Muse Group acquires Hal Leonard - Scoring Notes

Big news.

The Scoring Notes blog has details and insights. Click to read their coverage below.

Muse Group acquires Hal Leonard - Scoring Notes:

Muse Group, the Limassol, Cyprus-based company which owns music and audio products such as MuseScore.com, the MuseScore music notation application, StaffPad, Ultimate Guitar, and Audacity, has acquired Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Hal Leonard, the largest publisher of sheet music and educational books. The transaction is supported by San Francisco-based private equity firm Francisco Partners. The acquisition closed on December 1, 2023 and was announced today. Terms were undisclosed. Muse Group published a series of FAQs to address immediate questions. Keep reading here…

🔗 Dissertation summary | The Ethan Hein Blog

Dissertation summary | The Ethan Hein Blog:

I applied for something that asked for a ten page summary of my doctoral dissertation. Maybe you would like to read it, rather than the full 300 pages? Keep reading here…

StaffPad Autumn 2023 Update

A new update is out for StaffPad. I have been testing the app and have more to say about it on a future episode of the podcast. For now, read about the update from the StaffPad team, themselves…

Autumn 2023 Update:

It's been a while since our last update and, in the interim, we've been working hard on a lot of very interesting challenges and technologies - all designed to make writing music in StaffPad more productive and more flexible than ever.

This has resulted in some major changes under the hood, and a huge amount of R&D. I'm extremely proud of the work the team has done on this release, bringing features out of the research phase and into production use.

As always, this update is free and available in the App Store and Windows Store now. The video below gives a general overview of the update, covering composing using Piano Capture, MIDI Capture, Video Staffs, and more. Let's dive into it! Keep reading here…

The new piano capture and MIDI capture are paradigm-shifting additions to this update that offer entire new input methods. StaffPad is not my only notation tool, but what I appreciate about it is that the features the team chooses to focus on are all features that lift the burden off of me. For example, writing directly on the staff with an Apple Pencil eliminates the abstractions of menus and buttons. Recording my upright piano straight into the staff is, similarly, a concept that let’s me more directly get my thoughts our of my head and into the app, and without fussing with interfaces, USB connections, and MIDI controllers.

This update is very much worth a look and I am excited to discuss it more down the road.

Asked and answered, part 3: Back to school - Scoring Notes Podcast

I’m very happy to have a few of my questions addressed on a recent episode of Scoring Notes (listen here).

Philip and David have been doing a series of episodes featuring listener questions. In part 3, the questions are centered on educational topics. Their responses are insightful, considered, and practical.

Podcast appearance: iPad Pros Episode 178 - Logic Pro

I am back on the iPad Pros podcast, this time to talk about Logic Pro for iPad.

I really had fun talking to Tim about this topic. I hope you will check it out.

Amazing Free Mac Apps You Aren't Using! - Snazzy Labs

I really enjoyed this video of awesome, free, Mac apps. I use and give my thumbs up to most of the apps in this video and even learned about a new one or two myself.

Everything Must Be Paid for Twice

This blog post is worth a read. Via Andrew Hitz.

Everything Must Be Paid for Twice:

The miracle of industrialization has reduced many first prices tremendously, but has also given us many more of them to consider paying. With all the wonderful toys on offer, almost nobody feels like they have quite enough money, enough acquisition power. When a person receives a windfall, they immediately think of more first prices they can now pay.

But no matter how many cool things you acquire, you don’t gain any more time or energy with which to pay their second prices—to use the gym membership, to read the unabridged classics, to make the ukulele sound good—and so their rewards remain unredeemed.

I believe this is one reason our modern lifestyles can feel a little self-defeating sometimes. In our search for fulfillment, we keep paying first prices, creating a correspondingly enormous debt of unpaid second prices. Yet the rewards of any purchase – the reason we buy it at all — stay locked up until both prices are paid. Keep reading here…

Google Sheets Dashboards — David Getz Creative

David Getz is an educator from Illinois who is doing crazy awesome things with Google Spreadsheets to track the progress of his orchestra students. It reminds me of some of my own goals for tracking data and assessing students. Read about his awesome workflow on his blog.

Post #3 - Creativity in Organization: Google Sheets Dashboards — David Getz Creative:

Spreadsheets begin as endless rows of empty cells, neatly organized in columns and rows; a pure, blank canvas. What’s hidden in each cell though are endless formulas and shortcuts that can allow any creator to manipulate them for artistic and imaginative purposes.

I have always enjoyed goofing around with spreadsheets, but it was typically for the sole purpose of organizing baseball statistics or populating March Madness brackets. It wasn’t until I began coaching cross country that I began using my knack for number crunching for a professional purpose. After a few seasons of gathering large amounts of running data and analyzing trends to help us in our races, I realized I could also be using Google Sheets for educational purposes in my classroom. Music teachers often have the same students for multiple years, so having a way to analyze data over a long period of time is essential.

This year, I have decided to take a deep dive into building Google Sheets Dashboards. Keep reading here…

Spotify sells its music-creation tool Soundtrap back to its founders - Music Ally

Music Ally reports that Spotify is selling Soundtrap back to its founders.

Spotify sells its music-creation tool Soundtrap back to its founders - Music Ally:

Spotify is selling music-creation tool Soundtrap back to its founders to become a standalone business again, five and a half years after acquiring it.

Originally a startup from Spotify’s homeland Sweden, Soundtrap built its service as a cloud-based tool for recording and collaborating on music. Aimed at grassroots musicians and schools, it was bought by Spotify in November 2017.

Soundtrap has now been sold back to its original founders, Per Emanuelsson and Björn Melinder, for an undisclosed amount.

Keep reading here…

I was intrigued back when Spotify purchased Soundtrap and podcast publishing tool Anchor. The idea of putting both the audio creation tools and consumption tools into the hands of the general user seemed like it could result in some synergistic results long term. I guess Spotify isn’t interested in that. I am not really sure what Spotify is interested in. Their vision for the experience of using their app seems to be all over the place lately. And I don’t understand what the app offers that other music streaming services don’t, other than perhaps their superior music discovery algorithm.

MusicFirst welcomes MusicProfessor — Dr. James Frankel

MusicFirst welcomes MusicProfessor — Dr. James Frankel:

Coming this Fall, the MusicFirst Classroom will include ALL of the amazing Level One videos from MusicProfessor.com at no additional charge. MusicProfessor is an online library that contains hundreds of short videos that provide lessons so that students learn how to play an instrument at home at your own pace on any device. The videos are excellent and professionally produced, and I personally believe that it is a perfect resource for any band or orchestra director who may not have the time to provide individualized instruction to EVERY student. Keep reading here…