Link Post
Robby Burns
David MacDonald unboxes the Odla music notation ...
David MacDonald unboxes the Odla music notation controller

play along tracks

Soundtrap for Instrumental Music Teachers (HCPSS PD August 23, 2021)

I am presenting at the Howard County Public School System Music Professional Development on August 23, 2021.

These are the notes for that session...

  1. "What Do We Keep?" - This presentation is an loosely adapted from a post I wrote for the NAfME blog titled "Take, Leave, Transform! What Do We Keep from Last School Year", which was based on a presentation I gave at the Music Ed Tech Conference this past summer. Check it out for more resources and ideas, and most importantly, links to the software mentioned in today's session.
  2. "What Do We Keep?"" Session Notes - If you want just the links and resources from the blog post above, click here.
  3. Getting Your Students to Compose - Click here to read more about implementing Putting the E in Ensemble and to listen to my interview with Alex Shapiro.
  4. "Develop Performance Skills Remotely" - TMEA Presentation Notes - Some of the videos in today's presentation were taken from my TMEA presentation this past year. Click here to watch the entire thing and receive the session notes.
  5. Making Just Intonation Play-Alongs with Tonal Energy Tuner - Click here to read my blog post about making play-along tracks using the TE Tuner app.

These three podcast episodes also address the subject of using Soundtrap creatively in the performing arts contexts.

What Do We Keep? (Podcast version of the above NAfME post)

Interview with Alex Shapiro about her "Putting the E in Ensemble" Curriculum

3 Soundtrap Projects Your Students Will Love (more Soundtrap ideas for in and outside of the performing arts classroom)

Develop Performance Skills Remotely with Cloud Software - YouTube

Making a Play Along Track - YouTube

Making a Virtual Ensemble Video - YouTube

METT Episode #23 - Rogue Amoeba Audio Apps, with Paul Kafasis

Paul Kafasis, CEO of Rogue Amoeba, joins Robby to talk about the stellar audio apps they make and how Robby is using them in the music classroom both before and during COVID.

Show Notes:

Rogue Amoeba Website: Macaudio.com

Robby's Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks
Stream Deck

Rogue Amoeba Apps:

Audio Hijack
Loopback
Sound Source
Piezo
Farrago
Fission
Airfoil
Ultimate Podcast Bundle
Educator Discount and Volume Pricing

My blog post on Audio Hijack
My blog post on Loopback

Mimeo Photos Extension for the Mac | Make premium printed photo projects right on your Mac

Acorn | Full Featured Photo Editor for the Mac

App of the Week:
Robby - Pixelmator Pro
Paul - Tot

Album of the Week:
Robby - Charlie XCX | How I'm Feeling Now
Paul - The Colour and the Shape | Foo Fighters

Where to Find Us:
Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book
Paul - Twitter | Website

Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!

Subscribe to Music Ed Tech Talk:

Subscribe to the Blog

Subscribe to the Podcast in...
Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

App of the Week: Neural Mix Pro

I have been testing out a Mac App called Neural Mix Pro, made by the people who make the popular DJay App for macOS and iOS.

It promises to take songs in your music library and hard drive and independently isolate vocals, drums, and other accompaniment so that they can be separated and mixed independently.

It works. I haven't played with it enough to know the breadth of its capability, but I tested the following songs, and they worked enough that I think I would use this tool for future music projects and teaching resources.

  • Blues for Time: a fusion song in a drum set method book I assign often. I already had a drum-less version of the track, but the one I could make in Neural Mix Pro was satisfactory. There are some artifacts when you filter out instruments, but that was to be expected. No vocals on this track, but drums and other accompaniment separated correctly.
  • Material Girl, Madonna: The vocals and electronic drums are so heavy in this track that isolating just the accompaniment instruments resulted in the correct instruments but not with an EQ that I would use for anything professionally. The vocals and drums sounded ok when separated.
  • Jesus Walks, Kanye West: very satisfactory separation of drums, accompaniment, vocals. The backup vocals in the intro are tied to the vocal track, however. No way to separate that. With Neural Mix, you can export just one of the three tracks and apply a target key or tempo to change to it. I exported this tune to an even 80 bpm (it was around 78.x bpm, to begin with) into Logic Pro and has some fun toying around with adding my own improvisations using software instruments. I can see how this could be a useful tool for DJs, music producers, and music educators alike.

Here is a video of my quick demo. I made this on a computer with limited access to my music library and no real goal in mind other than to play around. Let me know if there is something you think I should test in the app.

I can see this app being useful in the music classroom for a few reasons. In my general music class, where we use Soundtrap to produce music, I could giving students a vocal track for a pop song and having them remix it. The results in Neural Mix are, by far, good enough for student use, and I imagine my students having a blast with this.

I could also use this in private lessons by taking songs my students drum along to and making "Minus One" recordings out of them that don't any longer have the drums. Alternatively, I could make them a drum-only version of a song to study the details more closely.

This would be more useful you could separate other instruments than just drums. Taking an instrumentalist out of a jazz record to create a track to improvise over is one of a handful of possibilities that immediately popped into my head. Perhaps these features are in store for a future update. Or maybe this app will remain geared towards pop music, DJs, and music producers. Either way, I can see myself using it on my never-ending quest to make fun play-along tracks for the band to play along to.

🎙 #14 - Empowering Performing Ensembles at a Distance, with Theresa Hoover Ducassoux

Theresa Hoover Ducassoux joins the show to talk about technology for teaching band at a distance, productivity methodologies, Google apps for personal and school use, Flipgrid, empowering students, and more...

Other topics:

  • Personal productivity systems and apps
  • The Getting Things Done Methodology
  • Teaching band online
  • Being creative with whatever teaching scenario and schedule your district is moving forward with this fall
  • Engaging students with musical performance using the Flipgrid video service
  • Google apps for personal productivity
  • Google apps for classroom teaching
  • Organizing files in Google Drive
  • Automating band warm ups
  • Chamber music breakout groups using Google Meet and Soundtrap
  • Getting Google Certified
  • Her book- Pass the Baton: Empowering All Music Students
  • Our favorite album and apps of the week

Show Notes:

App of the Week:
Robby - Loopback by Rogue Ameoba (They have educator discounts)
Theresa - Flat for Docs

Album of the Week:
Robby - Jennifer Higdon Harp Concerto
Theresa - Dustin O’Halloran, piano solos

Where to Find Us:
Robby - Twitter | Blog | Book
Theresa - Twitter | Website - MusicalTheresa.com | Book - Pass the Baton: Empowering All Music Students | Blog - Off the Beaten Path

Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!

Subscribe to Music Ed Tech Talk:

Subscribe to the Blog

Subscribe to the Podcast in... Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Find Robby elsewhere on the web