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METT Episode 44 - Rehearsal Tech

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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Show Notes:

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:

Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book

Peter - Twitter | Website

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

Blink Session Music: Because Virtual Music Lessons are More Than a Video Chat (Sponsor)

Your virtual music lessons are more than a video chat. You interact over sheet music, tabs, audio, YouTube, videos. Sound quality is more important than a chat with grandma. Using advanced settings must be easy. Then, what about homework, scheduling, getting paid? Everything is important but at times requires using multiples online tools that can get time-consuming and complicated both for you and your student.

Blink Session Music is the most advanced and easy-to-use software for online music lessons. Upgraded sound? Absolutely, but Blink goes way beyond to upgrade your entire online lesson experience and business operations.

Are you stuck using Zoom or Skype? Then you're stuck with screen share. With Blink Session Music, load sheet music, tabs (with midi), audio or videos you upload, YouTube, all without screen share. Even assign all your music resources as homework.

Using a DAW or virtual mixer to stream your guitar or keyboard? No need with Blink. Stream up to three audio sources, at up to 300kbps mono or stereo. Plus toggle noise suppression off.

Blink Session Music's features go way beyond the lesson. Schedule, self-schedule, reminders, invoices, take payments, notes, files, homework, learning management, reports, and online lessons, all in the same platform.

Sign up now for Blink's free plan or take the plunge to a paid plan with more time and features.

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🎬 Technology Tips for Musicians and Teachers, Facebook Live with David MacDonald

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Speaking of live video, here is the video from my Facebook Live with David MacDonald last Sunday. In the video, we discuss apps and gadgets we are using to teach virtually. Watch on Facebook here or in the embedded video below.

"Rehearse Your Ensembles Remotely!" at the MMEA Inservice Conference this Saturday, March 5

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If you are a NAfME or MMEA member, please join Maryland at our Inservice Conference this weekend. I will be presenting a session titled Rehearse Your Ensembles Remotely! on Saturday, March 6 at 5:45 pm.

Here is the session description:

Learn the strategies and technologies to run engaging synchronous rehearsals. Engage students visually and speed up your flow using Open Broadcasting Software. Pump the sound video/music/play-along tracks directly through Zoom or Google Meet for a lag-free experience. Explore play along with resources, student reflection with Google Docs, effective camera/mic practices, and have students working collaboratively in synchronous chamber ensembles with Soundtrap! Software discussed includes: Keynote, Google Slides, Loopback, Soundsource, Farrago, AnyTune, Soundtrap, Smartmusic!

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🎬 Develop Performance Skills Remotely with Cloud Software

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I have been meaning to write about "what I have been doing for online learning" since the fall.

This has proven difficult for many reasons, mostly that there is a lot I have been doing and it is all interconnected.

Generally, my planning and technology use has fallen into two categories.

  1. Tech that supports synchronous classes (via Zoom/Google Meet/etc.)

  2. Tech that supports the asynchronous work (via LMS, cloud-based and student-facing software, etc.)

Fortunately, I was invited to present at two music conferences this year, MMEA and TMEA, and each of my accepted sessions has serendipitously aligned with each of those areas.

This presentation in the video above is an overview of the asynchronous part. In other words, how I am keeping my virtual instruction focused on playing instruments solo, through student-facing tools like Noteflight, Soundtrap, Flipgrid, and a handful of iOS utility apps.

These strategies were developed while I was teaching virtually but they can just as easily be used in a hybrid or in-person teaching model. I would argue that they are just as valuable in either of those environments.

This presentation was first given at TMEA on Saturday, February 14th, 2021.

You can view the notes to this session here.

Overviewer - an app that turns an iPhone into a document camera for Zoom and virtual learning

I tweeted about this app when it came out but never posted it here...

Definitely check out Overviewer, a new app that turns an iPhone into a document camera for Zoom and virtual learning. It is made by the same developer as Dark Noise, a white noise app that has no business being as thoroughly considered as it is.

From the developer:

My wife is a Kindergarten teacher and when COVID hit she had to figure out how to teach a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds how to draw letters over Zoom. Initially she made her own document camera using her iPhone and the default camera app. Zoom has a wonderful feature where you can share your iPhone’s screen by plugging into your laptop with a lightning cable or even wirelessly over AirPlay but when you open the camera app there are two issues.

  1. There’s a bunch of buttons and chrome around camera view so it looks clunky
  1. The camera app doesn’t actually rotate when you turn it sideways (just some of the labels) so you can only share your phone in portrait mode which means huge black bars on each side of the zoom call and a tiny video stream of what you want to share.

METT Episode #23 - Rogue Amoeba Audio Apps, with Paul Kafasis

Paul Kafasis, CEO of Rogue Amoeba, joins Robby to talk about the stellar audio apps they make and how Robby is using them in the music classroom both before and during COVID.

Show Notes:

Rogue Amoeba Website: Macaudio.com

Robby's Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks
Stream Deck

Rogue Amoeba Apps:

Audio Hijack
Loopback
Sound Source
Piezo
Farrago
Fission
Airfoil
Ultimate Podcast Bundle
Educator Discount and Volume Pricing

My blog post on Audio Hijack
My blog post on Loopback

Mimeo Photos Extension for the Mac | Make premium printed photo projects right on your Mac

Acorn | Full Featured Photo Editor for the Mac

App of the Week:
Robby - Pixelmator Pro
Paul - Tot

Album of the Week:
Robby - Charlie XCX | How I'm Feeling Now
Paul - The Colour and the Shape | Foo Fighters

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

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

Subscribe to Music Ed Tech Talk:

Subscribe to the Blog

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Google Meet rolling out custom backgrounds

Google Meet rolling out custom background images for web - 9to5Google:

Google Meet continues its onslaught of pre-announced features today with the launch of custom backgrounds during video calls. This customization is a staple of modern conferencing apps, and one that helps convey “more of your personality.”

Another Google Meet feature playing catchup with Zoom. This has started rolling out in my school district but I don’t have the option in my account yet.

From what I have seen other students do, it appears to work as expected, maybe slightly less consistent at detecting the edges of a person than Zoom is.

Many of Google Meet’s “catchup” features of the past few months have been buggy, though I think I prefer them being this aggressive with updates than to drag their feet.

It will be interesting to see what Google can do with Meet that is actually unique to their companies strengths. The pandemic caught them by surprise and they have been rushing to keep up with the success of Zoom.

Google has always had too many communication apps, and has never seemed to know what to do with them (Google Hangouts, Duo, Allo, and a bunch of others that have been killed off). Google has a lot of potential with Meet and seems to be focusing on it with more intent since the pandemic forced many to work line.

Google has an education platform to rest on which Zoom doesn’t have. It would be interesting to see them make a move that better integrated Meet with Google Classroom and Docs. Hopefully, we will see them continue to focus on rapid development in the coming months, even after they have ”caught up” with many of Zoom’s popular features.

METT Podcast #16 - Master Your Virtual Teaching Tech, with David MacDonald

Thanks to my sponsor this month, MusicFirst

David MacDonald returns to the show to talk about the hardware and software in our virtual teaching setups. Then we speculate about touchscreen Macs and consider how Apple's recent App Store policies might impact the future of creative professional software on iOS.

Topics include:

  • New Zoom features for musicians and teachers
  • David and Philip Rothman's new podcast, Scoring Notes
  • Using Open Broadcaster Software to level up your virtual teaching
  • Routing audio from your apps into Zoom and Google Meet calls
  • Teaching with Auralia
  • LMS integration with third-party music education apps
  • Using MainStage and Logic for performing instruments into virtual classrooms
  • Touchscreen Macs
  • Apple's App Store Policy

Show Notes:

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

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

Subscribe to Music Ed Tech Talk:

Subscribe to the Blog

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

Today's episode is sponsored by MusicFirst:

MusicFirst offers music educators and their students easy-to-use, affordable, cloud-based software that enables music learning, creation, assessment, sharing, and exploration on any device, anywhere, at any time.

MusicFirst Classroom is the only learning management system designed specifically for K-12 music education. It combines the flexibility of an LMS with engaging content and powerful software integrations to help manage your students’ progress, make lesson plans, and create assignments.

And for younger students, MusicFirst Junior is the perfect online system for teaching elementary general music. It includes a comprehensive K-5 curriculum, hundreds of lessons & songs, and kid-friendly graphics to making learning and creating music fun!

Whether you’re teaching remotely, in-person, or in a blended learning environment, MusicFirst will work with you to find a solution that fits your program’s unique needs. Try it free for 30 days at musicfirst.com.

David’s teaching setup.

David’s teaching setup.

My teaching setup.

My teaching setup.

…From far away.

…From far away.

Optimize Your Zoom Settings for Music Teaching and Performing!

Zoom came out with a recent update that allows users to optimize the sound quality of calls for music, amongst other features specifically geared towards music performers and teachers.

Here is a roundup of some great resources for making the most of these new audio options. Click each headline to read more.

Zoom: online rehearsals (instrumental) | Making Music:

This resource covers how to use the online meeting platform Zoom for online instrumental rehearsals. To find out more about Zoom and how to set it up, read our Zoom: how it works resource.

Complete Guide to Zoom Audio Settings for Music Teachers | Midnight Music:

When using Zoom to run music classes, there are a few settings you can adjust to enhance the experience for you and your students.

Here is a summary of the settings you should consider.

Better Music Experiences Come to Zoom with High Fidelity Audio | Scoring Notes:

A recent release of Zoom has brought, among other things, “High Fidelity Audio Mode” (High fidelity music mode in the application settings) to the Windows and Mac clients. The feature was announced in August and rolled out publicly on September 1, 2020 with the 5.2.2 update.

Find Robby elsewhere on the web