Robert Sheldon conducts the Regional Repertory Wind Ensemble

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of working with Robert Sheldon as he conducted the Regional Repertory Wind Ensemble. The RRWE is a Maryland based honor band that I have assisted for the past seven years. Early each summer, the organization finds a composer/clinicain/educator to come in and direct the audition based group on a concert of their own compositions. Many conductors have worked with the group over the years, all of whom are master composers, educators, AND conductors. Sam Hazo, Frank Ticheli, Richard Saucedo, and Brian Balmages have all worked with the group.  

Working with Robert Sheldon is a real treat. His music finds a way of strongly connecting to the students. It is just so fun to play! I can hear and see how naturally they gravitate towards it in performance. One of the things I really admire about Sheldon is that he is a real instructor. His years of teaching experience have crafted him into someone who is really able to rehearse an ensemble, assess where the problems are, and immediately give just the right feedback to get the musical result he wants. And he gets these results without ever once raising his voice, putting a student on the spot, or diminishing their efforts. In every interaction he was complimentary, patient, and spoke deliberately. When he needed   students to step up, he would always find a way to make them feel great as a member of the ensemble before first offering a suggestion.  His manner of offering suggestions was much like  dangling a carrot just far enough in front of them that they would want to sit up a little straighter, put their instrument in playing position sooner, reach for the peak of the phrase, etc.

I witnessed expert music teaching this weekend. And for that I thank Mr. Sheldon for his involvement with the ensemble. 

🔗 Chris Russell's early thoughts on the iPad Pro

If you ask me, Chris Russell's Technology in Music Education blog is one of the places on the web to read about music technology in education. Chris is a big time proponent and writer on using iPads in music ed. He is also a great hold out when it comes to resisting new tech and pushing his current technology to its near death. As a reckless early adopter I admire him for this.

Chris just updated his iPad to the large 12.9 pro model. This device was updated recently alongside an all new 10.5 inch sized pro model. I hear that the 120Hz refresh rate on the screen of both these new models is out of this world. Needless to say, now that Chris is using an iPad Pro, I am curious to see what he will write about it in the coming months. 

His early thoughts are in keeping with this theme, basically stating that the iPad Pro is a monster piece of hardware desperately waiting for the productivity features of iOS 11 this fall.

A few days with the new 12.9″ iPad Pro | Technology in Music Education:

I have been putting off the purchase of a new iPad for some time–and it was time to upgrade.

That iPad arrived on Tuesday, and I have been using the iPad Pro in my daily life for the past three days.  I have been reading a lot about the iPad Pro models on all of the technology news outlets.  The general consensus is that the iPad Pro is wonderful, but it costs a lot.  This sounds like typical Apple to me.  That said, my 2008 MacBook (which I am still using) was pretty expensive ($1500 if memory serves), but it is still working for me nearly 9 years later. 

I have been integrating the iPad Pro into my life, and for the most part, what I have to say is this: it is a big iPad that does what iPads do.  I am able to do some more split screen activities as the size better allows for it, and it is wonderful for reading music.

🔗 Pro Tools 12.5 Review - Cloud Collaboration Tested

Pro Tools 12.5 Review - Cloud Collaboration Tested:

Pro Tools 12.5 is Avid's latest version of Pro Tools, bringing cloud collaboration features. Here is our extensive review of Pro Tools 12.5 complete with video demo and our conclusion.

Cloud collaboration enables users of Pro Tools 12.5 the ability of working on projects together with other Pro Tools users around the world offering a set of integrated tools for sharing all or some of your Pro Tools session so other people can add their own parts or mix tracks.

I would love to know if anyone reading this has use for or has tested the cloud collaboration features of Pro Tools. They demoed really well when first announced. The process seems reliable but really clunky. If Apple had a bigger stake in this area, I wonder what collaborative features would look like in Logic Pro. 

🔗 Glenn Gould’s Every Detail. But Why? - The New York Times

Glenn Gould’s Every Detail. But Why? - The New York Times:

The first Beethoven sonata I learned as a young pianist was the dramatic “Pathétique.” When I started working on it, I tried to copy the way the great Rudolf Serkin played it on a recording I loved. There is a place for learning by emulating masters, but it can easily become inhibiting. Fairly early on, aspiring musicians must develop their own voices.

So when a score that meticulously transcribes every detail of Glenn Gould’s famed 1981 recording of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations was published recently, while I was impressed with the painstaking effort involved, I questioned what it was for.

What’s its purpose? For whom is it intended? From what we know of Gould, he would have been baffled, even horrified, at the idea that a student learning the “Goldberg” Variations would precisely mimic his performance. He was too restless a thinker to consider any recording of his at all definitive. And imitating a pianist as idiosyncratic as Gould may not be a good idea for impressionable young musicians.

🔗 My Headphones, My Self - NYTimes.com

This is a fun article from back in December…

My Headphones, My Self - NYTimes.com:

You see them on every block: people being propelled through their routines listening to their own individualized soundtracks, with the outside world serving as a stage set.

Headphones are now fashion statements. Status symbols. Fetish objects on par with luxury watches and limited-edition Nikes.

I also liked this quote:

“Headphones are the front line of urban social defense,” said Julie Klausner, a comedian, actor and writer. “I’m introverted and socially anxious by nature. My worst nightmare is sitting next to someone on a plane or someone who wants to strike up a conversation on an elevator.”

🎬 Adding an Index for Your Real Books in forScore

forScore 10 adds a feature that allows you to add indexes to large scores by uploading a CSV file that links the song titles to specific page numbers of the PDF. This is especially useful for real and fake books that have hundreds of songs all associated with one giant file. A competing score app called unrealBook pioneered this feature to my knowledge. I used to keep it installed on my iPad just for that one feature, but now, I can do everything I need to in forScore.

I created a video tutorial of how to accomplish this. See below:

 You can find the index files I reference in the video here. 

I don’t have a full technical understanding of how this feature works, so I tried to avoid explaining what is going on with the file. I think I am explaining it well enough that if you imitate my steps, you will be successful in most attempts. If there is anything unclear, let me know and I will try to clarify it in a future post.

One thing I did not cover in the video are the page offset settings at the bottom of the index settings screen. I have attached about 10 indexes to my forScore library and only twice did I need to use those buttons. In some cases, the CSV score may be offset by a few pages leading to the index not linking you to the correct songs. In these cases, I simply fiddled around with the plus and minus buttons until I got the result I wanted. I would be happy to redo the video with that step included if enough people are interested.

New Tech! Using Square Register with Private Lessons

I just purchased a new piece of tech I am looking forward to integrating into my private studio next school year.

I teach about 20-25 private students outside of the normal teaching day. As my number of private students increases, my ability to manage scheduling and payment is stretched. For the past ten years, I have strongly preferred checks for payment. I finally decided that I do enough transactions a year to rationalize the purchase of a Square Stand.

The Square Stand is a register that you can stick an iPad into and run Square’s Register app. I have repurposed an iPad Air to live permanently in the Stand.

Right when students walk in the from door, they are greeted with a Square Register which they can use to swipe their credit card, or touch their phone or smartwatch to it to use Apple Pay/Android Pay/Samsung Pay. The app has all of my monthly and single lesson fees preprogrammed as “items” that someone can buy. When they pay, the money automatically goes into my bank account after a few days and they get emailed or texted a receipt.

I am not using this enough yet to write at length about my experiences but I thought I would share the idea here in the meantime.

🔗 Mixing Call Me Maybe

I love reading stuff like this interview from Dave Ogilvie about mixing the song “Call Me Maybe.” Here are a couple of parts that jumped out at me.

Dave Ogilvie mixing “Call Me Maybe”:

Back at home in Vancouver, Ogilvie is well known as a top mixer and producer, although he is more strongly associated with electronic and industrial music than breezy, catchy pop. He has worked with Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, the Birthday Massacre, Marilyn Manson, Einstürzende Neubauten and many more…

…

'Call Me Maybe' thus conceals some darker elements beneath its radio-friendly surface. At first listen, it's a rather fluffy, lightweight, bubblegum pop song, but closer inspection quickly reveals another dimension, which is most apparent in a hypnotic four-to-the-floor bass drum that becomes monstrous in the choruses and a muscular string hook. The song also comes across as a genuine representation of Carly Rae Jepsen's character.

…

"The main thing that Josh wanted me to do during my mix of 'Call Me Maybe' was to make the kick drum really prominent and punchy. He wanted me to do everything I could to make it super-special. I think I spent a good couple of hours on the kick drum alone, and kept pushing myself to create the ultimate kick drum, and have it super-loud and driving the track. When I finished the mix, I thought it really was very, very loud, and I was a little apprehensive about the power of the bottom end, wondering whether I'd gone too far with it for a pop song. But Josh and I looked at each other and said: 'This is what we are shooting for.' So we printed it like that and when I later heard it on the radio I was like, 'Wow, this is awesome.' It seems to work because of the space in the track, which I was careful to leave, which means that you can hear the punch the kick drum is intended to have on computer speakers and in cars and in stores, in fact pretty much everywhere.

🔗 iOS 11 Tidbits from Mac Rumors

iOS 11 Tidbits: Customizable Control Center, One-Handed Keyboard, Type to Siri and More - Mac Rumors:

iOS 11 introduces a huge number of major changes to the operating system, ranging from a redesigned Control Center experience to a host of new features specific to the iPad, but along with all of these major changes, outlined in our iOS 11 announcement post, there are also dozens of smaller changes that have been added to the beta. 

Below, we've outlined some of the smaller but still significant tweaks that went unmentioned during Apple's whirlwind keynote announcement. 

I love articles like this. In the coming weeks, people who are running the iOS 11 beta will likely be discovering all of the nice little features that there wasn’t time in the keynote to address. Every once in a while, I find that there is one little minor change that is going to solve a daily frustration for me. A few from this that really resonate with me are…

• Type to Siri (an accessibility setting allowing you to type Siri inquires rather than saying them)

• Customizable Control Center

• Offload Unused Apps (auto delete apps that haven’t been opened in a while)

• Drag and Drop for iPhone (does not work across apps though)

• AirPod settings (now, double tapping the right side can perform a different ask than tapping the left side)

• Screen recording (will be awesome for making how-to videos and recording Snapchat videos

What did Apple check off on my WWDC wishlist?

A few weeks ago, I detailed my wishlist for WWDC. Below, I have reposted it with what Apple actually announced. My assessment over whether or not a feature was announced is based on whether or not the feature was announced verbally during the keynote, not on a slide or later discovered within the OS.

MACOS

-News app to mirror the one on iOS NOPE

-improvements to pro apps (Final Cut Pro X and Logic Pro X) and additions to the Photos app NOPE

-splitting iTunes up into separate apps like what is on iOS: separate app for Music, TV, Podcasts, and iTunes Store NOPE

IOS

-default apps (won't happen) NOPE

-serious overhaul of iPad productivity (better file system, better home screen, drag and drop, better multitasking, more control over audio ins and outs) YESX100

TVOS

-PiP NOPE

-Ability to watch TV content from two apps at once NOPE

-ability to command with Siri without the Remote app (for example, I want to say to my phone, “hey Siri watch Game of Thrones,” and have it turn on the TV, launch the HBO app and start the most recent episode) NOPE

-ability to sync all Apple TVs in the house so that they show the same video at once (for parties...also, this won't happen) NOPE

WATCHOS

-smart contexts: ability to change Watch face, complications, and notifications based on sensitivity to time and location CHECK, Siri watchface

-better audio controls (easier to access Now Playing screen, complications to play and pause audio, ability to scroll the crown for volume and use hardware buttons for control whenever audio has recently been playing) CHECK, sort of with swipe to audio controls within Workout app

GENERAL

-Siri improvements (more reliable, faster, more open to third party apps, better integration with tvOS, local dictation and basic commands CHECK

-AirPods with always listening Siri NOPE

-improvements to iCloud Drive (shared folders, files, and URLs) CHECK definitely to shared files, but not sure about others

Here are some of my favorite features that reddit users replied with:

-Multiple iOS user logins NOPE

-Hey Siri on Mac NOPE

-custom watch faces NOPE

-open CarPlay up to more developers (pasrticular third party maps apps and messenging apps) NOPE

-iOS dark mode NOPE

-Workflow integration NOPE

-Open up NFC to third party apps CHECK

-Apple Pay your friends and family over iMessage CHECK

-Apple Music continuity NOPE