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

NPR Best Albums 2019 - Apple Music and Spotify Playlists

Things have been quiet on the blog lately. My wife and I bought a new house in late October and are expecting our first child any day now. Once I can find some time again, I have some very exciting work I am looking forward to here.

In the meantime I wanted to squeeze in a few annual posts I usually do around this time.

NPR Music Best Albums of 2019

I love compiling this list every year. I usually publish it earlier, and have a lot more to say about it. I will be shorter this year.

NPR Music Best Albums of 2019 - Apple Music

NPR Music Best Albums of 2019 - Spotify (I did not compile this one)

So far, my favorites off the list include IGOR, Diatom Ribbons, and Caroline Shaw: Orange (which I already knew).

Off last year's list my favorites have turned out to be Johann Sebastian Bach, The Other Side of Air, Origami Harvest, Vibras, re:member, soli, Heaven and Earth, and Dirty Computer.

I hope these albums help your spring forward into the new year with some new tunes! Happy Holidays!

Indexing Real Books in forScore (Christmas Edition!)

Those of you who follow my blog may have seen my YouTube tutorial and blog post demonstrating how to index long PDF files in the forScore app on iPad.

I realized earlier this week that I had never moved my Christmas fake books to my iPad and figured it was worth a start. In the past, I found pre-existing CSV indexes from the user forums but today I manually added the song titles inside of the forScore app. Fortunately there is a new (?) button inside of the bookmarks menu called Index that offers to look for a table of contents inside of your pdf and guess some of the song titles and pages numbers for you. This worked well! I had to go in and fix a few things but overall it was a good start.

Of course, I want to practice over the changes of these songs so I pulled up my favorite jazz practice workflow on iPad — sliding iReal Pro into split view — so I could see the chords and play along to practice tracks. Turns out someone on the iReal Pro user forums has made play-alongs for most of the Christmas Real Book that you can download into your library. Here is the link.

Happy Holidays and enjoy!

The automatic Index button in action.

The automatic Index button in action.

Songs are now searchable by title!

Songs are now searchable by title!

Running forScore and iReal Pro side by side in split view.

Running forScore and iReal Pro side by side in split view.

🔗 Black Friday App Store Deals (MDMDeals.com)

One of my favorite things to browse on Black Friday are app deals. I love exploring new software in my free time away from school, and there’s nothing cozier than purchasing a new app and downloading it right from the comfort of my bed or couch.

If you're looking for App Store deals today, look no further than this post from MDM Deals.

The best Black Friday sales on iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps, movies, and more! - Discover great deals on fantastic apps & movies:

This Black Friday, there are over 6,000 iOS, iPadOS, & macOS apps on sale in just the App Stores. I’ve spent dozens of hours going through them all to find you just the ones worth your time and money.

My favorites on this list are:

  • TextExpander

  • Deliveries

  • BeFocusedPro

  • Pixelmator Pro

  • Pocelmator Photo

  • Paprika Recipe Manager

  • Cardhop

  • BusyCal

  • Fantastical 2

  • 7 Minute Workout

  • LaunchBar (though I prefer Alfred)

  • Screens 4

  • PDF Expert

  • Civilization VI

🔗 Affinity Photo for iPad, great Photoshop competitor, is 50 percent off

For anyone looking for a serious photo editing power tool, Affinity Photo can’t be beat. Click here to take advantage of the deal.

I presume this is happening because Photoshop for iPad finally launched this week. Photoshop comes as part of one of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription plans. My wife and I subscribe to Creative Cloud because she uses Illustrator for design work (Illustrator was recently announced to be coming to the iPad next year).

That being said, I think there is very little reason to use Photoshop over a one time purchase like Affinity unless you are …

a. really familiar with the features and interface of Photoshop

b. depend on sharing PSD files with others in a professional or collaborative environment

Affinity Photo is a great catch. Pick it up if you are looking for a mobile based photo editing tool!

🔀 Guest post: 10 Productivity Apps to Help You Organize Your Lesson Plans | Midnight Music

This month I wrote a guest post for Midnight Music, an awesome blog and website designed to equip music teachers with technology knowledge and resources.

The post includes about 10 of the productivity apps I use to create, organize, and collaborate on lesson plans in the music classroom. The list covers some of the web tools and native iOS/Mac apps that are most indispensable to my work as a teacher.

Click the link below to head on over to Midnight Music and read the whole thing.

10 Productivity Apps to Help You Organize Your Lesson Plans | Midnight Music:

Everyone likes to organize themselves differently. Teachers prefer different tools, organization methods, and preference over how much of their workflow is digital. Whatever your approach, there are a handful of great apps that can help you create your plans, search them, group them, and collaborate on them. The following apps are some of my favorite tools for managing lesson ideas, plans and resources.

Many of them have similar features as one another, but all of them have unique strengths. My philosophy is that there is always a better and more specific tool for the job.

🎙 #3 - iPadOS 13 and macOS Catalina, with Paul Shimmons

Paul Shimmons, author of iPad and Technology in Music Ed, joins the show to talk about Apple’s new software releases: iPadOS 13 and macOS Catalina. But we also find time to talk about our favorite apps, microphones, recording workflows, subscription pricing for software, Siri Shortcuts, iPad apps for Mac, the new iPhone, and the new Apple Watch.

Show Notes:

Due to a bug in my version of Shortcuts, I am currently unable to share shortcuts. I hope to update this soon.

  • Tonal Energy Tuner Siri Shortcuts

Go to Preferences and select Siri Shortcuts. Tap on the action you would like to turn into a shortcut and then assign a Siri phrase for it.

App of the Week:
Paul Shimmons - Newzik

Robby - Pixelmator Photo

Album of the Week:
Paul Shimmons - Steven Meade - Diamonds

Robby - Sturgil Simpson - SOUND $ FURY

Where to Find Us
Paul Shimmons: Twitter | iPad & Technology in Music Ed

Robby Burns: Twitter | Blog

Subscribe to Music Ed Tech Talk:

Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

🎙 #2 - Hip-Hop In Music Education, Music Education In Hip-Hop, with Ethan Hein

Ethan Hein joins the show to talk about no less than the following: Ableton Live, bias in harmonic analysis, hip-hop in music education, music education in hip-hop, the racial politics of defining genre, white people covering hip-hop songs on acoustic instruments, basing a dissertation on blog posts, the aesthetics of dubstep and metal, and Ethan and Will Kuhn’s forthcoming book.

🗒 Apps for the Performing Ensemble Director - HCPSS PD Fall 2019

App of the Week: PDF Expert 7

Readdle Launches PDF Expert 7, Free Update for iPhone & iPad

Today we are incredibly excited to launch PDF Expert 7 — our vision of what the ultimate PDF experience for every iPhone and iPad should be.

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This week’s update to PDF Expert secures it as my favorite PDF app on iOS. The one and only problem I have been having with it for the past year or two was its lack of integration with the iOS document browser, which shows you the same interface as the Files app when selecting which PDF you want to work with. I wrote about this last week with reference to the OmniGroup’s apps getting support for the native file browser this fall.

Accessing the the document browser is a tap away at all times. A ‘recent documents’ option is also one tap away. This is helpful because PDF Expert does a great job of integrating different options for managing your PDFs. It has Dropbox and Google Drive support. It also allows you to store PDFs locally within the app. This is useful for me when I am creating new PDFs or temporarily making copies of them for the purpose of editing the order of pages, the text of my documents, etc...

The PDF Expert 7 interface. ‘My Files’ are locally stored documents which do not sync to iCloud. They can be viewed in the Files app through the PDF Expert file provider.

The PDF Expert 7 interface. ‘My Files’ are locally stored documents which do not sync to iCloud. They can be viewed in the Files app through the PDF Expert file provider.

I like my ‘one true’ copies of my documents to live in iCloud. I will often take a scan of a stack of concert band parts, drag it into PDF Expert, extract the individual pages into separate parts (Flute 1, Flute 2, etc.), and then save these parts back to iCloud. I don’t want any of the extra files generated during this process cluttering up my documents folder, so its nice to have a quarantined area of PDF Expert where they can live.

The old PDF Expert interface.

The old PDF Expert interface.

The PDF Expert file provider, accessed through the Files app.

The PDF Expert file provider, accessed through the Files app.

These local files can also be accessed from the native Files app as PDF Expert is a file provider.

Furthermore, PDF Expert gets its own iCloud folder where you can store documents by default. This is becoming less necessary because of how easy it is to access the Files interface, regardless of where your PDFs are stored.

As mentioned above, the ‘recents’ option makes it more streamlined to find what you want, no matter which of these methods you have used to store documents.

I am focusing a lot on the file workflow here because PDF Expert 6 already had the best feature set of any PDF app I have used on iOS. A clean interface, great editing tools, the ability to edit the text and images of a PDF (for real!) and more. These features are now all free. PDF Expert 7 introduces some pro features that come at the cost of 50 dollars a year. Some of these features include converting to PDF from Word or Excel files, and the option to customize the look and feel of the editing tools at the top of the screen. I am glad PDF Expert chose these features to put in the paid tier. It is just enough that it will be worth it for some users, but all of the good stuff is still in the free version.

I will probably try the one week free trial but will most likely stick with the free version.

These PDFs are stored inside of iCloud Drive, inside a folder called PDF Expert. Though this is becoming less necessary now that the Files app is integrated more directly into the app.

These PDFs are stored inside of iCloud Drive, inside a folder called PDF Expert. Though this is becoming less necessary now that the Files app is integrated more directly into the app.

The new PDF Expert interface puts the iOS document browser. In this screenshot, I can directly access PDFs that are stored in my musical Scores folder, which is in my iCloud Drive.

The new PDF Expert interface puts the iOS document browser. In this screenshot, I can directly access PDFs that are stored in my musical Scores folder, which is in my iCloud Drive.

🎙 Introducing Music Ed Tech Talk, My New(ish) Podcast!

Today I am excited to announce that my podcast, Robby Burns + Friends, is getting a long overdue re-brand. I am renaming the show Music Ed Tech Talk. It will continue to follow the candid guest/host conversation style and will focus on music, education, technology, and other mutual interests.

Given my investment in the fields of music and education, and my intense interest in technology, most episodes of Robby Burns + Friends were already centered on these topics. I felt it was time to rebrand the show to better indicate to new listeners what they should expect when they press play.

That being said, I see this show, in combination with my blog, to be my digital megaphone, so don’t be surprised to hear me venture into the unknown. This is not a show about music technology education. It is a show about music, education, and technology. Three separate interests, sometimes discussed in isolation, sometimes in combination, and sometimes not at all. What I am saying is — don't be surprised to hear occasional digressions on Star Wars and pickling. 

I am hosting this show in the same place so you should expect to keep getting episodes in your feed if you were subscribed to Robby Burns + Friends. If not, please let me know. I am keeping the first three seasons of RB+F in the Apple Podcasts Directory under the new title because I feel that they are, spiritually speaking, the same show. I will be tightening up the format a little bit, and am planning to speak with new and exciting guests.

That about sums it up. Ushering in this new season of Music Ed Tech Talk is my very first guest ever, Jon Tippens. You can listen to the new episode and read the show notes here or click play right below.

Show Notes:

@ryebot on Twitter, designer of my new artwork

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards

The Natural Rider, Mary Wanless

The Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Galloway

Lynda.com - Online software tutorials

Teaching Musical Performance, Daniel Kohut

OmniFocus - Accomplish More Every Day

Things by Cultured Code

Reid Stefan - Audio tutorials with puppets

Be Focused Pro - Pomodoro App for Mac and iOS

App of the Week: 

Robby - Safari on iPad OS

Jon - Time by bluecocoa

Album of the Week:

Robby - Snarky Puppy Live in Stockholm, 2015

Jon - Dawn of MIDI - Dysnominia

Where to Find Us:

Jon Tippens: Twitter 

Robby Burns: Twitter | Blog

Subscribe to Music Ed Tech Talk:

Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS

Find Robby elsewhere on the web