This program is nothing short of amazing… and completely free!  You can, literally, ”set this software loose” on your computer and it will instantly go to work analyzing your photos in ways that none of your other graphic indexing program have done before.   If you are an educator, like me, that has thousands of digital pictures (or anyone else that has thousands of photos on their computers), this new piece of software will take hours off of the time it takes you to sort and find the “right” pictures.

Here are some of the ways that it can “filter” your photo searches:

• Time of Day and Date
• Orientation (portrait, landscape, etc.)
• Over/under exposed
• Taken inside or outside
• Able to search text of captions, file names, folders, etc.
• Coarse or Fine Color Search
• By photo content: Plants, Sky, Faces, Beach, Flowers, Snow, Sunset, Water
• Any combinations of the above

Also, it includes basic photo editing features:

• Contrast options
• Brightness options
• Color options
• Red-eye reduction/removal
• Croping
• Rotate functions

Photology also features a pretty amazing set of Web 2.0 integrations including the abilities to share your photos via Flickr, Picasa, SmugMug, and others.   In addition, there are various printing functions available that include multi-photo per sheet presets.

I’ve never seen anything like this available as freeware and I am astounded at the searching possibilities the software provides.  It is a great tool, especially for educators that use heavily integrate multi-media integration as a part of their teaching style(s).  This software is truly an amazing piece of engineering and, in this world of “unlimited digital photography”, it could not have appeared at a better time…  photographic organization and indexing has finally ”come of age” with this product!

A few caveats:

It is only available for PCs (Mac version may be coming in the near future).   You will also need to have Microsoft Net Framework 3.0 installed.  In addition, you should have a fairly decent computer as far as RAM, CPU, and Hard Drive space are concerned.   Just like any other indexing program (or anti-virus software currently “scanning”), using your computer while Photology is “indexing” may cause your computer to “slow-down”, especially if it is at the low-end of the recommend system requirements.   Let me know if you are using and loving this program as much as I am.  Enjoy!

Download and find out more about Photology by clicking here.

Congratulations to Prof. Keith Mason on his 50th episode of the Music Tech For Me Podcast.   Keith is a great musician, educator, and music technologist.  His podcast is one of the cornerstones of the entire music education podcast movement and worth the time to “check it out”.   It was a pleasure to be selected as his 50thguest for the show.   There were a number of great and relevant music education topics discussed and I encourage you all to download and listen to it.

Here is the direct link to the podcast episode: http://www.musictechforme.com/?p=103

Here is a short list of the best Music Education Related Podcasts on the Web:

MusTech.Net’s Musical Musings Show: http://mustech.podomatic.com
Dr. James Frankel: http://fams.podomatic.com
Prof. Keith Mason: http://musictechforme.com
Music Teachers 911, Larry Marra: http://musicteachers911.blogspot.com/
Dr. Scott Watson: http://whatmusicmeans.mypodcast.com/
Musically and Technically Speaking, Brenda Muench & Carol Broos:  http://www.techtempo.com/MATS/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fazen/

I’ve decided to publish, periodically, links to a number of current and interesting “newsworthy” music-education-related articles that I’ve recently read and have found interesting.   There are many great articles being written related to music education that seem to get buried beneath much of the other news.    This is an attempt to get the authors a little more exposure to more people that would likely benefit from reading them.

I hope you enjoy this little series… I am going to try it for about 4-6 weeks and see how it goes on MusTech.Net.  

Today’s Monday Mix:

Don’t Sacrifice Music:  Malaysia looks at removing music education from it’s primary schools.  Notable quote from this article “A Civilisation is remembered not so much by how many wars it won nor by its size BUT by its fine arts.” 

Music Used To Teach Language: Larry Scripp (Chair of Music at the New England Conservatory) is using a decade of research about the benefits of music and helping people boost their English language skills by incorporating it into a new program.

SOAPBOX: The Day The Music Died:  Monterey Bay, California – For six years local school districts have silently killed their music programs and just now people are waking up to find that there may not be any more music programs in their schools for the upcoming year.

MENC and Drum Corps Intl. Form Partnership: Both groups have decide to form a partnership that hopes to “Add quality to life through music”.  “By elevating music education in America and by bringing to public attention the ways that music strengthens individuals and communities alike, our work together will signal a renewed emphasis on achievement in our society.”  

Please feel free to use the comment section below as a sounding board for your thoughts from any of these articles or to let us know that you appreciated the links.

For MANY reasons, a number of students and musicians are taught to perform music (in some cases amazingly well) and never have spent the time to develop their abilities with regard to note, interval, line, and chord identification -USING THEIR EARS!   Sadly, for many talented and up-and-coming music majors (or minors) their first exposure to Solfeggio is when they arrive their freshman year for music study.  A good portion of these students struggle to get through their Solfeggio classes (or Theory/Solfeggio integrated courses) and in some cases decide not to pursue the degree because of their perceived difficulty with the subject matter.

Fortunately, there are many great free and fee based software programs available to help in this area and I encourage you to seek out and find them.  You have already started your journey by reading this post and also may check the archives here for other software in this category. 

Today, I’m going to tell you about the Function Ear Trainer -made available in both a basic and advanced version at Alain Benbassat’s home site.  They are both freeware and run on either the Windows or Linux platforms (Mac folks you’ll have to use a PC emulator -sorry).

These software programs are simple and highly functional…. you are given multiple choices with regard to a starting ”reference cadence” and have options to select the key, octave range, and notes that you would like to be tested with.  It’s a great primer to learning to use your ear for note intervals and increase your aural abilities.   The advanced ear trainer tests you with two notes following the cadence and further sharpens your note discrimination abilities while you practice with it.

I highly recommend this program and others like it for all music students and musicians alike.   If you are looking for the next step in your ear training quest, check this article by me about the GNU licensed software product, Solfege.  Good luck and Good training!

Photo Credit: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wlodi)

In June of 2009, I was part of the MENC Academy discussing very real and important issues facing music educators today with regard to the onslaught of new technologies available to educators to use within the music classroom.  Dr. Jim Frankel developed a series of insightful questions to ask us during the session.   I’ve decided to post some of my thoughts and answers to  these questions in a written format here at MusTech.Net for others to read, ponder, and open for discussion. 

Note: My answers to the questions below are written in a “stream of thought” or “talking points” type of format.  This is a pretty lengthy post so you may want to print it and read it all later. 

The complete audio transcript of the session may be found here (Thanks to Dr. Jim Frankel for recording and posting it) and I encourage any educator, whether a musician or not, to listen to this transcript as many aspects of our discussion reach outside of the specificities of music education and transfer to any classroom environment.

1. What is the role of music technology in music curricula today?  What opportunities for students are there that technology specifically affords?

A number of questions to ask/consider about the effectiveness of music technology in the classroom:

For the Teachers:

1. Does the technology allow you to accomplish a task easier or faster than without it?

a. Think about the organizational and communication avenues that technology can provide for teachers as well…

2. Does the technology allow you to teach more effectively?

3. Does the technology provide you an avenue in which you can give your students an experience that you could not without?

4. Brings on the question of further development opportunities…

For the Students:

1. Does the technology allow them to learn materials easier or faster? 

2. Does it allow them to better retain the information learned? 

3. Are the able to be more creative with the addition of the technology?

2. What role does fostering composition and creativity with technology play in music education?

1. Skipping over the more common and known uses of composition for “traditional music classes and personnel”… One of the “real” issues facing Music Education today is what role can Music Educators play in providing the non-traditional school students access to our music teachers in ways that will enrich their education. 

Dr. Brian Williams prepared a paper for the Tanglewood II Symposium held in Minnesota in April of 2007 that referred to research that  confirmed that current state of participation in school music programs.  The states were Florida, New York, California and Ohio.  The percentage of “non-performers” in grades 6-12 ranged from 70-88%.   The data that is available (and the studies in this area are sparse indeed) suggest that less than 20% of the American Youth are served by current music programs in the secondary schools!
 
a. Compositional programs such as “Garage Band”, Sequel, Session, and others may provide a common ground to get these non-traditional musicians back into learning about music as it pertains to their lives.

b. Regardless of formal music instruction in the schools, music is pervasive, not only in every persons day to day life, many of the students would welcome an opportunity to be taught or directed by music educators in the non-traditional (read non-choir, band, orchestra) arena(s)…

c.  These instructional avenues may include, music history classes, experimental composition classes…classes that explore why they like certain music and their elements, information regarding copyright, web 2.0 applications involving sharing, mashing, finding, exploring, and discussing music.

3. What advice would you give to a teacher who is thinking about implementing technology in their curriculum?

1. Seek out “Good” instruction in the things you would utilize in your classroom. 

2. Utilize the many avenues available to you to help you determine what does and does not work in specific classroom environments.   Organizations like, MENC, ISME, the various State MEAs.

3. “Get out of the box” and find out what others in your county, state, or even nationally are doing with technology.

4. Do not attempt to utilize any technology in the classroom, unless you yourself have gained some deal of proficiency at it.

5. Many school districts are yet to get out of the “dark ages” of computer lockdown and are apt to provide roadblocks in what you are trying to accomplish.  We need to teach our students proper use of technology, just like we teach them not to run with scissors, poke things with pencils, and not inappropriately handle tools in shop classes.   Severe tightening of technology just because it may be used inappropriately will cause some districts to be at a disadvantage to others that have found acceptable ways to support, utilize, and implement it effectively with teachers in the classrooms.

6. Computer applications get easier to use every year… Think back to the first versions of Finale or Cakewalk and the “pseudo-degree” you used to have to do anything productive with them….this was not unlike the text-based computers of the 70-90s compared to the advanced Graphic User Interfaces (GUI think -mouse and point) of the PC, Linus, and Mac Operations systems we have today… 

4. What is the role of Web 2.0 in music education?  What opportunities does it afford?

Again, proper instruction into appropriate usage of this technology is necessary to make sure that students are safe and not doing socially inappropriate things with regard to their online personal.  An inappropriate digital tattoo (something that will follow them around on the Internet for the rest of their lives) is to be avoided at all costs… we need to begin to talk about these concepts as early as the middle of elementary school…

Barring the dichotomy created by those that have access to such equipment vs. those that do not, the ability to communicate and collaborate with the Web 2.0 technologies has exceeded anything we have ever seen on the face of the planet.    Communication is almost instant, classrooms can collaborate with other classrooms in the same school or create communication platforms at the global level for enrichment, understanding, and development.   Examples:   Twitter, Ning, Facebook, RSS and Atom Feeds, Texting, Viral platforms are just a few…

5. What obstacles lie in wait for those who teach with technology?  What skills and/or support do teachers need to navigate those obstacles?  Why is professional development so important? 

The types of technology we are talking about here (electronic and digital) must begin to be infused across the k-12 curriculums.   We live in a digital age and all disciplines, including music, must begin to contemplate the changes that this implies…  

What if I said that I believe that something as simple as learning to type (or text) was so important the future success of today’s students that I believed that schools should consider to teach “written” communication in this order: printing, typing, then writing or at least printing and typing and writing at the same time?   Does this shock anyone?  How much time do you spend typing vs. writing now?

A person who types 20 words per minute by the end of their high-school career will be less efficient at almost everything involving “information technology” than the person who types 40, 50, 60 or even 80 words per minute. 

If a music teacher who is proficient at transposition writes transposition at the rate of one, 3 minute song  every 10 minutes…. how much faster would the process be if they were proficient at Finale or Sibeilus…AND what about the ability to keep the transcription forever and transpose it into any key in less than 10 seconds afterward?  Or…what if they could just “sang it in” and had the computer transcribe it for them…Or… what if they had the computer simply “listen” to the audio and had it transcribe it for them?

Today’s teachers need to become fluid and TRANSPARENT in their use of these technologies in the classroom, if the technology hinders the ability for the teacher to teach efficiently or the student’s ability to learn and/or learn better, then -care must be taken as to whether we/they utilize the technology in the first place.   That being said, if a teacher is simply “lazy” and won’t take the time to seek out and/or find the way to incorporate and learn a proven or now -common technology into the classroom then shame on them…  I hear all the time about the costs of these technologies and I can testify without a doubt that while there are many FINE examples of software that cost money, there is usually a low-cost-to-no-cost alternative that can be utilized with similar results in the classroom setting.  

All schools should have some type of computer lab in their schools (whether specifically for music or not)… there are literally hundreds of music related instructional of programs that can be placed onto these “lab computers” that would allow tremendous experiences for the music students.   In addition, one laptop, a set of low cost speakers, and a LCD projector (or TV, or large monitor) can enhance the general music classroom greatly.

Many of the technologies that are utilized in or could be utilized in music education are used/can be used by any teacher in any classroom.  The main differences come in the course-specific applications that we choose to teach or utilize in the classroom.   If you have trouble turning on your computer, getting to the Internet (barring those crazy ultra-restrictive firewalls put into place by some schools), or just decide that you WON’T make an honest attempt to learn the basic digital technologies required of today,  you are already generations behind your students and it’s time to catch up quick or re-think some things…

There are so many opportunities for teachers to learn these technologies…schools provide in-services, there are sessions at almost every conference, organisations designed just for learning them (ti-me.org) there are thousands of “How-To” videos available for free on the Internet or that come with the products. The Internet is an unbelievable resourceand there are now hundreds of music blogs and sites with “Digital Mentors” available that are more than willing to help you if you simply ask them…  and there is that thing that comes with most software products called… the manual (granted it might be in PDF and I bet there are how-to videos included as well!). 

6. What does the future hold for technology in music education?

This is a difficult question to answer because many of the scenarios that could conceivably come to fruition or integrated into future curriculums do not sit well and even are despised by many of today’s music teachers and musicians… Today’s electronic technologies have changed almost every academic discipline, music is not unaffected.

In the traditional music curriculum, today’s technology provides an avenue for teachers to transmit their information more effectively, timely, and across time in the sense of the “digital recall” of the learning materials.

Teacher’s have the ability to enrich their presentation with any of the various classroom material enhancements that utilize LCD projectors and the seemingly endless variety of “Multi-Media”.

Students have the ability to practice in a noisy environment or quiet area by utilizing the “silent brass type” technologies.  Teachers and students have the ability to track , access, and assess performance materials better by utilizing technologies such as Make Music’s Smart Music.   Or, perhaps, better enjoy practicing alone by using the auto accompaniment tracks now built-in to most methods books and many online sources.

The ability to reflect, share, and produce audio of concerts or performances has never been easier or required smaller and less expensive gear that it does now.   If you have access to a computer you already have the ability to do many amazing things with regard to recorded audio.

The opportunities for collaboration has never been greater or easier by utilizing any of the Web 2.0 communication platforms.  Students can now have “experts” Skyped into the classrooms and the ability to share information across the language barriers (Google Translation and Babel)…not to mention the Public Relations opportunities that the Web 2.0 platform provides.

As is the case for the recommendations by both of the Tanglewood Symposiums… they both called for greater recognition of music education’s importance for the “non-performing” or “non-traditional” student and appropriate instruction by music educators of these students at the high-school level.  Music Technology provides a perfect-adjunct for these types of classes and the catalyst to create interesting, appropriate, and timely vehicles for this type of instruction.

An aside, in the collegiate liberal arts institutions everywhere…why has so much impetus for further “music education” for non-music majors been placed solely in the Humanities realm of “Music History and Appreciation”?   Why haven’t we taken our own advice on the importance of music in one’s personal development of the various avenues of the mind and being and come up with a course or courses  that re-integrates giving a musical experience or music creation experience back to the “non-music majors” in some type of way in addition to the history and appreciation style courses?  Is it enough to simply listen to and be exposed to music to gain the full benefits of a “music-rich education”?…this is something that our best musical minds are still debating and discussing today.

On the very confrontational side of music technology’s impact or in a sense –the abilities of today’s existing music technology, I pose only a few questions myself to think about (and I realize that some of these are infuriating for some people to think about -they bother me as a jazz trumpet player, wind conductor, and music educator as well):

1. What does the ability for people to compose something that sounds interesting without understanding the theoretical concepts of music mean for musicians or those doing the creating?  

2. Coupling the ever-increasing beauty and sophistication of sampled sounds, with pitch correction,  articulation control, and pitch2midi devices (sing and hear or hum and notate)…what does this do to the idea of becoming proficient at an instrument or master of improvisation?

3. With the increasing threat of music funding disappearing in the schools, increased importance of standardized testing that is taking much-needed time for the arts in schools away, and the time-demands on our students placed by MANY school activities (both academic and not), what, how, or can Technology Integration provide an avenue to meet some or most of the National Music Standards? 

And this brings us full circle back to the beginning of our discussion…

Constructive comments, thoughts, or ideas?

YouTube Title:
Art Tatum — Yesterdays

Date Posted on YouTube: 
October 6, 2008

YouTube Original Poster’s Comments:
“Pianist extraordinaire Art Tatum performs “Yesterdays”.. composed by Jerome David Kern and Otto Harbach. “

Views of this video when posted on MusTech.Net:
62,300

YouTube Snapshot:

(Scroll Down For The Embedded Video)

MusTech.Net Comment:

Art Tatum is arguably (and I believe rightfully so) the best jazz pianist to have graced our world.   I was first turned on to Art Tatum and his extraordinary piano playing while taking one of Chas Baker’s Jazz classes at Kent State University years ago.   The first time I heard Art Tatum play “Tiger Rag” it was obvious to me that few pianist ever born were in his league (as in a league of his own). 

It is extremely hard to find any video of Art Tatum and this find on YouTube is one of the true jazz treasures out there to be gleaned.  It is amazing to me how relaxed and casual he is while playing such difficult piano passages.   The music that  Art Tatum created is a true American treasure.

Misc. Information:

A good biography of Art Tatum may be found at http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-musicians/tatum-art-biography.

YouTube Embed:

Disclaimer:
YouTube has specific guidelines and strict guidelines about content that appears on YouTube:

Each person that uploads a video through the YouTube service has to agree to the Terms of Service (TOS) that states that for each video uploaded “…[they] affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: [they] own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize YouTube to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights…”. In addition to this, each individual also must ”…further agree that [they] will not submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless [they] are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant YouTube all of the license rights granted herein.” YouTube has a number of very good guidelines posted on their site that outline a basic criteria for determining what is appropriate and legal to upload to their Web site. [MusTech.Net, 2009]

MusTech.Net makes no claims with regard to distribution or re-distribution of this video nor seeks to engage in any form of digital copyright infringement with regard to embedding this video, which in actuality, resides solely on the YouTube servers. Any claims of potential copyright infringement with regard to this video should be addressed to YouTube first as their removal of this YouTube video will immediately cause this video embed to cease functioning. That being stated, if the original and legal copyright holders of any YouTube video appearing on MusTech.Net (via a YouTube embed) request a YouTube video to be taken down -we will comply withing a reasonable and timely matter.

MusTech.Net further does not seek to publicly question the ethics of the current copyright policy in the United States or any other country with regard in this online venue. MusTech.Net has taken a firm stance to uphold the legal rights of musicians and their music by advocating the legal purchase of their media. The YouTube Video Series on MusTech.Net is an attempt to expose the Internet masses to the amazing talents of musicians that have chosen (or their copyright holders) to have their works displayed on YouTube and, hopefully, inspire other musicians to greater heights. It is our hope that anyone who like these video snippets will seek-out and support these musicians by legally purchasing their media.

Want to read more about our thoughts and reasons on the the legality of embedding a YouTube Video in a Website? Click Here

Here are some of the things that I’ve been working on and that I know many of you will be interested in:

1. The Washington D.C. plenary/clinic went very well and our good friend Jim Frankel has posted the entire discussion for you on the SoundTreewebsite for you to listen to and enjoy.  The discussion featured me (Dr. Joseph Pisano), Dr. Brian Moore, Prof. Stefani Langol, and Dr. Jim Frankel.  Find it by clicking here.

2. I’ve made the upfrade to WordPress 2.8 at MusTech.Net  (Named after Chet Baker, just another reason why WordPress is too cool!).  It features a number of adminstration updates and speed tweaks.

3. For a number of reasons we were not able to post the Music Education Blog Carnival this month.   I am going to revamp this carnival and set forth a new schedule and plan for its continuation in August.  

4.  A have had probably 50+ requests for bloggers to be added to the Music Education Blogger list despite the fact that we officially closed entries in January of 2009 after the completion of the project.  I’ve decided that I am going to continue this in a different way and open it up to any music education blogger provided they meet a basic set of criteria.  I’m not sure if I’m going to make this a Wiki page or in some other format.  If you are a dedicated blogger and would like to collaborate with me on this project please contact me.

5. I’ve found an amazing entry into the the list of stand-alone VST racks/plugin players.  LiveProfessor is basically a VST plugin RACK with easy to use and powerful features. There are a tremendous amount of VST plugins that you can use to accomplish almost any type of audio function.  A very large portion of these VST plugins are either free or ridiculously low in cost.  Here is a snapshot of me using Live Professor as a framework for another seriously cool (and free) VST plugin by Blue cat called FreqAnalyst, a free spectrum analyzer:

6.  I just ordered the Sibelius “Groovy” Triple pack for our Music Major lab at Grove City College.  After discussing these software programs with Amy Burns and learning how she utilizes the programs (Shapes, Jungle, and City) with her elementary classroom(s) -it was a “no-brainer”.  The products are amazing and if you are looking for product that will really stretch the creative musical boundaries of your child, you probably couldn’t do better.  I am going to integrate these programs into the Computer-Aided-Instruction part of our Music Technology Course(s).

7.  Darren and I have been talking and we are going to commit to posting one podcast per month during the upcoming school year.  We haven’t decided on a monthly date yet but we are planning on working on a new podcast next week.  In addition, I am in the process of making a number of CDs available (for free!), in the ISO format, of our MusTech.Net podcast.  These will be available directly from MusTech.Net and will allow you to have them anywhere you go either as a CD or transportable via the mp3 format (you can get these currentlyfrom iTunes).

8.  Andy Zweibel, Jim Frankel, and I successfully integrated the use of the Twitter Hash-tag system this year at the MENC conference.  What’s this all about?  Stay tuned as we begin to discuss the usefulness of this type of communication in future posts.

9. I’ve officially entered the world of “texting”.  You would think that this is something that I would have been doing all the time, but I purposely have held off on it because of the intrusion that it can present into your (my) daily life.  I recently purchased the new LG EnV phone with a keyboard and  I’m sure my Twittering will go up rapidly now… ugh!!!  …this is why when I go on vacation, I try to shut off all communications to reduce the amount of noise!

10.  I’ve officially transitioned to “wide screen” monitors at my house now.  It’s taking time to get used to all of the extra space… but it does make writing and video editing a whole lot better.

…and… that’s all folks.  Let me know what you are all up to this summer and if you are working on any cool projects.

On June 20th, Saturday Morning at 10:00 a.m., I along with Profs. Brian Moore (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), Stefani Langol (Berklee College of Music), and Dr. James Frankel (SoundTree/Korg) will be holding an open plenary that discusses the role of Technology in Music Education.

Our discussion will center around:

1. The role of music technology in the music curricula.
2. What should teachers think about when considering the implementation of music technology into their programs. 
3. How does Web 2.0 apply to music.
4. What about professional development and opportunities to learn new technologies for existing teachers.
5. Fostering and creating creativity through the digital means of compostion and other music-related computer aided programs.
6. What does the future hold for technology in music education.

If you would like FOLLOW this conference on Twitter, we are using Twitter hashtag #menc09 (note the zero not “O”) for this session.  I would encourage any and or all of you that read MusTech.Net to follow along with us and let us know about this experience as it has never been done before as far as we know.  (I will also be twittering from the conference under my own Twitter account -See my Twitter sidebar for the link to follow me!)

I look forward to meeting up with a number of you down there and have already made plans to meet up with some folks that I know only through written or digital correspondence or from my site.   The best time to meet up with me will be directly after our session.  Drop me an e-mail via the contact form on this site (see tab above)  if any of you are making the trip to the conference.

Here is the link to the announcement post at BNCEducation.com:
http://bnceducation.com/?p=170 

Wishing you all a great end to your school year and great upcoming summer!

YouTube Title:
Cherokee..Arturo Sandoval Chuck Findley and more

Date Posted on YouTube: 
November 26, 2007

YouTube Original Poster’s Comments:
“A great line-up of Arturo Sandoval, Chuck Findley, Randy Brecker and Byron Stripling. From the GRP series… “

Views of this video when posted on MusTech.Net:
61,655

YouTube Snapshot:

(Scroll Down For The Embedded Video)

MusTech.Net Comment:

The trumpet players in this video are the best in the business.    They are so tight in their playing and it is just a spectacular showing of just how amazing a trumpet player can be.   The improvisation in this clip is both awesome to witness and a tribute to how much respect each of the players have for one another.  Arturo Sandoval is nothing short of unbelievable in this recording, especially when he “skys” the last few seconds of this chart.   If you are a trumpet player that wants to be inspired or you are a teacher that wants to inspire your young jazz trumpet players…start with this clip and move on from there.

Misc. Information:

AllMusic.Com has this to say about the album from where this clip is taken (Review by Scott Yanow):

The second of three releases by the GRP All-Star Big Band (headed by Dave Grusin) has lots of exciting moments, including “Manteca,” “Blue Train,” and a version of “Cherokee” that has tradeoffs by trumpeters Arturo Sandoval, Randy Brecker, Byron Stripling, and Chuck Findley. The band performs eight jazz standards plus Grusin’s “Blues for Howard.” Also among the highlights are the playing of Brecker and Eric Marienthal on “My Man’s Gone Now,” the teaming of clarinetist Eddie Daniels and vibraphonist Gary Burton on “Sing, Sing, Sing,” and the interplay between pianists Grusin and Russell Ferrante on “‘S Wonderful.”

YouTube Embed:

Disclaimer:
YouTube has specific guidelines and strict guidelines about content that appears on YouTube:

Each person that uploads a video through the YouTube service has to agree to the Terms of  Service (TOS) that states that for each video uploaded “…[they] affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: [they] own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize YouTube to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights…”.   In addition to this, each individual also must ”…further agree that [they] will not submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless [they] are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant YouTube all of the license rights granted herein.”   YouTube has a number of very good guidelines posted on their site that outline a basic criteria for determining what is appropriate and legal to upload to their Web site. [MusTech.Net, 2009]

MusTech.Net makes no claims with regard to distribution or re-distribution of this video nor seeks to engage in any form of digital copyright infringement with regard to embedding this video, which in actuality, resides solely on the YouTube servers.     Any claims of potential copyright infringement with regard to this video should be addressed to YouTube first as their removal of this YouTube video will immediately cause this video embed to cease functioning.   That being stated, if the original and legal copyright holders of any YouTube video appearing on MusTech.Net (via a YouTube embed) request a YouTube video to be taken down -we will comply withing a reasonable and timely matter. 

MusTech.Netfurther does not seek to publically question the ethics of the current copyright policy in the United States or any other country with regard in this online venue.   MusTech.Net has taken a firm stance to uphold the legal rights of musicians and their music by advocating the legal purchase of their media.   The YouTube Video Series on MusTech.Net is an attempt to expose the Internet masses to the amazing talents of musicians that have chosen (or their copyright holders) to have their works displayed on YouTube and, hopefully, inspire other musicians to greater heights.   It is our hope that anyone who like these video snippets will seek-out and support these musicians by legally purchasing their media. 

Want to read more about our thoughts and reasons on the the legality of embedding a YouTube Video in a Website?  Click Here

The show certainly is “CLEAN” from any EXPLICIT or potentially offensive content so why shouldn’t we mark it “CLEAN”?  Well, we did for a long time; then, we took it off! (Cue organ suspense music here)  I did this after I finally grasped the concept of the Apple’s less than perfect rating system.  Regardless of one’s understanding of this sytem,  iTunes requires podcasters to mark the contents of their audio materials (through RSS submission) either as EXPLICIT, CLEAN, or not.

The real issue at play is this:  Many people think that they have to mark everything as CLEAN regardless of whether or not it originally contained EXPLICIT materials.   This simple misunderstanding actually sets the stage for mass misinformation to take place.  For example, if our harmless podcast is not marked CLEAN then many people and online audio services will then assume that it is chalk full of nasty and age inappropriate adult content.  This is exactly the opposite of how this system was intended to work.   After reading the many and various support forums that have people who have asked this question, I can verify that this confusion does indeed exist, is rampant, and exactly the way that I have stated it here.

Before I go into the detail of how I arrived at such an understanding (and some of you will no doubt, at this point, think that it is a bold mis-understanding)  let me tell you how I believe that the iTunes content advisory system was/is intended to work after looking for the answers form various online sources…   If a podcast (or audio file) contains EXPLICIT content then it is indeed to be marked and tagged as EXPLICIT.   If an EXPLICIT podcast (or audio file) was then edited to “CLEAN it up”, then it is to be marked CLEAN.   That being said, typically the offensive words contained in the song were either removed, bleeped over, or edited to something else.  The podcast many times will still convey the general idea and intent of using the EXPLICIT words in the first place, thus it is marked CLEAN.   This might be somewhat analogous to a “R” movie that was CLEANED for public or local broadcast and “edited for content” -bringing it down to the PG level.  If a song is not EXPLICIT in the first place then it is simply NOT to be marked either CLEAN or EXPLICIT.

After much searching for the “true” answer to these questions, I found that there really is not any one authoritative place online that directly provides the answer; so,  I will put forth how I came to my conclusion:

First, if you search Apple’s site long enough you will find this link which leads to the online PDF/HTML section of the iTunes U Administrator Guide -Page 30).  Under the heading “Adding Content Using the UPload and Manage Files Webpage”, under item 7, bullet point 6, it clearly lists the intent of the “Advisory Label for Files”.  Here there are four options available to the iTunes U users:

“Unset- Indicates that the file’s explicitness is unknown. iTunes U does not apply an advisory settings to the file.”  Thus, not placing a graphic (another point of confusion)

“Do Not Mark-Indicates that the file’s content is not explicit. iTunes U applies the setting, but does not display an advisory graphic for the file. Apple recommends that you choose Do Not Mark when a file is not explicit but should not have the Clean icon advisory graphic because the file does not contain an alternate version of content from an explicit file (Mark Explicit). Choose Do Not Mark to implicitly indicate a file is clean.”

“Mark Explicit- Indicates that the file is known to contain explicit content and you want iTunes U to apply an “explicit” setting to the file. iTunes U applies the setting and displays the Explicit icon advisory graphic for the file.”

“Mark Clean-  Indicates that the file is known to be free of explicit content and you want iTunes U to apply a “clean” setting to the file. iTunes U applies the setting and displays the Clean icon advisory graphic for the file. Apple recommends that you choose Mark Clean only if the file contains an alternate version of content from an explicit file (Mark Explicit).”

The last line of the MARK CLEAN section makes it pretty clear that you should only mark a podcast (or Audio File) CLEAN if it is an alternative version of an EXPLICIT file.

Second, if look at the RSS FEED TAG options of an iTunes show and examine the <itunes:explicit> tag you will find only three usable values: YES, NO, and CLEAN.   This basically leaves you two categories of podcasts (or audio files): EXPLICIT and NON-EXPLICIT.  The EXPLICIT category has two designators in essence: ORIGINAL INTACT and CLEANED UP -the other category is non-EXPLICIT.

Third, if you search through the mass listings of podcasts available from the iTunes store you will see hundreds of never-EXPLICIT shows marked CLEAN and many more CLEAN shows simply not marked (and assumed to be clean).   The truth is that the only thing you can really be sure of (with all of this confusion) is that the shows marked EXPLICIT are indeed, EXPLICIT.

To illustrate some of this confusion…I recently stopped marking the MusTech.Net podcast as CLEAN and now when I choose to only view “CLEAN” podcasts at Podomatic.com my show doesn’t show up (or any of the other CLEAN shows not marked as “CLEAN”).   My discourse with one of the folks at Podomatic was the catalyst for me to start research on this subject.  In the end, they seem to be confused as the rest of us.

One of the the crazy dilemmas to come of this confusion is that by mis-marking a non-EXPLICIT show as CLEAN -this may cause many people who understand, what I believe to be the true intent of the iTunes advisory system is, to think that the show contained EXPLICIT materials originally.  Likewise, by NOT mis-marking a show CLEAN (leaving it non-marked), all those that believe that all NON-EXPLICIT shows are marked CLEAN will assume the show is not CLEAN…  

In my final analysis, I think it safe to assume that the vast majority of shows not showing any type of advisory label (of any kind) on them are actually void of any offensive materials.  If the were not free of such materials they would have been “flagged” if they’ve been listened to by enough people.

Have you experienced this confusion? I welcome your thoughts and experiences or any other informed opinions about this topic in the comment section below (How about somebody from Apple!).

On April 16 of 2009, the National Association of Music Manufacturers (NAMM ) released the results of a nationwide survey with their answer to that question.   This survey was the result of two months of data collection and made available to all districts nationwide.  This is the 10th year in which this survey has been given to school districts in the U.S.

The questions in this survey were focused on graduation requirements, funding, music class participation, facilities, and academic and public support for the programs. 

Is your community on this list?  Check the results below to find out. 

As a Pennsylvania resident and professor I am proud to say that 11 great Music Education Schools in PA made the list !
 
Read the official press release from NAMM by clicking here. 

(CC) sxc.hu ~http://www.sxc.hu/photo/456008/

The Music Education Blog Carnival has been going strong for almost one year.   This coming edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival marks the 12th of the Music Education Blog Carnival project.

When I first started thinking about the concept of a Music Education Blog Carnival, I hoped that it would be something that we as “Experts in the field of Music Education” would embrace as an avenue to give back information about Music Education to the larger, “Global” community.   With well over a hundred of interesting, free to the public, and useful music education-related posts -I have to think that “we” have had some modicum of success!  One of the goals of the Music Education Blog Carnival was/is to get “both better and useful information about our field” into to the vast database of the Internet quickly so that those in the practice can find it and utilize it in a timely manner.   I am very happy to state that a growing number of people are finding our carnival and also finding our posts through search engines like Google and Yahoo.  It seems to be working!

I’ve recently updated the homepage of the Music Education Blog Carnival to reflect the current state of the carnival, the past -current -and future carnivals, and have finished my “first draft” of a Music Educational Blog Carnival Host’s Manual.   It’s my hope that this host manual will encourage others to become hosts of this carnival and in the process, “get the word” out about their websites as well.

Please feel free to part of our Music Education Blog Carnival in any number of ways: as a contributor, as a reader, as a host, or as an advocate.   The carnival has provided a great deal of articles that are immediately useful to anyone in the music education profession or practicing musicians.  It is a worthwhile endeavor and worthy of sharing.

Find out more about the Music Education Blog Carnival by visiting this link or by the direct link:
http://mustech.net/muscarn

Please spread the word and visit our Music Education Blog Carnival today!

My good friend Kelly told me about this “Facebook Secret” and I have to admit it’s hilarious AND I’m going to share it with you (in case you haven’t found it yet)…  Facebook has allowed a BETA language called English (Pirate) and it changes quite a bit of the Facebook text from standard English to Pirate “lingo”. 

Here are a few of the gems:

• What be troublin’ ye?
• Make yer mark
• This be pleasin’ to me eye
• 4 scallywags be enjoyin’ this
• 1 grog fest sighted from the Crow’s Nest
• Mates Y’might Know
• Shinin’ treasures
• Stash belowdecks
• Thar be more

Here’s the “how to”:

Step 1:

First scroll all of the way down to the bottom of yer “Home Port”.
Find the “Facebook (c) 2009   English (US)”  link at the bottom, lower-left corner:

Click it!

Step 2:

Select English (Pirate) Beta from the popup list and click OKAY!

That’s it!  Now ye be a Facebook pirate, Arghh!

Hope you have fun with it… I did.

Briefly in this presentation, we attempted to explain some “common sense”, but usually -never thought about educational and performance related processes that happen during a music performance.  Also, to explain the educational impact that many of us never “think” about with regard to how our students perceive these types of special opportunities.  The presentation is a “little” cerebral at times and just the same -you may find yourself smiling at the simplicity…   The event itself and the survey information we gathered make for a very important qualitative-type study that allows us to gain insight into the minds of the student performers and some of the thoughts behind what the composers hope the audience and performers gain by this type of musical communication and interaction.

Travis and I both feel very strongly about giving these type of opportunities to our students.   We, as educators, have to be the catalyst to make these types of special experiences possible and many times ”technology” provides the “vehicle” in which we can implement them.    While I have definite ideas about when and when-not to use technology in the classroom, I can summarize them in three concepts:

1. If the technology allows you to do something with greater efficiency and accuracy, you have very good cause to utilize it.
2. It the technology allows you to give your students an experience or opportunity that is not possible otherwise, you have very good cause to utilize it.
3. If you do something well without using a particular type of technology or all the “features” of a particular technology, don’t change what you are doing…unless - see #1 & 2

We also know that all music educators are networked with academic experts in their field(s).  Whether a colleague, friend, or mentor, the opportunities to bring someone into the classroom (using technologies like SKYPE) are readily present and available to anyone who makes the small effort to utilize these technological avenues.   There are many reasons that these types of “virtual” experts can be a valued adjunct to our courses.   Have you ever thought about having one of your professors “SKYPED” into your public school classroom(s)?

The presentation consists of 26 slides.   Obviously, much of the dialogue is not present in the presentation itself (as Travis and I talked quite a bit), but it does provide a good outline of what we did and the thought process behind why we decided to present it.

The Presentation (full screen buttons  and controls at bottom):

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by pisanojm

Here are a number of additional related articles/posts about this subject here on MusTech.Net:

PMEA for 2009 is almost finished.   I was able to meet up with a number of friends, meet some new ones, and check out some awesome new music related stuff!  Travis Weller and I presented a session entitled Bridging the Gap between the Composers, Performers, and Audience and it was well received.  I will be posting the information from the session at MusTech.Net in my next post.

I also found out about some amazing new products, compositions, and books which I also will be writing about in posts to come.   Going to local, state, regional, and national conferences is a great way to get “re-charged” and “re-excited” about what we do.   If you haven not attended one lately…What are you waiting for? 

We are looking for hosts to continue the tradition of the Music Education Blog Carnival,  if you’ve already successfully submitted an article and have been posted in a music education carnival, why not consider being a host?  Please let me know if you are interested via the contact form or in the comment section below.

Find out about our music carnival here: http://mustech.net/muscarn and/or send your submission for the carnival direclty by visiting this link.

The question on many people’s minds when they do or are thinking of embedding a video on their Web sites is:  Can I be held liable for embedding a YouTube clip on my site?  The simple answer to this is YES. 

To be completely honest, that’s the only simple answer you will get when you begin to analyze and examine all of the surrounding questions that go into making the decision to post an embedded YouTube video on your Web site and whether or not you actually ARE violating copyright by doing so.

YouTube has a small but rather succinct copyright policy that states that they “respect(s) the rights of copyright holders and publishers and requires all users to confirm they own the copyright or have permission from the copyright holder to upload content. We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other applicable copyright laws and promptly remove content when properly notified.” In a nutshell, this is a gigantic disclaimer for them stating that they are acting in accordance with the DMCA and will put any fault (read copyright infringement)  squarely on the shoulders of the person uploading the file in the first place. 

Each person that uploads a video through the YouTube service has to agree to the Terms of  Service (TOS)that states that for each video uploaded “…[they] affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: [they] own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize YouTube to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights…”.   In addition to this, each individual also must ”…further agree that [they] will not submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless [they] are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant YouTube all of the license rights granted herein.”   YouTube has a number of very good guidelines posted on their site that outline a basic criteria for determining what is appropriate and legal to upload to their Web site.

While at first glance this appears to put any-and-all blame for a copyright violation on the person that performs the original upload, a mostly unknown  legal-concept called “CONTRIBUTORY INFINGEMENT” becomes a potential nightmare for any would-be-embedder of known, or even suspected, copyrighted materials that may exist on YouTube despite their strict TOS agreements.  There are a number of well-known cases involving media usage, file-sharing, and contributory infringement including:

• A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster Inc. 
• Elison v. AOL
•  Gershwin Publishing Corp. v. Columbia Artist Management Inc.
• Universal City Studios v. Sony Corp.
• Viacom v. YouTube

While this all may sound a little frightening, the truth is that in order to be held liable for any acts of contributory infringement the “violator” must have active knowledge of the infringement and something called material contribution to the infringement.  Material contribution, in most cases, is a vehicle to providing a direct infringement, for instance -the video is hosted on your site and is downloadable from your site or purchasable from your site, etc.  Embedding a YouTube video on a Web site is simply a means of streaming a video from their site to yours (an enhanced link of sorts).  Although legally this seems to still be considered a sort of vitual distribution of sorts (and thus you are still potentially liable), it is not quite the same as someone who materially contributes to the violation through a physical distribution mechanism such as may be found in the above listed Napster and AOL cases where they provided a software-based distribution mechanism, on site, for transferring copyrighted media files.  In the end, the idea of contributory infringement seems to be mired in “murkiness” with regard to the legal liability of a webmaster whom wishes to simply embed a video from such a visibly and pro-active anti-copyright-infringement site such as YouTube.

One of the encouraging things that any potential YouTube embedder can take some solace in with regard to having some measure of protection against being named as a contributor in a copyright lawsuit is YouTube’s own implementation of their DMCA policy.  YouTube provides a number of avenues for a video to be flagged and immediately taken down if copyright violation is determined.  This type of determination usually manifests itself to the violator as a take-down letter or notice.     I would surmise that this notificaiton process almost always happens at the YouTube site and most embedders would never be notified, they simply would find a “dead” video embed link that states that the video file was “removed” from YouTube.

Another fairly convoluted issue with what is and isn’t a copyright violation for video usage and/or sharing on YouTube is their in-house agreements with EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and other major and minor music and media  industry players.  Although I’ve looked for the terms of these type of agreements, I’ve personally found little information as to what additional rights (if any) these companies have given to YouTube users other than the occasional new “channel” that has their own versions of their copyrighted materials available for user viewing and commentary.   Another example of a seemingly “known” acceptable usage of the license agreements with these entities is including a copyrighted song in the background of a newly created YouTube video.   This type of allowance would allow for a person to upload a “home type of video” of their children or friends singing along with a copyrighted song or dancing to one.   Many artists have threatened to sue (and have) over such usage and one of the results was the creation of the YouTube Video Identification concept and tool which allows for greater scrutiny of videos uploaded to YouTube for potential copyright violations.

Although there are many entities that have arranged some type of licensing agreements with YouTube many have not.  For instance, the Warner Music group did NOT renew their previous licensing agreement with YouTube in 2008 and now YouTube has no legal protection for itself or users that have posted previously agreed upon usages of their copyrighted materials.  This resulted in tens of thousands of videos being removed from the YouTube collection and users no longer being protected or legally allowed to use Warner’s  copyrighted music in conjunction with the YouTube service in any form.

In addition to all of this “legalese”, what are the moral and ethical considerations a person that would like to potentially embed a YouTube video on their Web site (especially the educators) has to/should think about before doing so?  Notwithstanding any inappropriateness of video content for minors, I believe they have the obligation to make their best judgement as to whether or not video is copyrighted and they also need to consider making efforts to include a disclaimer type of notice on their Web site with regard to immediate action being taken to removing any embedded video should such video become known or suspected as a copyright violation.  

The confusion that people are faced with as to making a sound ethical determination of whether or not a suspected video is indeed a copyright violation or actually appears as a courtesy of some mainstream or obscure agreement with YouTube (or the copyright holder) is readily apparent and understandable.   Also, when trying to make this type of determination, one must consider the agreement that every person that uploads a video to YouTube must make stating that they, at least in some way, have permission to upload the video in the first place. What bearing does this have on your decision and can we simply go forward unimpeachable because of this agreement?  Not completely likely…

Provided that you aren’t causing any direct infringements or knowingly committing contributory infringement…it seems as though (at least to me as a layman) that the proverbial “door” is wide-open to embed the YouTube videos on your site with little fear of being named in a lawsuit, especially if you are willing and quickly able to remove any controversial video the moment you are made aware of the potential infringement and state so, visibly, with each embedded video that you post.

I wish that YouTube would consider posting on each video that ever has been ”flagged” as a potential copyright violation and then found out to be an acceptable usage that it was investigated and was ceared of the accusation.  This, from my perspective at least, would seem to be easily implemented and highly valuable to the end-users as an informational tool.  I am going to suggest a couple of other “checks” for consideration of your own determination of whether something is posted illegally on YouTube: 

• If something is clearly from a television show, movie, music concert, or purchasable source -take extra care when deciding whether or not to embed it on your site.
• Look at the original post date and views of the video, if it has been posted for more than a year and also shows thousands of views -it probably would have been flagged and removed if it was a copyright violation or not allowed on YouTube for some reason.  Give special consideration as to if you want to embed something that has been uploaded to YouTube recently and hasn’t had time to go through this type of public vetting process. 

While these two ideas hold no legal bearing whatsoever, they do seem to provide some measure and idea as to whether or not something that is currently posted on YouTube might be in “good legal standing”.   Again, there really doesn’t seem to be a definitive way to know that something is a violation unless you are the copyright holder of have been able to have direct contact with the copyright holder about the item in question. 

So what does this all mean with regard to the question of embedding a YouTube video on your site? 

In a nutshell, it means that you have to be careful, take some precautions, and be honest with regard to what you decide to embed on your Web site.

Is there any guarantee that you won’t have your “pants sued off you” for embedding a YouTube video on your site? 

No, there isn’t, but the burden of proof is always on the prosecutors side and it seems to me that any person NOT purposefully and knowingly violating any issues that could be construed as “contributory infringement, AND taken into consideration YouTube’s own, very strict,  DMCA policies, AND the agreements that MUST be made by each person originally uploading the materials,  AND your stated willingness to take down, immediately, anything that is made known to you as a potential infringement IS a pretty solid-case for non-violation;  BUT, I’M NOT A LAWYER NOR AM I GIVING LEGAL ADVICE WITH THIS POST.

Does all this copyright/legal usage stuff drive me nuts?

 YES, but it’s necessary to better understand what we are allowed to do within the mountainous legal framework that is provided with regard to all of this.

Finally, Will I post and embed YouTube videos on my site?  

Yes (and I have).  Sometimes you just have to be boldand make your best educated guess with regard to a faced problem.  Educationally speaking, there are so many videos available on YouTube that have enormous educational value and we must not be afraid of using the technologies availalbe to us, within legal parameters, to provide better educational opportunities for all!

It seems everyone has an opinion on this…What’s yours? Join the CIVIL discussion by commenting below…

TheOpen Hynmal is one of those resources and a GREAT one it truly is.  Found at http://openhymnal.org, Brian J. Dumont has been maintaining the hymnal and exploring copyright information on this site to make sure that the Open Hymnal Project is available to all and everything available within it is both free and legal.   There are many public domain hymns available and the print is very nice.  Each hymn also includes quite a bit of information about the author and/or translations. 

The site includes a general hymn index, a topical hymn index, and a section for new hymns.  In addition, there are a number of special editions available for quick download i.e., Christmas and Lent/Easter Editions, etc.  The Web site also includes a site specific Google search bar to quickly find specific hymns.

The hymns are able to be downloaded as PDfs, Midi Files, or ABC Plus music files.  The entirety of the collection is also zipped for convenience of download. 

Here is a direct link to their Lent/Easter Edition PDF.   In addition, they also have a very nice link section that will guide you to other similar and related Christian music-based Web sites.

I hope that you all may enjoy this resource and wish all those celebrating the Easter season a happy one!

I was also very excited to see them include a blog-based discussion system that is set-up to include “Quick Tips” about their software and other music technology related topics.   One of the unique ideas behind creating their site and their software is to capitalize on the educational learning opportunities that can be gained (or created) by using this type of software in conjunction with classroom-based projection systems and interactive whiteboards.  Their goal is to create and distribute music software that can easily be integrated into existing music classrooms and established music curriculums both easily and in a meaningful way for the music students.

Here are a sample of the  software programs/applications are available at TMI:

$10.00 Music Software:

Sheddin Latin Jazz: Interactive instruction for Latin-Jazz of all levels.  Latin Percussion expert Ruben Alvarez provides the interactive instructions.

Sheddin Jazz Piano:Like the Latin Jazz Series, noted Jazz Educator, Michael Kocour provides jazz instruction for learning how to play Jazz Piano.

$5.00 Music Software:

Recorder Program: A perfect addition to your 3rd or 4th grade recorder instrumental program.  This software allows students to see fingerings as well as includes 20 songs complete with a “light up rhythm” feature”.

Rhythmic Dictation: A program that creates rhythms by selectable criteria for studying in the classroom environment.

Free Music Software:

Boom: Allows students to create a boom whacker composition virtually.

Drums around the World: Includes pictures and sounds from twenty-five different world percussion instruments.

MyJamz: Record and compose your own music in this interesting music program that arranges “monsters” into compositions.

Speed Note: Beat the clock in an effort to better read note-based music.

Staff Wars: A game that allows you to practice your music reading skills in the bass and treble clefs.

String Tuner: Software that uses real sound samples of a Viola, Violin, and Cello to play the tuning notes -G, D, A, and E.

Congratulations to Marc and Craig as they provide a great gift to music educators and students of music via this new web site.   Be sure to pass this site on to all of your musician friends and music educators… -I am sure that they will find something of value to them in this new resouce and repository of music software.

Visit TMI today at http://themusicinteractive.com