Take, Leave, Transform! What Do We Keep From Last School Year?

As we venture into the following school year, it is impossible to ignore all of the ways our teaching careers have changed over the past 16 months.

I've been reflecting on my current teaching practices, many of which have included new technologies and were inspired by virtual and hybrid teaching. It's essential to think about which methods are worth taking into the future, which should be left behind, and which can potentially transform the future of teaching.

Let's explore some practices to "take," "leave," and "transform" our teaching next year, in the context of five areas:

  1. Students and technology
  2. Teachers and technology
  3. Communication
  4. Hardware
  5. Assessment

Before we get started, here are a few things to take note of.

  1. This blog post originally appeared on the NAfME blog. If you would like, you can read it there._

  2. This post was based on my presentation at the Music Ed Tech Conference last month, hosted by MusicFirst. Click here for the session notes, which include links and resources related to this post.

  3. There is a podcast version of this post, which includes numerous student example recordings of the projects and assignments outlined below. Check it out below. I hope you will subscribe to the show!

Subscribe to the Podcast in: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS

Ok, let's get on to TAKE, LEAVE, TRANSFORM!

Students and tech

TAKE: Software that empowers student creativity

Digital audio workstation software empowers **all** music students to create.

Many school districts prioritized web-based creative tools like Soundtrap, Noteflight, Flat, and BandLab last year as they empowered students to make meaningful, project-based assignments from a distance.

Now that students have access to a digital audio workstation and notation editor, I cannot imagine teaching without them. In my general music classes, Soundtrap became a tool for producing our music. In-band, it became an opportunity to record student performance, collaborate on chamber music, and compose band music for the first time.

Alex Shapiro's Putting the E in Ensemble curriculum made it possible to compose and record original band music collaboratively. My students wrote original melodies for their instruments in Noteflight, recorded them in Soundtrap, and then I shared the resulting recordings back with the class in a Dropbox folder, where they then used them as the basis for their own original band compositions in Soundtrap.

Using Alex Shapiro's *Putting the E in Ensemble* Curriculum, band students wrote and recorded original melodic content, and then edited each other's work together in their own original band piece.

LEAVE: Virtual performances

I am proud of my students for making virtual performances like the one above. They were great representations of our student's resilience and effort, awesome for the community, and I liked editing them. But I think we can all agree that performing in the same space as one another is something we can't wait to get back to.

TRANSFORM: Combining new tools and methods with traditional curriculum and skill development

I'm thrilled to combine these projects with the things we missed last year. For example, combining the guitar and piano aspects of my general music curriculum will more fully round out our skills. Guitars and ukeleles will become the basis of better understanding the harmonic structures underneath the music we create in Soundtrap. We can also learn to record ukulele into audio tracks in our music projects using a microphone.

Piano skills can now transcend traditional notation as our keyboards become MIDI controllers, used to create original content in our projects, rather than depending on the loop library.

Neural Mix Pro allows you to import an audio file and control the individual volume of the vocals, drums, and other accompaniment.

Teacher facing technology

TAKE: Software that empowers efficiency and teacher creativity

If technology had you down last year, I recommend finding the point of diminishing return at which you don't feel like technology is getting more benefit for you or your students, and then stop there. For me, this sometimes means sidestepping school software and turning to more intuitive apps that make me more efficient and better organized. Here are a few:

  • Evernote: note app for clipping text, documents, website content, emails, and more. Everything is text searchable and can be organized by tag or project.
  • Spark Mail: email app that allows you to snooze messages out of your inbox to days where they are more relevant. It can also remind you when someone doesn't respond and can even schedule emails to send at a future time.
  • Todoist: Everyone needs a task manager! Todoist is cross-platform and has most of the features of all the major task apps. It even supports collaborative project lists you can share with your music team.

Spark (Left) allows you to swipe on a message to send it to another productivity app like Todoist (Right), where you can turn email into tasks with due dates and deadlines. You can even collaborate on lists with your music team!

LEAVE: Software that gets in the way

Did you spend your waking life inside learning management software last year? Please accept my invitation to take a deep breath and discard anything that didn't help your students learn last year.

TRANSFORM: New ways of creating engaging resources

I have shared some of the tools that make me productive. Now let's explore the tools that help me develop resources. Many of the resources I had to make for virtual classes will enhance in-person teaching dramatically. Here are my favorite tools for making digital resources:

  • Neural Mix Pro: Takes an audio file and allows you to separate the vocals, drums, and other accompaniment and then export the resulting track. I used this to take vocals out of pop songs and then use them as the basis for scale play-along tracks last year. I also used it to separate vocals from pop songs for making remix projects in general music.

AnyTune can take an audio file and adjust the pitch and tempo, independently.

  • AnyTune: slowdown app that can take a song and change the speed and pitch independently. I use this to slow down recordings for students to practice along to (or to change it to a comfortable key). It is also capable of looping short sections of music for repetitive practice or improvisation.
  • Downie, iCab Mobile, and YouTubeDL: These tools are all capable of downloading a video or audio file from a website to your hard drive. Note: There are numerous educational reasons to use this kind of tool that fall under fair use. Make sure you investigate relevant copyright law before publicly repurposing someone else's work.
  • Logic and ScreenFlow: Any audio and video editor will do, but for me, these applications balance ease with power. They can manipulate audio and video in nearly any way, and I don't feel like I need another degree to use them.

Downie makes it easy to grab content from the web with a browser extension.

Communication

TAKE: Digital communication

I am also reflecting on every way that in-person collaboration can be made more efficient by going digital. I am mostly Zoom-ed out for the year, but when it comes to many of my music team's interactions, sometimes something "could have been an email." Digital communication helps us stay focused on our current tasks and address other's concerns when we have the capacity, rather than being constantly interrupted.

LEAVE: Lengthy and verbose documents

The requirement of communicating through an LMS over the past year has made me realize that I can probably get away with shorter letters getting sent home in future years. Many families, especially students, responded well to concise and more frequent communication than the long-form alternative.

Slack is fun. But also for getting work done. But also fun.

TRANSFORM: New models for non-musical logistics and collaboration

You can elevate your digital communication by trying the following strategies:

  • *Slack or Microsoft Teams (your district might already pay for the latter.) Both of these tools are similar. My music team uses Slack for all of our communication because it removes the cruft and formality of email while maintaining more structure than text messaging. Using this tool, my team has created a space where we can separate different topics by channel (examples include #concerts, #fieldtrips, #fundraisers,* and more). All conversation stays organized in a chat thread within these areas. Apps like Google Drive can be linked to your Slack so that you can manage the sharing settings of documents and even see them in-line, right from within Slack.
  • Google Calendar: By creating a Google account for our team and logging into it on all our devices, we have made a workflow where we can share our schedule for rehearsals, sectionals, concerts, and events, with one another, all from within the calendar app on our computers. The neat part is that because Google Calendars are web-first experiences, we can easily embed the HTML in a password-protected page of our music program website so that families always know where they need to be and when.

Our calendar shows up everywhere from the web to my watch.

Hardware

TAKE: Microphones, interfaces, other pro audio hardware

My team purchased some microphones, audio interfaces, and MIDI keyboards last year to enhance the quality of our virtual classrooms. Here are some of my favorite devices:

  • Audio Technica AT2020: This isn't the cheapest microphone out there, but it's reasonable, and you get so much more from it than an entry-level product.
  • Scarlet Solo: This is the most straightforward and reliable tool for getting third-party devices like microphones, keyboards, and speakers to route in and out of a computer.
  • Amazon Essentials MIDI Keyboard I use a full-sized keyboard as a MIDI controller in most cases, but for basic note entry in a notation editor, MIDI controllers are one place to cut costs. I have a set of these for my general music class, and they have lasted many years so far.

LEAVE: The need to be tethered to a computer

Need I say more? It is exhausting to need a computer, especially when it limits us. I can't wait to talk directly to students, hear them play in real-time, and give them the quick, authentic feedback characteristic of vital music-making.

TRANSFORM: Proven models of teaching with the computer as an extension of the self

I am not ready to write off the computer, though. The hardware we bought last year can be repurposed. The MIDI controllers can trigger justly in-tune chords and intervals from the Tonal Energy Tuner app from the front of the band room. The microphone and interface can allow me to quickly record the band and play it back for them, in higher fidelity than the voice memos app on my phone.

Furthermore, apps I used to engage students with visual and auditory experiences can elevate what would otherwise be a traditional band rehearsal. Here are some examples of such software, which can be shared through a screen and speaker system:

  • Farrago: Digital soundboard app that allows you to drag in mp3 files into a grid of squares where they can easily be triggered during rehearsal (or a school musical if you run one of those). It works for everything from play-along tracks (I have made some here, to fun sound effects. There is a sequential mode in which you can play them in a specified order automatically. I have used this feature to pre-record my entire warm-up for class. When I return to in-person instruction, I can use this warm-up approach to create two of "me" in the classroom. While students follow the recorded "me," I have the freedom to work the room, connect with students, fix trombone posture, assist with music, and more.

Farrago.

  • Classroom Maestro: This desktop application displays a piano on-screen that highlights the keys of the keyboard you are playing on your MIDI controller in blue while also showing the notes on a staff.

Classroom Maestro.

  • forScore, GoodNotes, Tonal Energy, and Shortcuts: These are the apps I usually have on the screen of my iPad when I am on the podium. forScore shows my music, GoodNotes shows my documents (and acts as a digital whiteboard), and Tonal Energy is used for tuning drones. By streaming these applications to my projector (directly or via a program like AirServer), I can now invite students into my world, displaying contextual information and enriching their musical experience.

Bonus tip! In an iPad software update coming this fall, you can automate the opening of all your materials using the Shortcuts app. See it in action below and download this example shortcut here.

This shortcut, installed as a widget on my home screen, launches my score, tuner, and notepad, which I can use as a digital whiteboard.

To wrangle all of the new tech I want to use during rehearsal, I am investigating the modular Flex® Conductor's System from Wenger. It is an investment, but it will hopefully allow me to have keyboards and computers positioned more accessibly during rehearsal.

Flex® Conductor's System

Assessment

TAKE: Assessment transparency

One thing I did enjoy about all assessments moving online was how they added transparency to all stakeholders. Every assignment, expectation, and instruction was in the same place, detailed in a web-accessible location for parents. Student progress was visible since things that were usually assessed informally needed to be online. I want to investigate how to keep some of this transparency moving forward.

LEAVE: Grades

I am doing some soul searching on the topic of grades and assessments this summer. If I thought grades bordered on meaningless before the pandemic, this problem has really been brought to light by a year of an ever increased achievement gap due to numerous inequities in our system.

Grades often inhibit the kind of curiosity and natural learning essential for students who are performing and creating.

UNgrading

TRANSFORM: New ways to foster student curiosity and reflection

I have been reading Ungrading (edited by Susan Blum), and it has caused me to ask some questions about where grades are really necessary. The book doesn't challenge teachers to eliminate grades cold-turkey but instead offers lots of practical ways to reimagine the assessment process, making it feedback-centered and student-led.

Next year I am considering:

  1. Student self-grading
  2. Student-created rubrics
  3. Grading process-oriented practices and putting skill-based objectives (like instrumental performance) in a separate part of my grade book that doesn't touch the overall student average.
  4. Eliminating processes that cause students and me to do less busy work.

Conclusion

As we prepare for the next year, I challenge you to ask yourself where the status quo wasn't good enough and think about transforming your old teaching methods by adapting what we have learned this year.

Craft Pro currently free for teachers and students

Craft Download here is an app that has been getting a lot of attention in the Apple community lately for the way it makes the process of organizing and sharing information very elegant.

They are currently offering the pro version for FREE to teachers and students. Make sure you check out the tweet above for more details.

In their own words, Craft is a “tool for creating beautiful documents and notes and sharing your thoughts. Everything you create in Craft can be shared with one tap. Craft supports inline markdown, backlinks, code snippets, images, videos, attaching PDF files, and rich link previews.”

Craft is on iOS and macOS and is worth checking out.

It’s hard to pin down exactly how it might serve you because it is extremely versatile. If you like organizing and sharing your ideas, particularly if you are a lukewarm Google Docs user, this is worth a look.

Automatic Instrument Rental Forms, with Keyboard Maestro

One of the things I hate the most about the beginning of the school year is managing instrument rental. It just takes too long to log student instrument needs, cross reference them with my inventory, and type out all of my loan agreements. So I automated a part of that process.

Using the app Keyboard Maestro it is possible to automate almost anything under the sun using a simple graphic user interface. Imagine tons of actions available in macOS presented as draggable blocks that you can stack on top of one another and initiate with a keystroke, by time of day, or by an event happening on your machine. It's like building with legos. And the sky is the limit.

Watch my automation in action. I have set it up to prompt me for some information about the instrument and student. Once entered, it makes a copy of the selected file in Finder, copies it, and names it after the student. Then Keyboard Maestro waits for my next click. After clicking in the upper-leftmost field, KM fills in the rest and saves the document.

If you want to break apart the logic of it, see the image below to get an idea which triggers and actions I have used to set up the automation. If you are a KB expert and know how I can make it more efficient, let me know! If you are new to the app and need help, let me know! Patreon supporters can get access to the actual macro, install it into your own copy of Keyboard Maestro, and edit it to your liking.

App of the Week: ViDL (Downloads YouTube Videos On Your Mac)

For anyone looking for this kind of tool, I recommend checking out ViDL for downloading video content from websites on to your computer.

ViDL for Mac - Download Web Videos Easily:

ViDL is a free Mac app that allows you to easily download videos from YouTube and hundreds of other websites for offline viewing.

It is based on the popular youtube-dlcommand line tool, but much easier to use, especially with videos/playlists that require a login (like your personal "Watch Later" list).

Megan Lavengood IDs songs on the Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes toy

Music theorist Megan Megan Lavengood recently took to Twitter to try and identify all of the songs on a Baby Einstein toy.

It’s a particularly fun read, and I had an especially good time with it since we have this toy and our 1.5 year old has played with it off and on since birth.

Click the link below to read the entire thing. It comes complete with audio examples of the toy and a Spotify playlist of all the pieces of music they are based on.

What actually are all these songs on the Baby Einstein Take Along Tunes toy? – Megan L. Lavengood:

For the uninitiated, the Take Along Tunes toy plays a series of excerpts from Classical- and Baroque-era (mostly) orchestral works while flashing colored lights; its purpose is to distract and occupy your baby while you’re forcing them to do something they don’t particularly enjoy (in our case, diaper changes). As musical toys go, it’s really not annoying, because the tunes are pleasant and the excerpts are long enough not to drive you up the wall with repetitiveness.

While there are some obvious, Greatest-Hits-of-the-Classical-Era-type selections (William Tell, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik), some other excerpts stumped me.

Sibelius comes to iPad

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And just like that, Sibelius has their own iPad app. This comes after yesterday’s news that Dorico has released a desktop-class iPad app. If you want to learn more about that, click that link. I have some early first impressions, a video, and a podcast interview with Product Marketing Manager Daniel Spreadbury.

I don’t have much to say about Sibelius coming to iPad because I didn’t have any access to it before today, and because it hasn’t been my primary notation editor for years. But from 30 minutes of playing with it, it is pretty powerful and will certainly offer competition in this space, which is good! I want pro iPad apps to get better. The thing that is most impressive about it is how well adapted to the iPad it appears. It has multitasking, Files app integration, and some really intuitive touch/Apple Pencil touch gestures for note input that offer a new kind of ease and accuracy I wasn’t quite expecting.

You can watch a First Look video from Scoring Notes below and read their review here. You can download Sibelius for iPad here.

Dorico for iPad: First Impressions

Dorico for iPad!

Listen to my podcast interview with Daniel Spreadbury (Product Marketing Manager) about Dorico for the iPad.

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

Too Long; Didn't Read:

Dorico for iPad is out today! You can read their announcement here. It's a desktop-class adaptation, which includes most of the features I need for my everyday work as a music teacher. I am beyond excited that a major professional scoring app has come to the iPad for two reasons:

  1. I depend on iOS for getting much of my work done. There are still apps and workflows that require me to take out my Mac, and I am delighted whenever the release of a professional iPad app lessons these occurrences.

  2. Our niche professional corner of the world is receiving legitimate, pro-featured, software for iPadOS, a market that is still light on “pro” software, even from Apple themselves (like, for real... where is Logic Pro on iPad?). While many "pro" iPad apps are companion experiences to bigger desktop versions, Dorico brings a whole lot of the power from its desktop app to its mobile version, proving that the iPad can be every bit as "pro" as its name suggests.

Dorico for iPad's free tier is similar to their free desktop offering Dorico SE, and an in-app subscription adds features comparable to their Dorico Elements version. The iPad app has new features, many of which are optimizations for touch, including several new input methods (piano, fretboard, drum pads, and a new Key Editor). Dorico for iPad doesn't do everything. Serious composers and power users might need the desktop for some things. For me, a middle school band director, it will fill most of my iOS composing needs.

There are some quirks due to Dorico not supporting features that make iPad apps feel like iPad apps: full Apple Pencil support, responsive touch gestures, file system integration, Magic Keyboard/trackpad support, and multitasking are examples of this. While there is room for improvement, it's bold for the Dorico team to pack a desktop-class experience into the first version. I am thankful for their hard work and wish the Dorico team future success on this project.

Video

Watch Dorico for iPad in action.

Some Musings on Professional iPad Apps

When my long-time favorite iPad app (forScore) came to the Mac earlier this year, I wrote about it.

While forScore was one of the few remaining iPad apps I wanted on Mac, there are, similarly, plenty of Mac apps I would still love to see on iPad.

One could argue that with the latest iPad hardware (featuring M1 chips), there is no excuse for professional apps not to run on the platform. I agree! The iPad has more than enough processing power, all of the necessary input devices (if you have a keyboard and mouse), and even some things that the Mac doesn't have (like touch support and the Apple Pencil).

The issue of why the iPad lacks pro apps is too broad to cover here, but it has much to do with how Apple has positioned iPadOS and the App Store model over the past 10 years. It is becoming easier than ever to make a cross-platform app, but this doesn't change the fact that there are still some fundamentally dissimilar aspects of developing for iOS and macOS. The arguably bigger problem is that the App Store (even with fewer sandboxing limitations in recent years) is hostile towards the exact kind of developers who cater to niche professionals like composers and music teachers.

For example, companies who make digital audio workstations and notation editors have traditionally charged prices in the multiple hundreds of dollars, costs which the mobile market has decided is not acceptable. Such developers also offer things like crossgrade/upgrade/educational pricing, group licenses, and more. These are not feasible in the current-day App Store, and I think Apple is oblivious to keep calling the iPad Pro the iPad Pro while not providing more flexible App Store rules. This is not to mention that Apple hasn’t even brought their professional apps (Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Xcode), to the iPad.

Lot's of options!

I am dependent on my iPad and prefer to work on it whenever possible. Its light form factor and simple operating system make me feel more nimble moving in and out of apps. Dorico has always been one of the reasons I have to take my Mac out of my bag when I am sitting on the couch wrapping up some school work late at night. Even though there are good score apps on iPad, the convenience of leaning back on the couch to get work done has been counterbalanced by needing to import and export XML files back and forth, just to get these apps to talk to Dorico on desktop.

It is within that context that I am pleased to say Dorico is available for iPad today. It's the first of the major professional desktop scoring apps to be released on a mobile platform, and after just a few weeks of use, I can tell that it will become my primary notation editor on iOS.

I'm a Music Teacher

Because I am a music teacher, my opinions about scoring software are viewed through the lens of someone who does not depend on the entire feature set of Dorico, particularly engraving and playback. This means I usually need to get in and out of the program fast and that I am often performing tasks like writing scale exercises, reconstructing missing bass clarinet parts from my library, or adding percussion instruments to the score of a piece on our next concert. That said, I admire tools that empower me to work efficiently, and for notation, Dorico is that tool.

If you are looking for a professional composing perspective, and a more comprehensive feature overview, I recommend the Scoring Notes review of Dorico for iPad.

Dorico for iPad and Its Features

Dorico for iPad is an ambitious and stellar 1.0 that should make every developer of pro software take note and get to work.

The Dorico team has brought many of the core functions that make Dorico so powerful on Mac and Windows to the iPad version. All of the features I depend on are all there. It has keyboard input, powerful pop-overs, MIDI controller input, and all of the custom Notation and Layout Options that are available on desktop. It even has the same custom keyboard shortcut editor.

Dorico is available for free with a set of features very similar to their desktop offering Dorico SE. If you subscribe to the app through In-App Purchase, features are added which bring in line with the experience of using Dorico Elements.

Just look at all of these notation options. It's just like the Mac!

Layout options are all there too.

It has a keyboard shortcuts manager!

Dorico for iPad has all of the modes you would expect: Setup, Write, Engrave, and Play. There is no Print mode and I don't miss it. All of the export options I use regularly are conveniently accessed through a share button in the upper right corner of the application. Play mode supports third-party iOS plugins. This is certainly more limiting than desktop, because iOS doesn’t support traditional VSTs, but this is also not a feature I take advantage of anyway.

Dorico for iPad is so much Dorico that it is hard to write about it without reviewing the existing desktop versions, which is not something I have set out to do here. That said, it is worth noting some of the things that are added for touch, and some of the quirks that result from a desktop app being so faithfully reproduced on a touch-based tablet.

One of the things that makes Dorico on iPad feel so faithful to the desktop version is that computer keyboard input is nearly identical with a Magic Keyboard attached. Once I got acclimated to the small differences in the user interface, I comfortably began recalling all the same shortcuts and workflows I am used to.

Because this version is designed to be used without the keyboard attached, there are some added on-screen buttons for touch control. Extra toolbar buttons for things like delete, repeat, undo, redo, and moving the arrow keys, are all included.

A floating toolbar, which can be moved around on the screen, allows common note adjustments to be made by finger. This toolbar includes things like moving a selected note up/down, shifting a selection of notes right or left by a 16th note, etc...

This new toolbar allows for common note adjustments, typically done by a computer keyboard, to be performed by touch.

Holding on the score with one finger and then dragging displays a rectangle on-screen that can select multiple elements of the score at once. And there are also some new methods of touch input:

  • An on-screen piano, which you can pan across and resize by dragging and pinching.

The on-screen piano.

  • A fretboard for instruments like guitar.

The fretboard

  • Drum pads for percussion instruments (much more intuitive for writing drum set parts in my opinion.)

Drum pads.

  • An integrated mixer which you can see right inside of Write mode.

The Integrated Mixer

  • A new Key Editor. I can best describe the Key Editor as a piano roll editing tool for the notes of your score. Users who are familiar with MIDI note editing in a digital audio workstation will love visualizing the notes of the staff as colorful rectangles. They can be dragged vertically to change pitch, horizontally to change the rhythm, and can be resized to adjust the duration. It is an intuitive way to work, particularly for touch.

Dorico for iPad!

Native Software

There will always be room for growth. What I want most from future iterations of Dorico on iPad can be best explained in the context of the forScore article I linked at the top of this post. forScore is a beloved app amongst musicians that is iPad-first but has recently been ported to the Mac through Apple's Catalyst technology. My TL;DR in my forScore Mac review was basically to say that it's amazing to have such an indispensable music app on Mac, even though it has some quirks relating to the fact that some iPad paradigms don't translate to the Mac.

My Dorico first impressions are more or less the inverse of that statement. Dorico for iPad is desktop-class. What I'd like to see from it down the road is to become more iPad-native through taking advantage of common features on the platform. Dorico is written using Qt, a development platform that makes it easy to write one code base for Windows and Mac. This same development platform is what made it easier to bring Dorico to the iPad now, but for this same reason, I can understand that the team had their hands full prioritizing the features for the first version.

Now that the iPad Pro has excellent trackpad, keyboard, and mouse support, I don't feel that different using it than I do my Mac in many instances. While Dorico's "desktop-ness" is its greatest strength, its fluency makes the missing iPad-isms more apparent. Here are a few:

  • Dorico doesn't have Apple Pencil support (with the exception of it imitating a touch in some circumstances).

  • Dorico does not work with the native File picker, which is to say that you can't open a Dorico project from your Dropbox or iCloud Drive within the Files app, edit it, and then save it back to the original location. You must instead import it from within the Dorico app, which then makes a copy inside of the app. You can export it back to the original location you pulled it from, but don't forget to delete the old copy! See an image below of OmniOutliner, a popular outlining app for iPad. When launched, it shows the same interface as the Files app. A document can be selected, edited, and saved back to the same location. I would love to see Dorico add this feature down the road.

OmniOutliner is a third-party, document-based, app on iOS that opens straight to the Files app, where you can select OmniOutliner documents, edit them, and save them back to the same place (just like on Mac). I’d like to see this come to Dorico in the future.

  • Trackpad support isn't native. Magic Keyboard users will note that two-finger swiping (which moves around the score in the Mac version) does nothing on iPad. Because the Magic Trackpad can simulate a finger, clicking and dragging with one finger will simulate the gesture of dragging the score around.
  • Dorico does not support multitasking features like Split View. This means that another app cannot share the screen at the same time unless it is in Slide Over mode which means it is a tiny, iPhone-sized, app that floats above Dorico and covers part of the information on the screen. One of my favorite workflows with notation software is to open it on half of the screen while referencing another score in forScore on the other half. The image below depicts forScore on screen at the same time as Dorico in Slide Over.

Using Dorico with forScore as a Slide Over app.

Elephants, Pencils, and Software Instruments

The obvious elephant in the room is StaffPad. StaffPad is not always included in conversations about major pro notation software (Sibelius, Finale, Dorico), but relative to the power of most iPad software in the App Store, it deserves to be a part of the conversation. I covered StaffPad here.

StaffPad feels very iPad-native and supports a premium design experience and numerous pro-features, like, for example, a store of top-of-the-line audio plugins within the app.

While the comparison to Dorico is fair, I also feel like StaffPad is aiming for a different experience. Sure, they will compete to some extent, but StaffPad is aiming at new innovative methods of input, and high-end audio output that is all intuitively integrated into the same package. For example, StaffPad features Apple Pencil gestures for note input, exclusively, and a forthcoming feature will listen to you play an instrument in the microphone and transcribe you in real-time. StaffPad's third-party software instruments sound great and require little fuss to set up. It’s all a very iPad-first experience. But it's an iPad-only experience (unless you are also using it on Windows).

The strength of Dorico on iPad is that you are getting much of the power of the desktop version, on iOS. This means that there are some quirks, but that you are ultimately less inhibited by what you can produce. Dorico’s Engrave mode allows you to get more customizable, better looking, scores and note input in the Write mode is just as easy to do with a computer keyboard or MIDI controller as it is on a desktop.

I do appreciate the novelty of writing scores with the Apple Pencil. It feels nice. In fairness to Dorico, I wanted to see if I am more efficient using this method. I took about 10 excerpts from my music teaching resource library (music I would use a notation editor for in real life) and timed myself recreating these excerpts into both StaffPad and Dorico.

Much like using the self-checkout lane of a grocery store, I “felt” faster in StaffPad, but I was about twice as fast at note entry using Dorico in every instance. I was also 100 percent sure that the note I input would be the note that appeared on the screen.

I appreciate that there is competition in this space, and I think that stylus input has a place in the future of mobile score software. But I have shifted most of my score work on iOS to Dorico, and will probably continue to do so in the future. It sure is great having another professional Mac app on iPad. Here’s to hoping that my other tools like Logic, Final Cut, and Descript are next in line.

Thanks Dorico team for an ambitious and excellent release. I am looking forward to years of updates.

"What Do We Keep?" Session Notes | Music Ed Tech Conference | July 20, 2021 - 2pm

CleanShot 2021-07-19 at 13.15.45.png

Thanks for coming to my session today! Below you will find links to everything mentioned in the session, and more!

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TAKE LEAVE TRANSFORM

TAKE: Software that empowers student creativity

LEAVE: Virtual performances

TRANSFORM:

  • Podcast episode about transforming the music classroom with tech, featuring Will Kuhn and Ethan Hein:

TAKE: Software that empowers efficiency and teacher creativity

  • Evernote - Cross platform service and app for managing all your notes, research, and resources
  • Spark Mail - Free Apple and Android app with supercharged email features
  • Drafts | Where Text Starts
  • Todoist - Cross-platform task management app
  • OmniFocus - My preferred task management app
  • About my task and time management workflow as a music teacher:

LEAVE: Software that gets in the way

  • LMS--> Find the point of diminishing return. Don't do more work than actually gets results!

TRANSFORM: Practice resources and play-alongs

TAKE: Digital communication

  • Use effective digital communication tools when they eliminate unnecessary logistics!

LEAVE: Lengthy and verbose documents

  • Short, sweet, detailed, and frequent communication is idea in the digital age.

TRANSFORM: New models for non-musical logistics and collaboration

TAKE: Microphones, audio interfaces

LEAVE: need to be tethered to a computer

TRANSFORM: take the best of both

  • Wenger modular stand
  • Being tethered to a computer means more resources at your finger tips!
  • Farrago soundboard app
  • Other Rogue Amoeba apps that are indispensable for making content and wrangling audio: Audio Hijack, Loopback, and Soundsource. Check out their education discount.
  • AirServer app which lets you share an iOS screen to a computer
  • Podcast episode featuring maker of Audio Hijack, Farrago, Soundsource, and Loopback