Have you ever wished you could just whip up a quick worksheet to use with one of your students that would address a particular concept? Joy, of the Color in My Piano blog, has put together a wonderful guide to using music fonts to create your own music worksheets! Like Joy, I use Finale to create and export graphics into worksheets, but I have rarely used music fonts for this purpose. I am thrilled to have this handy step-by-step guide and will definitely be referring back to it often!
Category Archives: Technology Tips
Interval Ear Training Without an App!
Those of you who have been around here for a while know that I probably couldn’t function as a teacher anymore without my amazing little iPod Touch. However, I realize that there are still holdouts among us who prefer to dwell in the Dark Ages. 
It’s getting harder to find non-app resources these days, but the folks at EasyEarTraining.com have a soft spot in their heart for the afore-mentioned teachers, and have put together a Free Interval Ear Training Pack that contains mp3 files.
According to their post, “The downloadable pack includes 5 MP3 files, each of which is about 3 minutes long. Each focuses on a different interval. Once you’ve downloaded the tracks and added them to your favourite music player, listen to them regularly. Ear training is a skill which you want to practise every day to see real improvement…”
Even though this is a great resource for any musician, I can especially see my highly aural learning students getting into something like this!
The 1-Minute Documentary Project
For Travel Tour (a.k.a. Group Class) #5 last night, one of our activities was what I dubbed, “The 1-Minute Documentary Project.” The idea was inspired by the fabulous Videolicious App, and it turned out to be a lot of fun!
I started by coming up with a handful of music-related topics, like a composer or a musical element. The students were grouped in pairs and each pair drew one of the topics. Here’s a rundown of the step-by-step process from that point on:
1. Read/study material about the topic (students were permitted to use any resource in the studio).
2. Select key information to include.
3. Write a 50 second narration.
4. Select and take 4-8 pictures to correlate with the narration.
5. Open Videolicious App.
6. Select General Video.
7. Select previously taken pictures in the order you want them to appear in the video.
8. Film one student saying the narration.
9. Select an excerpt from your music library to play in the background (if the students have time during their research they can find and download a piece of music for this purpose).
10. Preview and publish the video.
In addition to being a lot of fun, the process was educational and provided a great opportunity for the students to work together. There is still plenty of room for improvement in a variety of aspects (especially the direction of some of the pictures!), but I thought they did a good job in a limited time. And we all enjoyed watching the finished documentaries at the end of the class:
Levi and Andrew on Dynamics
Desiree and Hayley on Bartolomeo Cristofori
Amanda and Mercy on Tempo
Lucas and Landon on Key Signatures
Olive and Noelle on Articulation
Tommy on Domenico Scarlatti
Get Classroom Maestro 3.0 for Free (a $69 value!)
Zenph is one of the leading music technology organizations. I’ve been fascinated by them ever since reading an article last year about some of their projects. Their Classroom Maestro software sounds very interesting – and you can download it for free (a $69 value!) if you complete a brief survey. Classroom Maestro is described as being “musically intelligent” with a multitude of capabilities that enable you to demonstrate and capture notes, intervals, scales, and chords on your computer screen. Here’s a short video clip that will give you a better idea of what this great software enables you to do:
HT: Jennifer Foxx
Finale Notepad Available for Free Download
According to the Finale blog, today is the day that you can get your copy of the new 2012 Finale Notepad – for free! After switching from a free version several years ago to a paid NotePad, I’m thrilled to know that Finale is now making this fabulous software available for free again. I have the full Finale version in the studio, but NotePad is a great starter level software for students who want to notate their own compositions.
HT: MusTech.net
Happy Anniversary to EasyEarTraining.com and Giveaway of Chordelia App!
EasyEarTraining.com is celebrating their second anniversary this week, so it seemed like a great time to run a giveaway for them! They kindly offered to give a copy of their new Chordelia: Triad Tutor app to one Music Matters Blog reader in honor of the new blog design earlier this year, so I am thrilled to take them up on the offer!
EasyEarTraining.com says, “It has always been our goal to be a valuable online resource that meets the needs of musicians, audio professionals and anybody who is passionate about music.” Their website is choc-full of great articles and resources pertaining to ear-training and many other music topics. Be sure to check out their special free Valentine’s Day rhythm activities that you can download and use with your students!
I am really excited to use this app with my students and even sneak some time in on my own to help improve my recognition of chords by ear! And…if you’d like the chance to win this app for use in your studio, just leave a comment below. A winner will be selected using a random number generator at noon (CST) on Thursday, February 23, 2012.
Monday Mailbag – Video Recording on the iPod Touch
I’ve been looking into buying a tablet or something similar to use in my studio. I would like to be able to record video and watch it back right away, and then later upload to YouTube. Would the iPod Touch work well for that?
At this point I pretty much feel like the iPod Touch can do anything, including transport you into the galaxy. I use my iPod Touch almost every day to do video recording in the studio. Here are a couple recent videos I’ve shot in the studio using the iPod Touch exclusively:
This is a short compilation I put together using the free Splice app.
This narrated video was done using the free Videolicious app.
Here’s a simple, straight from the device, rendition of What a Friend We Have in Jesus that I recorded in preparation for the Christmas Recital. It’s as easy as finishing the recording and then selecting the option to upload it directly to your YouTube channel. The iPod Touch does all the work of connecting and uploading while you can move onto something else. Within minutes, the video is live and accessible to the world!
I’ve done lots of video recording over the years and this is by far the simplest and most efficient approach I’ve found!
Remember, if you have a question you’d like to contribute to next week’s Monday Mailbag, leave it in the comments below or send me an e-mail sometime this week with Monday Mailbag in the subject line!
Another Fun Video Editing App!
While the Videolicious app that I posted about several weeks ago is great for creating narratives, I’ve been looking for a video editing app that would retain the original audio from the video files. Splice is just what I was hoping for! It is super simple to create a timeline of video clips, edit them, add transitions, and either keep the original audio or add a different audio file. I love it! Here’s a quick compilation I put together from some videos I had on my iPod Touch just to get a feel for how it works:
Theory is the Grammar of Music
As many of you know, I rarely use theory books with my students, but we are constantly discussing theory concepts as they relate to the scales and music they are playing. It is so fun to do a chord analysis of a piece with a student and watch the proverbial light bulb come on as they discover that the passage that looked so intimidating is really just a progression of I-IV-V chords with which they are already well acquainted!
In this video clip introducing his new app Music Theory Pro, developer Dr. Joel Clifft makes the poignant observation that you wouldn’t ask a student to memorize a speech in a foreign language, having no idea what it means. Likewise, he calls music theory “the grammar of music” and encourages the use of fun games to teach and reinforce important concepts.
I haven’t downloaded the app yet, but it is next on my list. I’m excited to check it out and give it a try with my students!
Group Class Video Recap
Last night we had a group class here at the studio. I put together a short video recap using the awesome free app Videolicious!
[Find the full explanation of the Rhythm Chart game we played in the 5 for Fun! book of games and activities for the private piano lesson.]