Music Ed Tech Talk

Robby Burns chats with guests about music, education, technology, productivity, and other interests.

#78 - Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy, with Ben Denne 02/19/2024

#77 - Apple Vision Pro / Practical Projects for Your Elective Course 02/16/2024

#76 - Digital Organization Tips for Music Teachers, Revisited 01/22/2024

#75 - Music Ed Tech Year in Review 2023, with Jim Frankel 12/31/2023

#74 - Holiday Gift Guide 2023, with Dr. David McDonald 12/04/2023

#73 - New Software Updates from Apple! (iOS17, macOS Sonoma, watchOS 10), with Craig McClellan 10/31/2023

#72 - Secrets to Sustainable Careers, with Elisa Janson Jones 10/01/2023

#71 - Adrian B. Sims 07/31/2023

#70 - Robby Is In The Phantom Zone, with Will Kuhn and Dr. David MacDonald 06/29/2023

#69 - I Don’t Want a Valuable Life Lesson, I Just Want an Ice Cream... with Jaye Mateyko 06/24/2023

#68 - Sponge Cousin, with Dr. David MacDonald 05/31/2023

#67 - Back to School, with Theresa Hoover 04/19/2023

#66 - Mark Connor 02/28/2023

#65 - ChatGPT, Mastodon, and New iPad Apps... with Dr. David MacDonald 02/01/2023

#64 - Holiday Gift Guide 2022, with David MacDonald and Craig McClellan 12/15/2022

#63 - YouTube and Composition Workflows, with Dr. Scott Watson 10/31/2022

#63 - YouTube and Composition Workflows, with Dr. Scott Watson Dr. Scott Watson (Professor of Music at Carin University, band director, composer, and YouTuber) joins the show to talk about his favorite technology, tips for rehearsing honors ensembles, his favorite young band compositions, and more! Subscribe to the Blog… | Subscribe to the Podcast in… | | | | Support Music Ed Tech Talk .bmc-button img{height: 34px !important;width: 35px !important;margin-bottom: 1px !important;box-shadow: none !important;border: none !important;vertical-align: middle !important;}.bmc-button{padding: 7px 15px 7px 10px !important;line-height: 35px !important;height:51px !important;text-decoration: none !important;display:inline-flex !important;color:#ffffff !important;background-color:#000000 !important;border-radius: 5px !important;border: 1px solid transparent !important;padding: 7px 15px 7px 10px !important;font-size: 20px !important;letter-spacing:0.6px !important;box-shadow: 0px 1px 2px rgba(190, 190, 190, 0.5) !important;-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 1px 2px 2px rgba(190, 190, 190, 0.5) !important;margin: 0 auto !important;font-family:‘Arial’, cursive !important;-webkit-box-sizing: border-box !important;box-sizing: border-box !important;}.bmc-button:hover, .bmc-button:active, .bmc-button:focus {-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 1px 2px 2px rgba(190, 190, 190, 0.5) !important;text-decoration: none !important;box-shadow: 0px 1px 2px 2px rgba(190, 190, 190, 0.5) !important;opacity: 0.85 !important;color:#ffffff !important;} Thanks to my sponsors this month, Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks. Show Notes: Scott’s posts for the Alfred Blog: Listening: Phrasing: Intonation: Abby Watson’s YouTube Channel, “Music with Ms. Watson": METT Episode (1)(http://www.robbyburns.com/blog/lori-schwartz-reichl) App of the Week: Robby - / Scott Watson - Album of the Week: Robby - Scott Watson - Barbers Overture to School for Scandal: / Stravinsky Octet for Wind Instruments: Where to Find Us: Robby - | | Scott Watson - | Website Please don’t forget to rate the show and share it with others! More on Scott: Dr. Scott Watson is Professor of Music at (Langhorne, PA), teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in music composition/arranging, music education and technology. For 35 years he was an instrumental and elective music teacher in the Parkland School District (Allentown, PA), first as high school Director of Bands, then as coordinator of the elementary band/strings program across the district. He is a frequently commissioned composer with more than 100 published pieces for band and strings at all levels that have been performed around the world at venues including the Academy of Music (Philadelphia), the Midwest Clinic (Chicago) and the White House (Washington, D.C.). He is an exclusive composer/clinician for Alfred Publications and a contributor for their Sound Innovations band series. Watson has presented numerous workshops/clinics for music educators, frequently serves as guest conductor/clinician for honor/festival bands, and is the author of the highly regarded music education text, Using Technology to Unlock Musical Creativity (©2011, Oxford University Press). To learn more, visit . 8 -Diversifying Your Career and Your Programming, With Lori Schwartz Reichl ↩ /episode/index/show/musicedtechtalk/id/24862701

#62 - macOS Ventura, music notation software compatibility, iPad updates 10/29/2022

#61 - Music Technology 101, with Heath Jones 10/01/2022

#60 - What’s On My Desk? 08/28/2022

#59 - Managing a Private Teaching Studio 08/21/2022

#58 - Building a Second (Music Teacher) Brain, with Dr. Cory Meals 07/17/2022

#57 - StaffPad, with David William Hearn 07/14/2022

#56 - New Software Coming from Apple, with Tim Chaten 06/27/2022

#55 - MuseClass, with Bob Chreste 05/30/2022

#54 - PlayScore, with Anthony Wilkes 05/20/2022

#53 - Get Organized Digitally! with Dr. Frank Buck 04/15/2022

#52 - Dorico Updates! with Daniel Spreadbury 03/28/2022

#51 - Teacher Spotlight! - Krystal Williams 03/09/2022

#50 - Communication and Collaboration Apps for Music Teams, with Ben Denne 02/04/2022

#49 - Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy, with Ben Denne 02/04/2022

#49 - Teaching Intonation with Tonal Energy, with Ben Denne Learn how to teach your students to play in tune by taking advantage of the features of the Tonal Energy tuning app. In this episode, my colleague Ben Denne joins to talk about a comprehensive methodology for teaching your students how to play in tune using their ears, not their eyes. In the episode, we overview the primary features of TE as they relate to playing with a beautiful tone and intonation. Features include: single and polyphonic tuning drones, modeling just intonation in chords and melody, visualizing pitch, and more! Where to Find Me: Subscribe to the Blog... | Subscribe to the Podcast in... | | | | Support My Work: - My Book: | Oxford University Press - My Scale Exercise Play-Along Tracks: | ... current on sale Philosophy: - Prioritize these... - Tone - Intonation - Balance/Blend - Melodic Accuracy - Rhythmic Accuracy - Expression/Phrasing - Technique/Articulation - Sound Over Sight - If we are asking students to use their ears, then why are we having them use their eyes? - Natural Learning - think about how children learn to speak. Through modeling from parental figures, constant repetition, and encountering these repetitions in various contexts. - Electronic tuners can only tune intervals of unisons and octaves accurately. - We are used to hearing the piano in its slightly “out-of-tune” tempered state. - Interval Adjustment - Pure intervals have varying degrees of adjustment from tempered intonation to make them in tune. - Scale Degree | Adjustment - 1 | 0 - 2 | +3.9 - 3 | -13.7 - 4 | -2.0 - 5 | +2.0 - 6 | -15.6 - 7 | -11.7 - 8 | 0 - We must teach our students to HEAR when something is out of tune by listening for beats. But how? - Resonant intonation is the result of two other important features: superior tone and balance. - Good tone comes first. - Learning balance is difficult in a room by yourself. - Use of an electric drone helps. - Turn the drone up to a level that equals the student. - Song based learning that utilizes lots of simple melodies in standard keys teaches students to understand basic consonance and dissonance. - Lots of repetition!!! - Patients! - Reinforce that one success does not mean that everything will be in tune from here on out. - Don’t strive for a perfect intonation system. Resist teaching students the theory of intervals and focus on them hearing consonance and dissonance through listening to the relationships of intervals. - Once you know what a 5th sounds like, you can tune it anywhere. - Avoid technical talk unless something is absolutely in a students way. - Daniel Kohut - Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy - Superior Concept - Relaxed Concentration - Focused Awareness - Reasons teachers give up on teaching intonation this way... - Fear of other areas of musical performance failing - wrong notes, rhythm, poor technique, inability to execute musically. The solution to this - pick easier music!!! - Abstract nature of these skills make them less concrete to student minds and harder to teach. - This is a long road. It takes time. But! - the end reward is ultimately better because students own their critical listening skills and now make musical adjustments themselves, even to features in the music that are not tone and intonation related. Each year will have an upswing towards the end. Independent musicianship is the result. Features of Tonal Energy - Overview of each feature and setting - Live Demo - Strategies - Everything with drone - All music taught around tonal centers - Students tune down to the tonic most immediately beneath where the majority of their part sits - Students write tonal centers in their method books and concert music - Analyze mode - Students practice scale patterns and songs in this sequence... 1. Visual and aural feedback 2. Aural feedback only 3. No drone at all - Practice Guide - You can balance to the drone Tell students to match the volume of the drone at various levels. - Play along melodies with students on a keyboard or on the display A midi keyboard like the Xkey can play certain key areas in tune perfectly and can automatically tune chords to just intonation. Combined with an iPad, this is like owning a Yamaha Harmony Director. - In rehearsal: Have students buzz along and find their place in the chord - Use In-App Audio Apps to make play along tracks - GarageBand for iOS allows easy creation of engaging play along tracks by using TE Tuner as a plugin and combining its sounds with other instruments. Video demos of Inter App Audio Apps: - Tools for Making Play-Along Tracks - - My (CURRENTLY ON SALE) - - GarageBand Drummers - - - My NAfME Article about teaching music in unison, making practice resources, and using drones/beats - More Resources: - Hal Leonard Intermediate Band Method - Beat Elimination as a Means of Teaching Intonation to Beginning Wind Instrumentalists, The Journal of Research in Music Education, Winer 1972 - The Problem of Tonality in Seventheenth Century Music, Delbert M. Beswick, Music, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1950 - Musical Performance: Learning Theory and Pedagogy - Daniel Kohut - Extra Show Notes from the Podcast Episode: App of the Week - - - Album of the Week - - Tech Tip of the Week - - - /episode/index/show/musicedtechtalk/id/22019558

Music Ed Tech Talk

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