Required Comment 1: What about the wiki?

Comment before class on Thursday
Please visit the wiki for the Tchaik project. Given that this is a quick and dirty first try at something that might hold potential for integrating technology into ensemble settings, explore, comment, and critique.
We will do something similar next semester (I’m planning this: we’ll work with an already arranged Sousa march [...]

Quick Bytes: “no budget” music technology

In the interviews you conducted with music teachers, many of you noted that cost and availability are an issue. For just a moment, I want to focus on the wealth of technology resources that are available for next to nothing. If I were running a music program, and I did not have any technology resources, [...]

Quick Bytes: virtual instruments

One area that we could spend a lot of time on in this class, but which will be limited to this post, is the realm of instrument construction. Of course, the history of music is filled with the introduction of new instruments and musicians who are ready to exploit the new possibilities an instrument provides, [...]

Quick Bytes: speaking of the public domain…

This nugget from NYTimes.com, from an article on “cloning” redwood trees (see last sentence of this fragment, which seems to suggest that the default for tree DNA would be a patent…):
The plan is to create a collection of clones from at least 100 of the tallest and oldest redwood trees available for cloning and donate [...]

Variations on a Theme

Just as is the case with most music education software, SmartMusic now has a similar counterpart called StarPlay. SmartMusic is made by Coda, the producers of the Finale line of products, and StarPlay was done by Sibelius. This is a new product, so I would encourage you to follow its development as it will likely [...]

Quick Bytes: can we do this in a music class?

Last week, I went to the opening of an exhibition of undergraduate work from the ceramics department. There was a lot of exciting work, but the thing I was most interested in was a collaborative piece exhibited at the entrance to the show.
As you can see below, each person from the exhibit created a different [...]

Quick Bytes: two amazing articles

There are two articles that were published this week in the New Yorker, and I’m right on the edge of making them required reading, except that that would take the fun out of them…
Sasha Frere-Jones talks about miscegenation in music in his article “A Paler Shade of White“. In this fascinating piece, he talks about [...]

Garageband thoughts

After your initial experience with Garageband, please respond to one or more of the previously posed questions:
1) Is there educational value in using Garageband?
2) Are there potential problems for music educators misusing Garageband?
3) What types of learning activities can and should we provide to students utilizing Garageband?
Please explain.

Quick Bytes: how much for that Radiohead download?

Apparently, $8 on average… [NYTimes]

Quick Bytes: Captured and reCAPTCHAed!

Two short pieces that show the good and bad of our digital lives at the moment:
1. You may have heard that a jury recently awarded the recording industry (RIAA) over $200,000 in damages against a woman who was sharing 24 songs via Kazaa on her home computer. Wired has a story that quotes the jury [...]