Top 10 Reasons to use Loop-Based Music Software in Music Class

Why use loop-based composition software in a music class?
Here are 10 reasons:

1. Students don't need prior knowledge of music fundamentals (though this knowledge certainly helps)
2. It is empowering when students are working on "real" music in their own way.
3. It is empowering because students can work on projects for "real world" purposes. (ie..creating music for school functions, websites; podcasting)
4. It is empowering because students can export their work as Mp3 files and share them on the web or put them on their i-pods where their name comes up as "the artist"
5. Music class becomes inextricably linked with technology which means two budgets feed the program.
6. All Music Standards can be taught in some way using loop-based composition
7. Students love it.
8. The software is fairly inexpensive given the possibilities
9. Independent work allows for one-on-one interaction between teacher and student. Perfect for differentiating learning.
10. Public Relations: When students talk up their experiences with loop-based composition, they spread the word that something exciting is happening in music at school (beyond the band and choral programs.)

More about Garageband
More about Sony Acid. Using Sony Acid to teach Song Form

Technorati Tags: sony acid,garageband,digital music,music technology

The Future of Music Is In The Middle

photo by wadem on flickr

There are claims that streaming music is not the future of music because:

1-wireless connections are unreliable
and
2-people like to "own things"

I would agree but does the future of consumer music need to be an 'either/or' proposition? There are many music professionals and enthusiasts who use both streaming and 'owned' music for different purposes in different contexts.

As Siddhartha learned and advocated, the answer lies in the middle. Hybrid models of digital products are the key to the future-especially in music. The reliability of streaming music will improve with better technology in the future and people will still want to own content.

Google Gives Apple A Run For It's Money

Google has launched it's music service quietly, without much fanfare. The company has partnered up with imeem, Lala.com, Myspace,Pandora and Rhapsody. Apple wasn't invited to the party. Taking a closer look it's evident that Apple's i-Tunes just got whacked with a sucker punch. Google's service is subtle. If you search for an artist and/or song using Google's regular search engine, the appropriate match will now be displayed as number one in the results complete with a player provided by LALA that will play any song once through and then any number of times as 30 seconds samples.

Purchasing the track is made simple especially if you use GOOGLE CHECKOUT. Tracks are, on average, .40 cents cheaper than i-Tunes tracks (.89 cents instead of the $1.29) and are delivered as Mp3's for universal playability.

Coming soon: an i-phone app and wireless streaming. That giant sucking sound? That would be digital music market share being transferred to the Google side of the fence. Great times, these, since this is probably not the end of the story. If .89 cents is the new 1.29, could .49 be far away? When all the world is streaming music only, what's that cost? .10 , .05? Nothing?

It all just might become FREE.

Download Music At Jamendo

On Jamendo artists allow anyone to download and share their music. It's free, legal and unlimited.

Online Music Lessons taught by Artists!

There's nothing like a great song to inspire music fans to want to learn to play it themselves, but doing it right is rarely easy. Enter Now Play It, a UK-based site that offers video instruction taught by the artists themselves.

Launched last year, Now Play It aims to get people as close to the artists and songs they love as possible. To do that, it offers downloadable video tutorials on the art and craft of playing hundreds of different songs on guitar, bass, piano or drums, many of them led by the artists who wrote or perform them. Paul McCartney, Blur and KT Tunstall are among the artists currently offering instruction on the site, and users can search for tutorials by artist, song, instrument, difficulty level or tutor. Now Play It's full tutorials, priced at GBP 3.99, are typically split into three parts—lesson, recap and play-through—and are at least 15 minutes long. In-house tutorials follow the same format but with instruction by a Now Play It tutor instead. 'Lite' tutorials, meanwhile, are just two parts—play-through and recap—and are generally between three and six minutes long; pricing is GBP 1.99. Downloads are available in MP4 or Windows Media Video formats.

With Generation C's penchant for content production, Now Play It is sure to find an enthusiastic audience among the many consumers out there seeking to create, to express themselves and to make the music they love their own. Being taught by a well-known artist, meanwhile—even if by video—is sure to give them a heaping helping of status skills and stories to share about the experience. Now Play It currently offers a forum for community discussion, but a logical next step, it seems to us, would be to give consumers a place to show off the results of their instruction with video and recordings of them playing the music they learned—along with opportunities to critique and discuss. If there's anything better than content, it's content plus community! 

Website: www.nowplayit.com

Spotted by: Lloyd Salmons

Some More Great Trombone Playing (and a Little Craziness)

Since My Music Tech is on a Trombone kick, check out this gem from a Swede with some MAJOR Trombone skills. The juxtaposition of the prom dress and the jazz playing is priceless. Oh, the dancing just adds a cherry on top!

Using Creative Commons To Create New Works

In the last post, I provided a link to better help (music) educators understand how they can use copyrighted material.

Taking this a step further, here's an excellent introduction about Creative Commons. Go Create!

Matisyahu: Rock, Reggae and Religion

When Matisyahu emerged with his debut album, Shake Off the Dust...Arise, in 2004, his musical persona seemed to some a novelty. Here was a Hasidic Jew, dressed in a black suit with a broad-brimmed black hat worn over a yarmulke, and sporting a full, untrimmed beard, who nevertheless performed toasting raps about the glories of traditional Judaism over reggae beats in a dancehall style directly from Jamaica, punctuating his performances with stage diving. It may have seemed like a joke at first, but Matisyahu was serious, and he began to attract press notices to go with the enthusiastic audiences that packed his concerts. (by William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide)

This song, Time of Your Song is classic Matisyahu. You just might get hooked.

Share and Listen To Music Legally Without Being Social

While the battle between the RIAA and the People rages on, I have been lately trying to find useful ways to embed and stream music in a manner that will not allow distribution of the same music. Of course, social music sites such as LastFM allow this sort of thing but I find there is a limitation.

I'm not interested in "connecting with others" based on musical tastes. Sometimes, I want to embed and stream music to enhance a blog post. Sometimes (since I teach music), I want to provide an example of some musical style or genre.

This is where Seeqpod comes in. How easy it is to:
1-Search for music you're looking for
2-Copy code to embed
3-Embed the code into your webpage or blog.

The simplicity makes Seeqpod a real pleasure to use. Two thumbs up for not having to be social about it and for not having to "create an account" either.

Example:

The Future And MySpace Music

MySpace Music is set to launch sometime next week. It will offer free streams of full-length tracks from all the major labels, legitimizing the advertising-supported model that is beginning to challenge iTunes’ pay-per-download approach. It will be more akin to a subscription model like Rhapsody’s, but without the subscription.

The big unanswered question is whether MySpace Music will pay music labels lower prices (or simply accept a share of MySpace Music’s revenues). The music industry desperately needs a new digital business model. There is no question about that. But if the labels are going to allow MySpace Music to pay less per stream or not at all, and they themselves are joint venture partners in MySpace Music, that will open them up to charges of preferential pricing, collusion, and price discrimination.

Read more at TechCrunch.

Free Mp3 Downloads and Music Player in Qtrax

My Music Tech is always on the lookout for new ways to experience digital music. Qtrax seems to hold some promise.

Qtrax is a "free and legal download service" and offers a slick interface for listening to your music. At the moment it is only available for Windows but it comes with a Firefox plug-in. Go give it a test drive.

Marketing Music To Kids

Some bands know how to have fun. Kids love to have fun. That's why fun bands eventually make albums for kids. The latest band to do just that is the Barenaked Ladies and the album is called Snacktime. The result is a win-win situation. Young kids learn, older kids appreciate the humor and the Barenaked Ladies have (had) a blast making the album.

It's absolutely brilliant and every Mom, Dad and teacher should own a copy. Here's a video using the music from the song "7,8,9" from that album.

2 Music Lessons Using Finale Notepad

Here are two lessons I use with middle school music technology students:

Lesson 1- Using the free Finale Notepad, have students input music. Call them "scribes for the digital age". Talk about how scribes used to re-write the works of the Masters prior to the printing press. I usually create PDF versions of simple folks songs/compositions for them to "copy" into Finale Notepad.

Students simultaneously learn about key signature, time signature, note values, clefs, and instrumentation. I do this after an extended examination of MIDI vs. MP3. I have students input 5 different compositions of increasing difficulty (the most difficult compositions have ties, rests and dotted rhythms). As a variation, have students change the instrumentation.

Lesson 2- Create a Finale file which contains the rhythm for the song Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star all written on the note "C". Write out a Bass line as well. Have students drag the remaining notes (of the melodic line) to their proper place on the staff. Listening, analyzing, problem solving are all outcomes of this lesson. There is a tremendous source of pride in students once they get it right.

Online Music Is Here To Stay

Despite the efforts of the RIAA to derail online music sales, they are soaring. Global sales of music online rose by 40 percent in 2007, confirming the soaring popularity of legal Internet-based music stores, said an industry report published Thursday. Read more here.

Is 'Free' the New Music Download Pricing Model?

i-Tunes is getting a little run for it's money by several artists who are choosing to control distribution of their musical creations. In one of the boldest moves yet, Radiohead (and several others) are letting consumers decide what to pay. Of course, some will pay nothing but there's evidence that people are paying quite a bit more.

To test the validity of the claim, I just downloaded Radiohead's new album for free.
You could too here.

Add the album to your 'basket'
Then when you go to check out add "0.00" for the price.
Bingo. It's yours.

And here's a NY Times article about it.

I like this kind of "free market"

Cheers!