Last week, Apple aquired classical music streaming service Primephonic. This service is very similar to [IDAGIO](https://idagio.com) which I use and have written about here before.
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA AND LONDON Apple today announced it has acquired Primephonic, the renowned classical music streaming service that offers an outstanding listening experience with search and browse functionality optimized for classical, premium-quality audio, handpicked expert recommendations, and extensive contextual details on repertoire and recordings.
With the addition of Primephonic, Apple Music subscribers will get a significantly improved classical music experience beginning with Primephonic playlists and exclusive audio content. In the coming months, Apple Music Classical fans will get a dedicated experience with the best features of Primephonic, including better browsing and search capabilities by composer and by repertoire, detailed displays of classical music metadata, plus new features and benefits.
Primephonic is no longer available for new subscribers and will be taken offline beginning September 7. Apple Music plans to launch a dedicated classical music app next year combining Primephonic’s classical user interface that fans have grown to love with more added features. In the meantime, current Primephonic subscribers will receive six months of Apple Music for free, providing access to hundreds of thousands of classical albums, all in Lossless and high-resolution audio, as well as hundreds of classical albums in Apple Music’s Spatial Audio, with new albums added regularly.
I would have never guessed that a company as big as Apple would dedicate resources to solving a problem like classical music metadata but I will take it. This will mean that I can use my same Apple Music account, library, and payment, and get a superior searching experience. Viewed simply as a utility, this seems like a win.
I wonder if this means that Apple is aware and working on the many other musical metadata problems in other styles. For example, in jazz, it would be great to search a recording by personnel, soloists, recording enegeniers, and more.
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.
I am pleased to be a guest on the iPad Pros podcast this week to talk about Dorico and Sibelius for iPad.
Tim Chaten does an awesome job with this show and has a background in composition. If you want to spend quite a bit of time with us and hear my thoughts on these two professional scoring programs for iPad, give it a listen!
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!
Lately, I’ve been going live at least once a month to cover some kind of way that I use technology to be more efficient in the classroom. I’m doing this mostly for fun, but also to provide Patreon subscribers with more content (the videos remain permanently available to supporters).
I’m going live tomorrow, September 4, around 11 am EST to talk about how I make and work with seating charts digitally. It should be fun! Join me on Twitch, YouTube, or Twitter to tune in. You can follow me using the social icons at the bottom of this site.
I am presenting at the Howard County Public School System Music Professional Development on August 23, 2021.
These are the notes for that session...
Related Blog Posts
"What Do We Keep?" - This presentation is an loosely adapted from a post I wrote for the NAfME blog titled "Take, Leave, Transform! What Do We Keep from Last School Year", which was based on a presentation I gave at the Music Ed Tech Conference this past summer. Check it out for more resources and ideas, and most importantly, links to the software mentioned in today's session.
"What Do We Keep?"" Session Notes - If you want just the links and resources from the blog post above, click here.
Getting Your Students to Compose - Click here to read more about implementing Putting the E in Ensemble and to listen to my interview with Alex Shapiro.
"Develop Performance Skills Remotely" - TMEA Presentation Notes - Some of the videos in today's presentation were taken from my TMEA presentation this past year. Click here to watch the entire thing and receive the session notes.
Making Just Intonation Play-Alongs with Tonal Energy Tuner - Click here to read my blog post about making play-along tracks using the TE Tuner app.
Related Podcast Episodes
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)
Related YouTube Videos
Develop Performance Skills Remotely with Cloud Software - YouTube
I’m getting ukuleles for my general music classes this year so I thought it would be natural to have past guest Chris Russell on the podcast. He is a technology expert and maker of many online ukulele resources, amongst his many other skills.
I learned a lot talking to him. The conversation was packed with resources for teachers looking to better their ukulele skills so be sure to scroll down and check out all of the resources he mentions on the show, which I have provided links for.
Episode Description
Robby is getting ukeleles to teach general music this year. Chris Russel (tech and ukelele specialist) joins the show to talk about how to get the best use out of them. We also talk about the state of tech in music ed.
Full Topics:
Ukelele pedagogy
Where to find ukelele resources online
How to integrate ukelele and technology
The state of technology in music education
Apple's App-centric and native approach to education vs. Google's web-centric approach
Our favorite apps, albums, and tech tips of the week
The tools and process Chris uses to make ukelele play-along videos on his iPad (in the post-show for Patreon subscribers)
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:
Students and technology
Teachers and technology
Communication
Hardware
Assessment
Before we get started, here are a few things to take note of.
This blog post originally appeared on the NAfME blog. If you would like, you can read it there._
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Student self-grading
Student-created rubrics
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.
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.
Students and Teachers out there, how about Craft Pro for Free? 🤯 Our Back to School offer 🎒 just started and will be available until the end of September! 💥 As of the latest release: Customisation Options + Widget + Shortcuts Update = ❤️ https://t.co/Ps4p7S905W
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.
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.
