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

Music goes in the ear

This post from Matt Youglove, featured on Vandoren's website, is really what it is all about.

Intonation is one of my favorite pedagogical topics in music, particularly because I am most methodical about it, and, because it is one of those things that really differentiates one young band from the next.

This part really nails it:

My point here is not to say that there is a correct frequency with which to tune; in fact it’s the opposite. There is NO correct pitch. Being in tune simply means that the frequencies you are producing on your instrument are at an agreeable ratio with the pitches being produced below you (which also applies to solo players – the lower notes being ones that you have previously played and are still in the listeners ear). You must play in tune with yourself as well as with others. The human ear hears the upper of two disagreeing pitches as “out of tune.”

The solution offered is exactly what I do with my students:

For this reason, I make all my students use a droning device. My preference is the Boss DB-88 Dr. Beat Metronome (which is no longer on the market – the DB-90 is the new model). I plug this into a PA system in my office and make students play the associated full scale over at least 3 different notes (usually chromatically adjacent), stopping on each consonance until it is perfectly in tune. This usually takes students quite a while at first, but the dividends are worthwhile.

Why slowness is killing the Apple Watch

Dan Moren has a great write up on why slowness is killing the Apple Watch over on sixcolors.com and I couldn't agree with it more.

This part sums up my experience and frustration completely:

The problem with the Apple Watch is that we’re being asked to strap something to our wrist—to attach it to our very body—without it delivering on the corresponding promise that it will be much faster to use than our phones. The stale data and the lack of speed means that either you have to stare at your Watch for several seconds and hope the data updates; or tap on the complication to load the Watch app, which as we all know takes a good long while as well; or simply give up and pull out your phone.

It’s not just that the Apple Watch is slow; it’s that it’s slow while promising to be faster. That the Watch is a remarkable piece of engineering I won’t dispute, and as a fashion statement, well, it’s as personal as fashion always is. But as a consumer electronics product, it doesn’t really deliver on its primary reason for existing.

What is the killer Apple TV app? (Suggestion included)

Something that has struck me about the new Apple TV is the fact that I have not seen any apps that truly innovate the way users interact with content. You know what I mean...there is no "killer app" for it yet that compels people to buy the device. So far everything is just a port of a game or video streaming app from iOS. I haven't seen any apps yet that do anything...

 

A. a previous streaming box could not already do

and

B. that takes unique advantage of the strengths of a TV (plus the remote input) 

 

What are the strengths of a TV? A few things that come to mind are:

 

- It is large and central to the room it is placed in.

- It is communal. Everyone in the room can see it at the same time.

- It is always plugged in. Information on it can be left visible indefinitely, be seen from far away, and not threaten the battery life of the device. 

- It is dedicated. TVs are intended to consume our field of view and attention. Apps have the potential to be very focused in this respect, occupying the entire screen and not allowing distractions like notifications and multitasking.

- Like a touch screen, apps can take any shape they want at any time. Sure, they can feed the user a video stream, but they can also be as interactive as a developer is willing to make them. Let's not forget that the remote to manipulate the device has an accelerometer, microphone, and touch screen. This does not even include the fact that third party game controllers, mobile phones, and Bluetooth keyboards can be used as additional inputs. 

- Fill in the blanks here. I am probably missing a few...

 

The promised MLB.com At Bat app coming in 2016 supposedly challenges this ideas by allowing you to watch multiple games side by side, call up contextual stats about players, and view scores to other games without interrupting the video feed. Apparently the QVC app allows the user to interact with the video feed by buying items displayed on the screen from right within the app. I do not use either of these apps but this is the kind of forward thinking that I am talking about.

I thought of a very specific problem earlier today that only a TV app could uniquely solve.

The app market is saturated with "read it later" style services like Instapaper and Pocket. These apps allow you to quickly clip web content into an app where you can read it later distraction free. This makes digging through links on Twitter and Facebook feeds a lot quicker. What I have noticed though is that I clip a lot of videos into my Instapaper account that I never actually go back and watch. There is a reason for this. When I am on a mobile device, I am usually in public or at work. There is rarely a moment when I have time or privacy to watch loud videos. They also take up the entire screen and demand a level of attention that I am often unable to give while mobile.

At the end of each day, I do usually end up in front of a TV, even if it is to do something like watch an episode of The Wire before bed. I have a different attitude about watching video when I am in the living room. I crank it up loud, tune out all work, and am ready to be entertained. What better time and place to conveniently watch through a feed of all the video I clipped from the web that day, only on a huge screen, without annoying anyone in public, and when I am relaxed?

So, there you go. Feel free to steal that idea for a "watch it later" app! To be honest, Instapaper and Pocket have great video support on iOS. It is a surprise they have not already made video only versions of their apps for Apple TV.

Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie | David Bowie's 25 Favorite Albums

Confessions of a Vinyl Junkie | David Bowie’s 25 Favorite Albums is a good read.

It's just fascinating to see how eclectic Bowie's interests were.

I find my musical tastes to be just as all over the place and really related to the list. I look forward to digging through it over the next few days.

Here is a link to an Apple Music playlist I made containing all of the albums I could find. In some cases, I replaced the version on Bowie's list with an alternate recording to accommodate as many of the albums as I could.

iOS 9.3 Preview

Apple has released a preview of iOS 9.3. This update is in beta and will contain many new decent features. Nothing big, but stuff that Apple typically does not add to their operating systems mid-year. This a much welcome change and allows Apple to stay current in ways that they could not on an annual software release cycle. I am really happy to see Apple Music features in the car, thumbprint protected notes, and suggested apps that can feed the data in the Health app. Also interesting is the Night Shift feature which will warm the colors of your screen when it gets dark at night to make it easier on your eyes. This is just a month or so after the developers of f.lux (popular screen temperature app for the desktop) figured out how to release it for iOS through process of sideloading only for Apple to ask them to remove it soon afterwards.

Most surprising to me is the last section on the iPad in education. It looks like Apple is adding multiple user accounts to the iPad for classrooms and is adding a classroom management app. This is interesting especially because of CEO Tim Cook's recent comments to Buzzfeed when asked about the growing ubiquity of Chromebooks in the classroom.

Google’s Chromebooks have overtaken Apple products as the most popular devices in American classrooms, but Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will not be following the search giant’s approach to the education market, which has been a stronghold for Apple since the early days of the Mac.

“Assessments don’t create learning,” Cook said in an interview with BuzzFeed News Wednesday, calling the cheap laptops that have proliferated through American classrooms mere “test machines.”

“We are interested in helping students learn and teachers teach, but tests, no,” Cook said. “We create products that are whole solutions for people — that allow kids to learn how to create and engage on a different level.”

Apple has been deeply connected to schools since it first rolled out mass market personal computers in the 1980s, and has long offered big discounts to students and teachers. But its education market share has been snatched away by the Google-branded Chromebooks, which are outselling not just Apple but everyone else in the tech business.

I am very excited about these new features, what it means for Apple to break the annual software release cycle, and how they might fight for their place in the classroom.

Find Robby elsewhere on the web