly managed beginning band experience. Students are developing fundamentals at a pace consistent, if not better, than a typical year, and we are stronger for it.

Profiles in Teaching with Technology Podcast | S3 E20: Robby Burns

I am pleased to be a guest on the MusicFirst podcast, Profiles in Teaching with Technology, this week.

I had a great conversation with Dr. Jim Frankle. We talked about my journey into music ed, catching an interest in technology, tips for teachers who are apprehensive about tech, what my school’s music program looks like (normally and during the past year). and my favorite uses for technology in the classroom.

Check it out below and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

MusicFirst - Profiles in Teaching with Technology · MusicFirst: Profiles in Teaching with Technology - S3 E20 - Robby Burns

➡️ Apps to Help with Time Management and Planning (NAfME Blog)

This blog post originally appeared on the blog for the National Association for Music Educators (nafme.org) on April 6, 2021.

In "Digital Organization Tools for Music Educators," I detailed apps that can help you plan large goals, turn them into actionable projects, and reflect on your progress.

Next, I'd like to talk about apps to help you manage your time and save your ideas digitally.

Put Only Hard Commitments in Your Calendar

Managing your time is a key part of being a music educator. Sometimes it feels like we have more responsibilities than there is actually time in the day to complete.

In "Digital Organization Tools for Music Educators," I recommend apps to help you wrangle your to-do list. Now I would like to recommend some apps and tips for managing the events on your calendar.

If your calendar needs are simple, I recommend you go no further than Google. It runs entirely in a web browser but can also be used in combination with your calendar app of choice. My music team uses a Google Calendar to publish all of our classes, sectionals, concerts, and events. This allows us to edit this data right from our calendar apps on our phones and computers, while also publishing them to a website for parents to view.

Google Calendar works perfectly fine for most needs. It is available to anyone for free on the web and has a functional mobile app on most smartphone platforms.

Microsoft Outlook and the Apple Calendars, despite being created by big tech companies, are actually capable of showing you a calendar from any service (Google included). My personal calendars are in iCloud, and our school uses Exchange. I can log into my iCloud, Google, and Exchange calendars all from within the same app to see everything I am committed to.

Apple Calendar and Microsoft Outlook are two of the most widely used calendar apps on desktop and mobile operating systems. Either of them can handle calendars from Google, iCloud, or Exchange accounts and show them all alongside one another.

Tip!—Avoid putting tasks in your calendar. Tasks have due dates, but they rarely need to be worked on at a specific time. I find that putting tasks in my calendar adds lots of noise and I eventually just end up ignoring all of it. If you want to stay sane, put only time-based appointments on your calendar. You can make an appointment with yourself to tackle a big task, but try to avoid putting things like "print concert programs" and "design seating chart" alongside events with concrete start and end times.

If you want more power out of your calendars, I recommend you check out Fantastical. (Currently iOS and Mac only. Android users can check out SolCalendar). Here are my favorite features:

Natural language input is not only fast, but you can set a keyboard shortcut on your computer to invoke a mini-calendar for quickly adding events.

• Natural language input: Typing "Choir Rehearsal tomorrow at 7 pm @2032 Beaverton Road /Work" will add an event called Choir Rehearsal to your calendar at the designated time and location. The "/Work" will put on the "Work" calendar.
• Calendar Sets: I subscribe to my school and school district's master calendar to better plan after-school rehearsals, concerts, and space use. I subscribe to these calendars in Fantastical, but I have them toggled off by default. I created a Calendar Set called "All" that turns on the chaos and shows me every single calendar I have at once. Many things overlap, but it enables me to be informed as I plan without needing to visit my district's website.
• Conference Call Detection: Fantastical also has built-in Zoom and Google Meet integration. If it detects a meeting URL in the calendar event, it adds a one-touch button to the event which will launch you right into the meeting. This event was shared with me and has a Zoom call URL associated with it. Fantastical automatically added the Zoom icon so that I can click on it to immediately enter the call. Fantastical integrates with all of these services.

A handful of Fantastical's features are free, and some of the more advanced features are paid.

Other great calendar apps:

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Quickly Clip Ideas from Everywhere

There is much to say about note apps. The one feature I see least utilized by busy teachers is the clipper. A clipper is a tool that runs in the Share Sheet of your phone or as a web extension. Clippers are perfect for "saving it for later." A good one can handle mixed media including photos, websites, emails, text notes, files, and more. Here are my favorite apps that have easy ways to capture data for later:

• Evernote: Known for being cross-platform and having a free tier. Its web extension can grab almost anything from the web and clip it to your notebook in a neatly formatted article view that is text searchable. The Evernote web clipper can be installed as an extension or from the share-sheet on mobile devices. You can choose how it will save the content, and even categorize it with tags and a memo before clipping.

• Microsoft OneNote: Similar features to Evernote. It's free if your district has Office 365. Plays nice with the rest of the Office Suite.

• Apple Notes: Apple Notes has caught up with most of the major features of competing note apps. From almost anywhere on an iOS or Mac device, press the Share button to save something to Apple Notes. Almost any type of media can be clipped.
• Drafts: Drafts is text-only, but I prefer it for my note-taking because I can capture quickly and then easily send the text out to other apps once I have decided where it belongs.

• Google Keep: Leverages all smart AI features and integration with Google Services that you would expect. Google Keep is simple, but it provides plenty of features. Notes can be turned into reminders, Google Docs, or shared with others.

• Instapaper: Primarily for saving web content like news articles. It strips out the ads, buttons, and other chrome, so you get an experience less like reading a website and more like reading a newspaper.

Of these apps, Evernote is most able to handle whatever kind of data you throw at it. Because it's available on the web, it's easy to share your data with others and even get your data out and into another app, if you choose to.

Before and after a website has been parsed by Instapaper's clipper.

Tip!—In the same way I try to avoid putting tasks on my calendar, I also try to avoid clipping things I want to check out later to my to-do list. It clutters things up. I put only actionable tasks on my task list. If it doesn't have a verb ("email Jacklyn choir rosters for 2021–22," "tune the bass drum," "draft grant proposal"), save it to a note instead.

Presentations I Am Giving At TMEA 2021 Next Week

Are you going to be at the Texas Music Educators Association conference next week? If so, I hope to see you there! I am presenting a session and appearing on a panel.

Develop Performance Skills Remotely with Cloud Software - Saturday, February 13, 2021 at 3 pm

Session description: If you are teaching in person, remotely, or hybrid, learn about great software you can use to reinforce the growth of perfor- mance skills among your students! Explore how students can use Noteflight Learn, Soundtrap, Flipgrid, and Google Docs to demonstrate technical skills, compose music, respond to music, multitrack-record themselves playing ensemble literature, col- laborate in chamber ensembles synchronously, and more.

Music Technology Tips You Can Use Today - Wednesday, February 10, 2021 at 7 pm

My book, Digital Organization Tips for Music Teachers is part of the Prestissimo Series by Oxford University Press. Richard McCready, series editor, will be hosting a session featuring all of the authors in the series and the editors at OUP responsible for making it happen.

Each author will talk for a few minutes about their book and give one tip that a teacher could take immediately into the classroom the following day. I will be talking about organizing digital score libraries and managing your email inbox.

Session description: The Prestissimo “Essential Music Technology” series, published by Oxford University Press, is a collection of handy books containing tips and advice on how to incorporate technology into your music teaching situation easily. In this session, authors who have written books in the series will share their best tips from the books with you. This round-table style discussion will be led by series editor Richard McCready (TIME Mike Kovins Teacher of the Year 2013). There will also be a prize drawing at the session for free copies of some of the Prestissimo series books.

List of Panelists: Robby Burns is a band director and general music teacher at Ellicott Mills Middle School in Maryland, where he is also an active performing percussionist and private instructor. He is the author of “Digital Organization Tips for Music Teachers” and hosts the blog and podcast Music Ed Tech Talk.

Michelle Chen is Senior Editor of Music Education and Performance at Oxford University Press. She joined OUP in 2020 and previously held positions at Palgrave Macmillan and Bloomsbury Publishing.

Dr. Rick Dammers is the Dean of the College of Performing Arts and Professor of Music Education at Rowan University. He is the co-author of the book “Practical Music Education Technology”, is the author of the technology chapter in the “Oxford Handbook of Preservice Music Teacher Education in the United States” and is the recipient of the 2010 TI:ME Mike Kovins Teacher of the Year Award.

Catherine Dwinal is the educational technology specialist working for QuaverEd and TI:ME’s 2014 Mike Kovins Teacher of the Year. Catherine is the author of “Interactive Visual Ideas for Musical Classroom Activities” and has the pleasure of working with thousands of educators from all over the country helping them to integrate technology into the classroom.

Norm Hirschy is Executive Editor for Books on Music at Oxford University Press. Prior to joining OUP in 2004, he studied at The College of Wooster and at The Ohio State University.

Ronald E. Kearns is a retired instrumental music teacher. He is the author of “Recording Tips for Music Educators”, as well as Quick Reference for Band Directors” and “Quick Reference for Band Directors Who Teach Orchestra” (NAfME/RLE Publishing).

Marjorie LoPresti is the US Digital Content Manager for MusicFirst, Adjunct Professor of Music Education Technology at Rutgers University, and co-author of “Practical Music Education Technology”. She was the recipient of the 2016 TI:ME Mike Kovins Teacher of the Year Award.

Peter Perry is the author of “Technology Tips for Ensemble Teachers.” He received the Brent Cannon Music Education Alumni Achievement Award from Kappa Kappa Psi, recognizing outstanding contributions to secondary music education; the Presidential Scholar Teacher Award; and a Japan Fulbright fellowship. He is in his 25th year as Instrumental Music Director at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Maryland and is on the music education faculty of the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.

🔗 Google Meet now works with Chromecast on your TV

Google Meet now works with Chromecast on your TV. - 9to5Google:

Meet on Chromecast works exclusively through the Chrome browser on your desktop or laptop computer. That’s because, when this is running, Google still uses the camera, microphone, and audio from your machine to power the experience. The meeting itself is just cast off to your TV or other display so you can view it on a larger display. Google is continuing to be quite aggressive with updates to Google Meet.

While I am happy with my tech setup in my studio, I know there will be times when I need a change of scenery. I fully plan to teach some lessons from my sunroom and living room. My living room TV has a Chromecast built in and I can totally see myself projecting the class on to the big screen while providing feedback from my laptop on the couch and using the laptop screen as extra real estate for other apps.

My Online Teaching Setup (High-Tech Edition)

My studio computer and associated hardware.

When school let out in March, I wrote My Very Straightforward and Very Successful Setup for Teaching Virtual Private Lessons. The impetus for this post, and its snarky title, was an overwhelming number of teachers I saw on Facebook fussing about what apps and hardware they should use to teach online when all you really need is a smartphone, FaceTime, and maybe a tripod.

I stand by that post. But there are also reasons to go high-tech. I have had a lot of time this summer to reflect on the coming fall teaching semester. I have been experimenting with software and hardware solutions that are going to make my classes way more engaging.

Zoom

I have been hesitant about Zoom. I still have reservations about their software. Yet, it is hard to resist how customizable their desktop version is. I will be using Google Meet for my public school classes in September, but for my private lessons, I have been taking advantage of Zoom’s detailed features and settings.

For example, it’s easier to manage audio ins and outs. Right from the chat window, I can change if my voice input is going through my Mac's internal microphone or my studio microphone, or if video is coming from my laptop webcam or my external Logitech webcam. This will also be useful for routing audio from apps into the call (we will get to that in a moment).

Zoom allows you to choose the audio/video input from right within the call.

Zoom also allows you to AirPlay the screen of an iOS device to the student as a screen sharing option. This is the main reason I have been experimenting with Zoom. Providing musical feedback is challenging over an internet-connected video call. Speaking slowly helps to convey thoughts accurately, but it helps a lot more when I say “start at measure 32” and the student sees me circle the spot I want them to start in the music, right on their phone.

You can get really detailed by zooming in and out of scores and annotating as little as a single note. If you are wondering, I am doing all of this on a 12.9 inch iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, using the forScore app. A tight feedback loop of “student performance—>teacher feedback—>student adjustment” is so important to good teaching, and a lot of it is lost during online lessons. It helps to get some of it back through the clarity and engagement of annotated sheet music.

Selecting AirPlay as a screen sharing option.

AirPlaying annotated sheet music to the Zoom call using the iPad Pro and forScore app.

As much as I love this, I still think Zoom is pretty student hostile, particularly with the audio settings. Computers already try to normalize audio by taking extreme louds and compressing them. Given that my private lessons are on percussion instruments, this is very bad. Zoom is the worst at it of all the video apps I have used. To make it better, you have to turn on an option in the audio settings called “Use Original Audio” so that the host hears the student’s raw sound, not Zoom’s attempt to even it out. Some of my students report that they have to re-choose this option in the “Meeting Settings” of each new Zoom call.

If this experiment turns out to be worth it for the sheet music streaming, I will deal with it. But this is one of the reasons why I have been using simple apps like FaceTime up until this point.

My Zoom audio settings.

My Zoom advanced audio settings.

Sending App Audio Directly to the Call

I have been experimenting with a few apps by Rogue Amoeba that give me more control over how audio is flowing throughout my hardware and software.

Last Spring, I would often play my public school students YouTube videos, concert band recordings from Apple Music, and warm-up play-alongs that were embedded in Keynote slides. I was achieving this by having the sound of these sources come out of my computer speakers and right back into the microphone of my laptop. It actually works. But not for everyone. And not well.

Loopback is an app by Rogue Amoeba that allows you to combine the audio input and output of your various microphones, speakers, and apps, into new single audio devices that can be recognized by the system. I wrote about it here. My current set up includes a new audio device I created with Loopback which combines my audio interface and a bunch of frequently used audio apps into one. The resulting device is called Interface+Apps. If I select it as the input in my computer’s sound settings, then my students hear those apps and any microphone plugged into my audio interface directly. The audio quality of my apps is therefore more pure and direct, and there is no risk of getting an echo or feedback effect from my microphone picking up my computer speaker’s sound.

A Loopback device I created which combines the audio output of many apps with my audio interface into a new, compound device called “Interface+Apps.”

I can select this compound device from my Mac’s Sound settings.

Now I can do the following with a much higher level of quality...

• Run a play-along band track and have a private student drum along
• Play examples of professional bands for my band class on YouTube
• Run Keynote slides that contain beats, tuning drones, and other play-along/reference tracks
• and...

Logic Pro X

Logic Pro X is one of my apps routing through to the call via Loopback. I have a MIDI keyboard plugged into my audio interface and a Roland Octopad electronic drum pad that is plugged in as an audio source (though it can be used as a MIDI source too).

The sounds on the Roland Octopad are pretty authentic. I have hi-hat and bass drum foot pedal triggers so I can play it naturally. So in Logic, I start with an audio track that is monitoring the Octopad, and a software instrument track that is set to a piano (or marimba or xylophone, whatever is relevant). This way, I can model drum set or mallet parts for students quickly without leaving my desk. The audio I produce in Logic is routed through Loopback directly into the call. My students say the drum set, in particular, sounds way better in some instances than the quality of real instruments over internet-connected calls. Isn’t that something...

Multiple Camera Angles

Obviously, there is a reason I have previously recommended a set up as simple as a smartphone and a tripod stand. Smartphones are very portable and convenient. And simple smartphone apps like FaceTime and Google Duo make a lot of good default choices about how to handle audio without the fiddly settings some of the more established “voice conference” platforms are known for.

Furthermore, I can’t pick up my desk and move it to my timpani or marimba if I need to model something. So I have begun experimenting with multiple camera angles. I bought a webcam back in March (it finally just shipped). I can use this as a secondary camera to my laptop’s camera (Command+Shift+N in Zoom to change cameras).

Alternatively, I can share my iPhone screen via AirPlay and turn on the camera app. Now I can get up from my desk and go wherever I need to. The student sees me wherever I go. This option is sometimes laggy.

Alternatively, I can log in to the call separately on the iPhone and Mac. This way, there are two instances of me, and if I need to, I can mute the studio desk microphone, and use the phone microphone so that students can hear me wherever I go. I like this option the best because it has the added benefit of showing me what meeting participants see in Zoom.

Logging in to the Zoom call on the Mac and iPhone gives me two different camera angles.

SoundSource

This process works well once it is set up. But it does take some fiddling around with audio ins and outs to get it right. SoundSource is another app by Rogue Amoeba that takes some of the fiddly-ness out of the equation. It replaces the sound options in your Mac’s menubar, offering your more control and more ease at the same time.

This app is seriously great.

This app saved me from digging into the audio settings of my computer numerous times. In addition to putting audio device selection at a more surface level, it also lets you control the individual volume level of each app, apply audio effects to your apps, and more. One thing I do with it regularly is turn down the volume of just the Zoom app when my students play xylophone.

Rogue Amoeba's apps will cost you, but they are worth it for those who want more audio control on the Mac. Make sure you take advantage of their educator discount.

EDIT: My teaching set up now includes the use of OBS and an Elago Stream Deck. Read more here.

Conclusion

I went a little overboard here. If this is overwhelming to you, don't get the idea that you need to do it all. Anyone of these tweaks will advance your setup and teaching.

This post is not specific about the hardware I use. If you care about the brands and models of my gear, check out My Favorite Technology to read more about the specific audio equipment in my setup.