I have been very happy to use Mr. Jay’s Music Room Rhythm Impostor resources over the past few weeks. It definitely is pop culture (though the popularity of Among Us is fading), but it has students decoding rhythm in a fun way.
While I am mostly happy about the resources, which are free, the rhythms seem to fade in at times and I even have a hard time discerning if a rhythm is correct.
Today I created my own (first) Rhythm Impostor game, figuring out what sounds to use, what fonts to use (I went for the same font through the entire video), and how to make things different. All of the video work is done with Luma Fusion (iPad App) and I had a very fulfilling time figuring out how to do things such as making the characters spin or having text emerge from the right hand side of the screen (Titles in Luma Fusion don’t work that way).
Once you have figured out how to create the video, making subsequent videos will take a fraction of the time.
If you want to use this, there is a link in the video that will take you to a PDF Checklist that students can use. This can be printed, but it is even better in a Classroom Management System such as Seesaw or Showbie (I’m not sure how Schoology handles writing on a PDF, as I haven’t used it for two years).
This resource is absolutely applicable for students in grades 3-12, provided that they have learned the “syncopa” rhythm (eighth-quarter-eighth).
There are some other great resources I have come across this year that I will share in future posts. They make music class incredibly fun, even in a year that we can’t really sing or make much music.
One of the (excellent/strong/trustworthy) voices in the world of Technology in Music Education is Katie Wardrobe, an Australian who is an expert in the field. Katie can teach just about any aspect of technology for music education at any level. Katie’s website is http://midnightmusic.com.au and one of the recent things Katie has done is to open her blog up to other educators to submit articles.
As my ukulele launch in my middle school choir program draws near (either February 5th or 8th), I have been preparing for that launch. I am choosing to create my own method of teaching ukulele rather than to follow existing methods (e.g. Hal Leonard and Alfred). That said, I do have an eye on those methods as I plan.
While I am preparing, I am finding a ton of digital resources for the ukulele. Here are just a few:
Tuner: Kala Brand Tuner (FREE-created for one of the major manufacturers of all levels of ukulele)
Kala Brand Tuner App on iPad
Creating Ukulele Music: Notion (The most developed music notation app for iOS. For ukulele, creates notes and tablature–does not offer the ability to include chord diagrams for ukulele)
Self-Made Chord Charts: Chord Tunes (Creates lyrics and chords, plus ukulele chord diagrams)
Chords/Fingerings/Tuner: Guitar Toolkit (Guitar Toolkit covers many string instruments)
Ukeoke: Basically the Four Chords app for ukulele (monthly fee)
Futulele: An iPad ukulele app, ideally to be used by students that need accessibility features–thanks to Beth Jahn for the suggestion)
iBooks: There is a lot of ukulele literature on the iBooks Store–for less than what you can buy it in print. Here are just a few titles that are available:
Assessment: I will test most skills in class, but realize that some students will be afraid to test in person. Therefore, we have a few ukuleles to check out overnight. Students can take them home and make a video of themselves (using the stock Camera app) playing the required testing material, and submit the video to me via Showbie. I also use Showbie to create rubrics–allowing me to assess each student–and Showbie's new grading feature allows me to quickly transfer grades from Showbie to our school's student information system.
Web Resources: While there are a TON of ukulele websites out there, I recommend the following sites:
And finally, Amazon. I love music stores–but there are times that the added overhead of a music store cannot be tolerated in the cost of a program. In our case, our entire set of 58 ukuleles (55 to be used in class, 3 to be sent home for practice/performance tests) were purchased from Amazon for under $2000–including setting up a ukulele hanging system with 2x4s and tool hooks. Unfortunately, if we had purchased these through a local vendor, the cost would have been well over $2000. Our ukuleles, Mahalo MK1s are throw-away models if anything serious happens (other than replacing strings). It would be a different situation if we had more expensive ukuleles that would warrant the need for repairs. As a side note, the MK1s do eventually settle into their tuning–and I go through and tune each of the instruments once each day. The instruments I purchased in Novemeber are nearly always in tune. That is a relief–58 continually out-of-tune ukuleles would be a nightmare.
We actually bought 68 ukuleles, as we gave parents the ability to send some extra money to buy their students a ukulele to keep. 10 families bought a ukulele for home. In total, the booster program purchased 28 of the instruments, and parents donated money for 30 of them. Not a cent of this program is on the common tax payer.
I have found out that Amazon's prices fluctuate wildly–the majority of our ukuleles were purchased around $25 each when they were backordered, but the instruments are now $37 each.
This morning, I purchased 2 additional instruments from Amazon: A Caramel (a Chinese brand) Concert and a Caramel Tenor for $75, shipped. I want to give these inexpensive larger instruments a try. It will be nice to have a concert and tenor on hand at school–and also for students that might struggle with the small soprano (thinking about some of the giant 8th grade boys) to try. If the Caramel instruments are any good–I'll certainly blog about them.
I also recently learned that D'Adarrio Ukuele strings are made by Aquilla (considered to be one of the best kinds of ukulele string), so it might be worth buying D'Addario for the savings over Aquilla.
The shift to ukulele is shocking to me–I grew up in the era of Tiny Tim, where the ukulele was a joke to our culture. My training in music education didn't spend one second talking about ukuleles–at any level of my education (K-12, college, or grad school). It appears that the ukulele is as common in many other countries as recorder and guitar are in the United States (although guitar programs are relatively few in number compared to Band, Choir, and Orchestra at the secondary level).
All I can say is this–I have fallen in love with the instrument, and I spend more than an hour each day playing and singing. It has resparked my love of music, and for that I am thankful. I now own two ukuleles (a Makala Concert, and a Kala Banjo Ukulele). There is a good chance that I will be adding a tenor ukulele (or two) to the stable in the near future. We also bought our boys a MK1 Mahalo, with the idea that they will leave my ukuleles alone (they are). When I tune my ukulele, my three year old runs up to me and asks me to tune his, too.
As I mentioned at the top of this post, our integration with the ukulele is right around the corner. I am excited to bring this experience to our students, and to get them singing and reading music in a sneaky way. The possibilities are endless–we'll see what happens!
My day is ending, and I thought I would write down a few thoughts about iOS before I went to bed.
The update to iOS 9 came out at noon, and I downloaded it on my iPad (Air 2) and my iPhone (6) moments afterward. I had a meeting to attend, so I figured I could leave my devices in my office, and if they downloaded, great. If not, no worries.
Well, they both downloaded just fine. iOS updates didn’t use to be that way. It used to be a hit or miss thing on the first day if you wanted to update, because Apple’s servers couldn’t handle the load. Not anymore. My wife was able to update her phone this evening without any issues, either.
Sure, there are some differences in iOS 9. The app switcher now goes to layered cards versus a row of cards. You can use “glance” (swipe from the right side of the screen) to check another app for a second, and then return to your current app. And if you have an iPad Air 2 or iPad Mini 4 (new at Apple), you can run split screen mode. One other caveat–the app you want to run has to be able to be displayed in split screen mode, which is at the mercy of the developers. Apps that can work with your current app in split screen mode are also shown in “glances”
Over the years, lots of people have demanded multiple apps in a split screen. I have an Android device and a Windows device, and I just don’t use a tablet that way. The screen size is too limited. Perhaps it makes more sense on an iPad Pro, and I can see times, as a teacher, where I would want to show two apps. Most of the time though, I think I’ll simply use one screen.
There are a few other changes that are readily apparent–the font is different and harder to read by my 42 year old eyes. On the iPad, you now have a row of four icons in the folders (I think it used to be three), and the biggest change is the keyboard. First of all, the keyboard shows whether you are typing in caps or lower case; and second, if you use two fingers on the keyboard, it acts like a trackpad. A two-finger tap on the keyboard will select things. This makes moving to the right spot in your document SO MUCH BETTER than the old magnifying glass. This has been a feature of a few apps for years…I wonder why Apple took so long to implement the idea.
The only other thing to note is that there are 8,000,000 app updates today. And if you use a computer for mirroring (e.g. Reflector, Air Server, XMirage), these programs no longer work with iOS 9. Reflector 2 works, as does the Apple TV. But none of the other mirroring apps work. Don’t forget…you can also use a lighting cable on a Mac (Yosemite or newer) and show an iPad via QuickTime…but the joy in mirroring comes in wireless mirroring.
There are blogs (see iMore, for example) that will go into much further depth on iOS 9. There are many more improvements to the OS, including with Siri. For me, if Siri simply works better with every release, that’s a win.
Most of your apps will work with iOS 9, and other issues will be addressed in the days to come. This is really an update meant to fix problems and bring some new features without redesigning the OS. It has been tested like crazy by developers and public beta–it is probably safe for you to install, too. I’d do it for the keyboard tools alone. Today one author said that he now prefers typing on his iPad versus his MacBook for the trackpad feature alone.
Last year was a huge year of change at MakeMusic. The company was acquired and went private (off the stock market). This was followed by some changes in the leadership team (two VPs were let go, one VP, Michael Good, was brought on the team) and other levels of management were also impacted (both program managers of Finale and SmartMusic were let go). In addition to the changes, SmartMusic (in particular) had a rough first half of the 2013-2014 school year with a number of technical issues.
As with all things in life, a lot of good things happened, too. Finale 2014 was released with a number of new features, a lot of new code, and backwards compatible file formats; SmartMusic continuted to grow in functionality on the iPad, and now SmartMusic also shares backwards compatible files. Michael Good discussed many of these improvements on a recent blog post (link).
Today brought news about another big change at MakeMusic. MakeMusic is coming under the umbrella of Peaksware, Inc. Peaksware was behind the acquisition last year, and MakeMusic will continue to exist as a brand of Peaksware. I had the chance to chat with Gear Fisher, the CEO of Peaskware, for a few moments and to ask some questions about the immediate future of MakeMusic.
Ultimately, this change won’t likely impact the typical Finale or SmartMusic user very much. The biggest change is that the company will be moving from Minnesota to Colorado (plans are to do this in Quarter 1), and the company is assessing personnel right now. A number of employees will be asked to join the company in Colorado, and those employees will have to make a personal decision to move or not. After this past winter in Minnesota, I don’t know why anyone, given the chance to move, would stay here.
I find myself to be sad that MakeMusic will be moving–it has always been wonderful to have MakeMusic (or its predecessor, Coda Music Technology) as a “local company.” At some level, it is a personal sadness, because I would have enjoyed working at MakeMusic as a local company (As part of a blended family and all that entails, we cannot move out of the area). It isn’t often that you find companies filled with good people that are passonate about the meeting point of technology and music education.
Beyond that, Finale will continue to improve, SmartMusic will continue to improve, and the company should be better positioned to exist and compete in the future. This was the ideal time for such an announcement, as all of the turmoil from the acquisition last year has finally settled down and the products are stable. Jobs will be moving (or created) in another state (not outsourced to another country), and I hope that a majority of the development teams–including some leadership–will stay in place, albeit in another location. The end result of today’s announcment is that there won’t be much of a change for the end user, but there will be big changes ahead for all of the 130+ staff employed by MakeMusic.
I wish all of the MakeMusic team the very best. For those that will be moving to Colorado, best wishes for the process of relocation and as you continue to develop and refine MakeMusic products. And to those who choose to stay in Minnesota, best wishes as you search for new positions. To all of you: your work (including those that have worked in the company in the past) has made a significant impact on music and music education. Thank you for your work! And best wishes to Mr. Fisher, as he takes on the role as CEO over MakeMusic through this position as CEO of Peaksware.
One additional note that might be of interest to music educators: I had opportunity to ask Mr. Fisher about his own musical background, and he had been a saxophone player in his school days. He did, however, state that his current experience with SmartMusic comes from his own home, where his 11 year old daughter is learning the clarinet. She is using SmartMusic as part of that process. It is encouraging to know that the CEO of the company–if not using the software himself–is seeing the software used as it was meant to be used. That experience will offer him fantastic insight into the product for years to come.
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