Link Post

πŸ”— Electronic Music School, with Will Kuhn and Ethan Hein

Will Kuhn and Ethan Hein have a new Twitch channel called Electronic Music School. Every Sunday at 5 pm, they go over lesson plans for teaching music technology, using Ableton Live.

Even though the technology part of my general music curriculum is limited, I have really enjoyed the few of these live streams I have caught little bits of. The visual presentation is very engaging, the guests are diverse, and the discussions are very relevant to the curricular challenges of teaching popular music.

Check it out here.

πŸ”— Handwriting Note App, GoodNotes, Gets Collaboration Features

From David Sparks...

GoodNotes Releases Collaboration Update β€” MacSparky:

With GoodNotes, it’s easy to mix drawing and writing. It’s also easy to write in a magnified view while the words simultaneously appear in a normal size on the page behind it.

And with yesterday’s version 5.5 update, GoodNotes is now also able to collaborate.

I use Apple Notes for most mixed media note taking (text, checklists, images, web links) and DEVONthink for my archiving needs (long term file, email, web archiving). But most notes I write by hand go in GoodNotes. It is nice to see any app add collaboration as a feature. I am not sure if I would use this in GoodNotes but it will be fun to try.

The other thing I use GoodNotes for every day (when school is meeting in person) is for annotating my custom-made seating charts to keep track of student data. You can read about that on this article I wrote for SBO Magazine. What makes GoodNotes so convenient for annotating PDFs like this is that it treats them as a paper style instead of fillable PDF, so you don't need to go into any kind of annotation 'mode' to begin marking it up with the Apple Pencil.

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πŸ”— New Version of Final Cut Pro X Has a 90 Day Free Trial (Which You Can Renew Even if You Already Took Advantage of the FCPX 90 Day Free Trial!)

New version of Final Cut Pro X out!

From Apple Newsroom:

Final Cut Pro X updated with significant workflow improvements:

Today Apple is updating Final Cut Pro X with powerful new features designed to enhance remote workflows and speed up editing for content creators. Improvements in creating and managing proxy media provide editors with portability and performance when working with large resolution formats, or when collaborating remotely. New social media tools automate video cropping in square, vertical, and other custom sizes for popular social media platforms, and new workflow improvements enhance the versatility and performance of Final Cut Pro β€” making the Mac stronger than ever for all video editors and motion graphics artists.

Teachers rejoice! If you are looking to make online lesson content or virtual band/orchestra/choir/whatever videos this school year, look no further than Final Cut Pro X.

If you were already taking advantage of their 90 day free trial, guess what? They just released a new version, and you can renew your trial with the update!

And if you decide to buy, don't forget to purchase it with Apple's Pro Apps Bundle for Education.

πŸ”— Book: Teaching Effectively with Zoom | by Dan Levy

Dan Levy has a book out called Teaching Effectively with Zoom.

Zoom is not my dominant teaching platform of choice, but this book looks really interesting, and likely has application for all video teaching. Click the link below for more information.

Home | Teaching Effectively with Zoom:

In this website, you will be able to: Find resources related to the book. Read short stories about how educators are using Zoom in interesting or innovative ways Submit your own stories to share with others about how you have been using Zoom to engage your students and help them learn

πŸ”— 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.

πŸ”— Chris Russell on sheet music scanning apps

Last week Chris Russell reviewed a new score scanning app, ScanScore. I kind of like that he turned this review into a comparison of the different options available, with example photos. Here is a link to the post with a quote:

ScanScore – Technology in Music Education

So, how did it work? Again, I’m not in the scanning mode right now, so I’m creating an artificial comparison (something that really isn’t crucial to me on a need-to-get-it-done-as-quickly-as-possible basis). I decided to take a a version of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata from IMSLP, and to see how the programs did with it.

While one example is not enough to effectively compare this kind of software, it's still interesting to see where they stack up in the example he provided. I personally find that these scanner apps require more touch up than is worth the effort. In many cases it is still easier to manually recreate the score in a notation app. 

Of the apps Chris mentions in the post, Sheet Music Scanner is my favorite, even though it doesn't do triplets yet.

πŸ”— Longplay - New Music App That Prioritizes Listening and Organizing by Album

If you prioritize your music listening by albums instead of individual songs and playlists, Longplay is an app worth checking out. Link and quote below:

Introducing Longplay - Adrian's Corner:

Longplay is a music player for anyone who enjoy listening to entire albums start-to-finish. It digs through your Apple Music or iTunes library – that might have grown over the years or decades and is full of a mix of individual songs, partial albums, complete albums and playlists – to identify just those complete albums and gives you quick access to play them.

It provides a beautiful view of all your album artwork, and let’s you explore your albums (or playlists) by various sort options. A unique one is Negligence which combines how highly you’ve ranked an album and when you last listened it, to let you rediscover forgotten favourites. Brightness sorts the albums by their primary colour for an interesting visual take on your albums collection.

You can hide albums or playlists that you don’t want to show up - useful for meditation or kids albums, or smart playlists that you use for doing house keeping.

For users who want to listen on specific AirPlay devices, such as multi-room audio systems or headphones, there’s a β€œPlay on” feature that’s the quickest way to listen on the right device.

πŸ”— Google Plans to Eventually replace Duo with Meet

9to5Google reports…

Google plans to eventually replace Duo with Meet:

With classic Hangouts on the way out, Google today has two video calling apps. However, that is one too many for the company, and sources familiar with the matter tell us that Google Duo will eventually be replaced by Meet.

This would be so welcome, if true. I have used Google Meet, Google Hangouts, and Google Duo over the past five months. While their minor strengths and differences eventually became clear to me, there is simply no reason for the company to have three video chat apps, especially when Meet does everything the other two do.

Google Duo is an alternatively elegant way to do a 1:1 call, but I won’t miss it. Two less apps to install on my devices!

πŸ”— Adobe and Wordpress launch Google-backed .new shortcuts - 9to5Google

Cool new document creation shortcuts from Wordpress and Adobe, in collaboration with Google. If you are a Google Docs user and didn't already know about document creation shortcuts, they will save you some time. Click to read the entire article below.

Adobe and Wordpress launch Google-backed .new shortcuts - 9to5Google:

Back in 2018, Google introduced web links to quickly open blank Docs, Forms, and Sheets. Over the years, it expanded to most other G Suite services, with Adobe Acrobat and Spark now supporting several .new shortcuts.

Adobe β€œcollaborated” with Google in hopes of providing a β€œstreamlined way to get things done.” It specifically doesn’t want users to be β€œstuck scouring the web just to get things done.”

I wish I had more of a need for these. I love the idea of typing "new.sheets" into my browser to set up a new spreadsheet, but I am logged into two different Google accounts and the chance that it creates the document in the correct account is 50/50. Kind of defeats the point of the shortcut.

Teaching Music Online During the Pandemic - Video Now Online for Anyone to Watch

The panel discussion I participated in, Teaching Music Online During the Pandemic, is now available on YouTube for anyone to watch.

Lots of ideas here, both inspiring and practical. Thanks to Katie Wardrobe of Midnight Music for hosting this video on her YouTube account.