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Robby Burns
David MacDonald unboxes the Odla music notation ...
David MacDonald unboxes the Odla music notation controller

Introducing MusicFirst Elementary — Dr. James Frankel

Introducing MusicFirst Elementary — Dr. James Frankel:

After 4 years of work, thousands of pages of lessons plans, more than 1,000 interactive resources, and the tireless work of an amazing team of teachers and developers from our award-winning partners Charanga, I am so very proud to introduce you to a truly revolutionary music curriculum for Grades K-5 - MusicFirst Elementary, powered by Charanga. Unlike other online collections of resources that are targeted to the elementary music teacher, this is the first complete sequential K-5 music curriculum to hit the market in over a decade, and it is truly spectacular. The following provides an overview of what the curriculum includes, and most importantly, how you can preview it for yourself. Keep reading here…

Soundboard app Farrago goes to version 2

Of all my favorite apps, Farrago is often one that my other colleagues instantly get the appeal of because of its colorful user interface, which depicts a grid of audio blocks.

Farrago has become the default way that I play soundbites, audio recordings, and practice tracks tracks for my band students. I have organized my Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks into a grid of color-coded exercises (organized by circle of fifths). I used to use iTunes for this, but the grid of squares is so much easier to navigate and operate during a busy rehearsal.

I have been beta testing Farrago 2 for months now and I am thrilled to say that it takes all of my workflows to the next level and even introduces new workflow possibilities that elevate my teaching.

Farrago 2 introduces numerous improvements and feature updates, which you can read about here.

My favorites are the integration with FreeSounds.org, Shortcuts, and Stream Deck. Watch the video below to see these features in action.

Learn more about Rogue Amoeba’s awesome apps on the podcast episode below.

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Forscore 14 Automation Links

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forScore 14 came out last month. It is an awesome release which includes updates to the metadata panel, tuner, Apple Pencil support, and other redesigned user interface elements. You can read about all the details here.

My favorite feture in this update is called Automation Links. The feature allows you to copy a link to a score (or a page within a score) to your clipboard and paste it somewhere else. This kind of deep linking has become a core part of my productivity workflow over the years. Most of my productivity tools offer a shortcut like this, and it is so awesome to see the feature added to one of my more musically specific apps.

Watch the video below to see the feature in action along with two demos of how I use the feature to teach music more efficiently.

Note: Automation Links are a paid forScore Pro feature.

What Does It Mean To Be Creative? - Off the Beaten Path

Theresa is addressing important questions on her blog this week. Stay tuned for a near future episode of Music Ed Tech Talk. She is the next guest.

What Does It Mean To Be Creative? - Off the Beaten Path:

Creativity is a word we hear often in education, especially in music education, and it’s something I’ve become quite passionate about in the last few years. How are we, as music educators, offering opportunities for students to be creative? When do students get to create their own music and make their own musical decisions, instead of only recreating someone else’s music and performing music as dictated by someone else? Keep reading here…

Apple Music Classical is out

Apple Music Classical is out! MacStories has a detailed overview here.

Why this app needs to exist and exactly what kind of problem it solves has been covered a little bit here on the blog and on the podcast over the years. I have been using and recomending IDAGIO for some time now.

I have been using Apple Music Classical a lot since last night, and while it leaves a lot to be desired (like an iPad, Mac, and car app!), it is good enough for me to replace IDAGIO.

The fact that it links to my existing Apple Music account and library means that I can continue using the standard Apple Music app in combination with it. One library for all of my music, but two app interfaces to interact with it, depending on which context makes the most sense.

I plan to cover this app on the podcast some time soon. You can download Apple Music Classical here.

Actions for Obsidian Released

You may have heard me talk about the note app Obsidian here a lot over the past year (like for example here, here, or here). I also really like automating my life with the Apple Shortcuts app (which you can read about here, here again, or here).

Obsidian is already very automatable, but using Shortcuts for the job makes everything way easier and less abstract. I am happy to report that there is now an awesome Mac app which adds Obsidian actions to the Shortcuts app.

Actions for Obsidian is the missing link between Obsidian and macOS / iOS. It brings 30+ Shortcuts actions into the Shortcuts app to help bring your notes and automations together. The Mac app is out now and the iOS version is coming soon.

From the developer:

Actions for Obsidian is a macOS application that adds over 30 Shortcuts actions for working with Obsidian notes and vaults, making Obsidian a first-class citizen in Apple's Shortcuts app.

Obsidian is very powerful, and its large community has created hundreds of useful plugins that make working inside an Obsidian vault even more powerful and easier, but there was no integration with macOS and Apple's automation ecosystem until now. Actions for Obsidian adds that integration and makes it easy to bring information from other apps into your notes, or to bring information from your vaults into other apps.

I have been testing the app for a bit now, and it has really cleaned up a lot of my daily workflows.

For example, here is a Shortcut that takes looks at my daily calendar events, creates a note for each of them all in Obsidian, and then preappends my Obsidian Daily Note with links out to all of them so that they are associated with the current day.

That last action in the sequence is provided and made possible by Actions for Obsidian. You can download the app here and get ideas for how to use it in their Workflow Library.

Here is a little sample of what calendar notes look like when embedded in my daily note:

Actions for Obsidian is free to download with a 14 day trial period. It has a "pay what you want pricing" starting at $9.99.

Music Ed Tech Talk featuring Mark Connor

I am thrilled to have music educator, composer, and host of The Everything Band podcast, Mark Connor, on the latest episode of Music Ed Tech Talk!

Mark Connor (composer, music educator, and host of The Everything Band podcast) joins the show. We stay up way past our bedtime to talk about teaching music, music theory, composition, podcasting, our favorite tools, and more.

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Thanks to my sponsors this month, Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks.

Show Notes:

Where to Find Us:

Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book

Mark - Website

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Web Push for Web Apps on iOS and iPadOS | WebKit

A future iOS update is bringing cool new features to Safari. These features will make web apps that are saved as icons to the home screen function more like regular apps. They will be able to show notification badges and even push notifications to the lock screen.

There are some good updates coming for third-party browsers too. Very cool.

Web Push for Web Apps on iOS and iPadOS | WebKit

Now with iOS and iPadOS 16.4 beta 1, we are adding support for Web Push to Home Screen web apps. Web Push makes it possible for web developers to send push notifications to their users through the use of Push API, Notifications API, and Service Workers all working together.

A web app that has been added to the Home Screen can request permission to receive push notifications as long as that request is in response to direct user interaction — such as tapping on a ‘subscribe’ button provided by the web app. iOS or iPadOS will prompt the user to give the web app permission to send notifications. The user can then manage those permissions per web app in Notifications Settings — just like any other app on iPhone and iPad.

The notifications from web apps work exactly like notifications from other apps. They show on the Lock Screen, in Notification Center, and on a paired Apple Watch.

9to5 Mac: Notability for iPad adds new ‘Pencil’ feature for a ‘lifelike handwriting experience’

9to5 Mac reports on an update to Notability. For a few years, I have been solidly in the GoodNotes camp when it comes to handwritten notes on iPad. It is great to see that there is still competition in this space.

Notability for iPad adds new ‘Pencil’ feature for a ‘lifelike handwriting experience’:

Notability, the popular note-taking app for iPhone and iPad, has been updated today with a new “Pencil” feature. According to the company, this feature brings “the most paper-like sketching experience to digital notetakers,” including support for the Apple Pencil as well.

MacStories -> The Practicality of Art in Software

This blog post from Federico Viticci over at MacStories is worth a read.

This part jumped out at me:

In bringing this back to software, it’s evident that – again, historically – Apple doesn’t believe in art as a veneer to make something “look good”. Art – whereby “art” we refer to the human care behind the design of software – is intrinsically tied to the technology that powers the computer. It’s the intersection of technology and liberal arts: skew toward one side more than the other, and you risk of losing the balance many of us like about Apple. Art in Apple’s software isn’t some secret ingredient that can just be added at the end of the process, like a spice: great design _is_ the process itself. Case in point: the Dynamic Island.

Federico argues that the iPad is not striking a balance between beautiful and useful. I agree with this point. After trying to use it like an equal counterpart to macOS in 2016-2019, I have been back to the Mac (so to speak) ever since.

The iPad makes a great digital piece of paper. And I think I am leveraging its strengths best when I use it exactly like that.

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