Hello! I am pleased to say I am presenting at the Texas Music Educators Association conference next month. Will you be there? If so, I hope you will check out one of my two sessions.
Digital Organization Tips for Music Teachers - Wednesday, February 8 @ 4:15 pm, Room CC 214B
Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy - Friday, February 10 @ 11:30 am, Room CC 216
Stay tuned to the blog for complementary session notes and links.
I have said a lot of positive words about the Tonal Energy Tuner app. Every day I yearn for them to release a Mac version of the app.
Playing just intonation tuning drones in combination with a metronome is one of my most common technology uses in the band classroom. Though I have a phone and a Mac wired into the sound system, my Mac is where I am most comfortable playing audio in class. In a few of my classrooms the Mac is my only device plugged into a sound system.
I'd like to give Tunable some love. Software developer Seth Sandler is killing it with this app. After speaking with him on the Music Ed Tech Talk podcast, he reminded me that there is a Mac version.
I have been using Tunable in my classes for the past few months and I really like it. It has great drones, metronome, multiple tuning systems, and design elements that make it feel like it lives on macOS.
This blog post, podcast episode, and presentation were prepared for the Ohio Music Educators Association Professional Development Conference 2022.
This blog post exists to serve as both session notes for conference attendees, show notes for listeners of the podcast episode, and any teacher who wishes to develop intonation in their performing ensemble.
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You can balance to the drone
Tell students to match the volume of the drone at various levels.
Play along melodies with students on a keyboard or on the display
A midi keyboard like the Xkey can play certain key areas in tune perfectly and can automatically tune chords to just intonation. Combined with an iPad, this is like owning a Yamaha Harmony Director.
GarageBand for iOS allows easy creation of engaging play along tracks by using TE Tuner as a plugin and combining its sounds with other instruments.
Lightly Row with Tuning Drones
Recording Tonal Energy into GarageBand with Inter-App Audio
Embellishing the Drone Track with Drums
Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks with Trap Beats - Promotional Video
App of the Week
Album of the Week
Tech Tip of the Week
Check out the latest episode of Music Ed Tech Talk!
Dr. Peter Perry joins the show to talk about the software and hardware we use in rehearsals, his book Technology Tips for Ensemble Directors, and our recent favorite music, apps, and tech tips.
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Music of the Week
Robby - Astor Piazzolla and Gary Burton - The New Tango
Peter - Tony Benett and Lady Gaga - Love for Sale)
App of the Week:
Robby - Craft
Peter - Izotope RX9
Where to Find Us:
Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!
Seth Sandler, maker of the poplar mobile tuner app Tunable, joins the show to talk about the process of making a tuning app, developing for iOS/Mac, and more!
Subscribe to the Podcast in... Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS
App of the Week: BusyCal
Album of the Week: Chris Thile - Laysongs Acapella Musicals on Spotify
Where to Find Us:
Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book
Seth - Twitter
Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!
I am presenting at the Howard County Public School System Music Professional Development on August 23, 2021.
These are the notes for that session...
These three podcast episodes also address the subject of using Soundtrap creatively in the performing arts contexts.
What Do We Keep? (Podcast version of the above NAfME post)
Interview with Alex Shapiro about her "Putting the E in Ensemble" Curriculum
3 Soundtrap Projects Your Students Will Love (more Soundtrap ideas for in and outside of the performing arts classroom)
Develop Performance Skills Remotely with Cloud Software - YouTube
Making a Play Along Track - YouTube
Making a Virtual Ensemble Video - YouTube
I have been seeing this tip gain popularity with teachers online, so I feel obligated to share it here:
You can program your iPhone to do a nearly endless list of things by double or triple tapping the back of it. Go to Settings-->Accessibility-->Touch and then scroll down to the option called "Back Tap."
Alternatively, you can swipe down in settings to reveal a search bar and then type in "back tap."
You can program a tap of the Apple Logo on the back of your iPhone to do tons of system actions like going home, muting your phone, taking a screenshot, or launching Control Center.
The Touch options in the accessibility settings.
Setting a double and triple-tap.
There are lots of options!
You can also choose a Shortcut to launch. And Shortcuts can do anything from launching an app to running JavaScript. So you can imagine the possibility...
Personally, I have a double-tap set to reveal Control Center and a triple tap set to initiate open a new note in my note-taking app, Drafts.
To open a specific app, you will first need to make a Shortcut that performs the “Open App” action and then select that Shortcut from the available options in the Back Tap settings. To do that, open the Shortcuts app (pre-installed on every iPhone or available from the App Store on older versions of iOS).
Once in Shortcuts, create a new one with the plus icon in the upper right. Name your shortcut if you want (by pressing the three-dots “More” button), and then press “Add Action.” There is an overwhelming number of options if you are unfamiliar with Shortcuts, so just use the search and look for the action called “Open App.” Select this action from the search results and then a block will appear with a blue “Choose” option where you can choose the app you want it to open. Choose your tuner of choice.
Once saved, this Shortcut will be available as an option in the Back Tap settings.
***Note: The Tonal Energy app actually allows you to set up Shortcuts that jump to specific places within the app like the Analysis or Metronome section. You can find this in the TE settings. It will save you a bunch of extra taps.
Creating a new Shortcut.
Search for the Open App action.
Tonal Energy allows you to make Shortcuts that launch to specific parts of their app in the settings.
A number of teachers have asked me about the new iPad Air that Apple announced last month. It has been updated to look and function a lot more like the iPad Pro line and many are wondering if they need to go Pro or if the Air will satisfy their needs.
iPad Air and iPhone 12 (announced last week) reviews are out, and I have been reading through them this morning. Here are a few that stood out to me:
2020 iPad Air review: Almost Pro | Sixcolors.com
iPad Air Review: Forward-Looking | MacStories.net
The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro | Daring Fireball
iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro Review: The Best iPhones-but Note for the 5G
Based on everything I have learned so far, there has never been a better time to buy Apple's entry level products. The regular iPhone 12 and iPad Air are spectacular products, and I am guessing that a very large majority of users, even tech nerds, and professionals, are going to feel totally satisfied with them.
I have not tested pro apps like StaffPad, Ferrite, or LumaFusion on the iPad Air because I am still using the 2018 model iPad Pro. My educated guess is that you would not feel limited by the iPad Air, even if you use these apps. You would especially not feel limited using music apps like Tonal Energy and forScore.
When it comes to the iPhone, I am more compelled by the new Mini size and the Pro Max size (which comes with a much better camera system than the regular 12 Pro). Reviews for these are not out yet.
I will probably upgrade my phone, and it will probably be the Pro Max, just because I have a 9-month-old and want to take the best pictures possible of him. That said, I really miss the iPhone 5 days of the tiny phone and might consider a Mini in a future year if I read good things about it later this season.
I am going to keep my iPad Pro around for a bit, but if the Mac were ever to come equipped with a touch screen and Apple Pencil support, I would have to re-evaluate needing the larger-sized iPad Pro and whether or not I need an iPad altogether. I do miss the comfort of the smaller iPad size, particularly for reading, and my gut says that this iPad Air might satisfy my needs down the road.
Conclusion - You probably won't regret not going Pro on Apple's fall lineup of products, but the differences are definitely in the details so make sure you read up on them first.
My band classes meet online using Google Meet once a day for 45 minutes. I am trying to keep them playing as much of this time as possible while slowly introducing the tech tools we will be using to submit work this semester.
Using the Yamaha Harmony Director, plugged in through Logic (along with some trap beats and 808 bass lines I recorded in with software instruments), I have started to make some play-along tracks to route through the Google Meet via Loopback.
This is kind of like a hardwired version of my Tonal Energy/Garageband workflow I have written about here before, only the keyboard hardware and pro editing software allow for much more precision.
They sound like this:
See below for the Logic Pro setup. I am using a drummer track for the trap beat, an 808 bass instrument as a software instrument to record the bass line, and the Harmony Director is being recorded live as an audio track. The HD is plugged directly into my audio interface to do this.
I decided to keep the bass part droning in the key area of the scale because that software instrument plays in equal temperament by default. It also sounds more like an authentic trap beat this way, where the bass line functions similar to a bass drum.
I already used this method in my first period class this morning and the band loved it. This is just the beginning. I whipped this together in a hot minute and anticipate making a variety of scale patterns in different musical styles.
“Intuition, I realized, was the certainty with which a skill instantly worked on the basis of rational experience. Without training, intuition does not develop. People only think that intuition is inborn. If intuition unexpectedly reveals itself, however, it is because unconscious training has been amassed somewhere along the way.
”
Solfege Bingo is a game for young music students. You can play in class to help develop audiation, pitch recognition, and solfege.
The book comes with a series of bingo cards, each of which with three-note Solfege patterns in each square. “Do re mi, fa sol do, etc...” With the book comes a CD that has many different recorded examples of a singer singing these patterns, with space in between each pattern. Students match the three-note patterns they hear with the ones on their card until they get bingo.
The CD features a second set of recorded examples in which a clarinet plays the patterns so that the students must recognize the patterns by ear, not by syllable.
I first learned about this series as a student teacher, where the choir teacher would use them as warm-ups. She would use them as ear training examples to familiarize her ensembles with solfege. On the recorded examples, the space between each pattern is equal to the length of the patterns themselves, so you can use them as a call and response. The recording models the pattern, the choir sings it back.
A few years ago, I got the idea to transpose these recordings into band keys using GarageBand. I added a clarinet drone on the key center (using one of the software MIDI instruments) to help students hear the relationships of the pitches not only to each other but also to the tonic.
In band, I start the year by implementing these play-along tracks during warm-ups, starting in concert Bb. I first use the vocalist track and have students sing back. Then they play it back, with brass buzzing on mouthpieces. Then with brass on instruments. (The repetition of this has the side effect of reinforcing fingerings.) Eventually, once I feel like they have begun to internalize the pitches, I play them the clarinet version of the recording. The clarinet drone rings through my entire track, which takes the place of my usual Tonal Energy Tuner drone.
It sounds like this when it’s done…
In GarageBand, I dragged in the audio file I wanted to edit, creating an audio track. Then, I created a second software instrument track, selected clarinet as the instrument, and held out the note Bb on my MIDI keyboard for the drone. Double-clicking an audio region reveals a transpose option on the left. Dragging the slider moves the pitch up of the selected region up or down by a semitone.
I recall a year where I was struggling with engaging one of my band classes during the warm-ups. I needed a way to create some structure and reinforce expectations for the first 10 minutes of class, while making sure that the winds got the tone and ear development I wanted them to have. It is always easy to assume that students are against you when they are talking amongst themselves, wandering the back of the room, and slouching in their seats. I have come to find that, more often than not, my students aren’t against me, they just flat out didn’t understand my expectations for participation, posture, and technique and that they needed my support (even when it seems my expectations should be obvious).
My solution was to duplicate myself. I needed there to be one of me on the podium guiding the rehearsal sequence, and another of me walking the room to adjust students’ expectations of themselves.
I added the Solfege Bingo play-along tracks to slides in my daily agenda presentation, which is always on display at the front of the room through a projector. I make all of my slides in Apple’s Keynote. I found that I could embed an mp3 of one of my tracks into a slide and set the presentation to automatically skip to the next slide after a certain length of time had passed. So I created a sequence of these Solfege Bingo tracks, and a couple of other typical warm-ups I do, and embedded them all in Keynote slides so that the warm-up would happen automatically.
In the upper right corner, click the Transitions button to reveal transitions. From the Start Transition dropdown menu, you can choose to have a slide start automatically after a certain amount of time, using the Delay timer. You might have to tweak this a little bit to get it right, but the result is that these couple of Keynote slides play in a row, automatically, while I walk around the band room and give feedback to students.
This allows me to work the room. While warm-ups were taking place, I can walk in the percussion section and remind them what instrument they play for warm-ups that day (it's on the chart in the back of the room 🤷♂️). I can give postural feedback to my trombones. I can high five the tuba player. I can fit someone for a concert shirt. I can do nearly anything. And this is all while reinforcing audiation, tone development, and proper intonation.
I recommend the Solfege Bingo book. It’s effortless to modulate tracks with software. You can use the pitch-flex feature in GarageBand, as I mentioned above. But you can also use apps like Transcribe!, The Amazing Slow Downer, or Anytune.
Adding a clarinet drone is easy. I added a software instrument track in GarageBand, set it to a clarinet, and played the tonic along to the recording. But you could also use Tonal Energy as a GarageBand instrument.
Given the time I am posting this, it is worth mentioning that I totally intend to use these warmup play-along tracks in my online band classes this fall, which will be taking place in Google Meet. I am using the Loopback app to route the audio of Keynote through to the call, and a soundboard app called Farrago to trigger them. I can run the tracks through Google Meet and everyone plays along while on mute. I am hoping to blog about Farrago soon.
I am also planning to blog about another version of this workflow I have tried in especially needy classrooms, where I go as far as to record myself giving instructions to the band in between transitions, and even program the tracks to rehearse concert music for me while the real ‘me’ works the room. I have run up to 40 minutes of a band rehearsal through pre-recorded instructions and play along tracks before!
Get a copy of Solfege Bingo here.
Find Robby elsewhere on the web
