Chromatik in the Band Room

No, no, I am not talking about the chromatic scale! I m talking about the online music website for “learning music together”. Well, that’s what THEY say on their web site! Practice, Share, Record and Collect your music online – those are the highlights of what this site is about.

What Chromatik allows us musicians to do is to put our PDF sheet music online and access it from a web browser. Once that PDF Sheet Music is online then you are able to view and practice with that acting as your sheet music instead of actual paper music. But it does get better than this! As you practice you are also able to record yourself! After recording your self you can share your recordings with other people. Another possibility is that you can create playlists of your PDF Sheet Music and share those playlists with others. So that way we can all work on that music in an online environment and give each other feedback on how we are doing. Here is the link to their information page that just so happens to have a video on it – we all like a little TV right?

Of course, since I am tech minded and always searching for new and different ways to teach and learn music, I am starting to use this web site with my band students. So here starts my journey of sharing about this process online! Look forward to more posts about this resource over the rest of this school year!

First thing I would like to share is the best method I have discovered for uploading my files to the Chromatik web site.

BACKGROUND: All of my Band Music I am digitizing slowly. Each piece we play gets scanned and stored in our digital music library. I end up with two PDF files, one for the score and another for the parts. Each file actually contains the words – “Score” or “Parts” in the filename. This makes it very simple to do a spotlight search, find the appropriate file and make use of that file.

WHAT NOT TO DO: The first things I have discovered that is a horrible, horrible situation is for me to take that PDF file with ALL the band parts and upload that file to Chromatik. when I try to access that PDF (even though it is usually only a 3-4 megabyte file) it is painfully slow to deal with online. I am not sure if it is an issue with the file size or because there are so many pages involved. Either way… don’t do it! I’m sure this situation will only improve over time.

WHAT DOES WORK: I upload each part individually as a separate PDF file. This means that I open the Parts PDF in preview, I am working on a mac here but the process and ideas are the same for windows. Then I select the flute pages and drag them out into the finder to create a new PDF with only the flute part in it. I then do the same for the Clarinet part and so on until I have a new PDF for each instrument. This is a bit of a hassle but in reality it only takes about 5-10 minutes max to drag each part out and re-name it so I know which PDF contains which instrument. Then each PDF gets added to my library in Chromatik.

TRICK: This is the part where you need to pay attention folks! Chromatik does not make it obvious as to the best practice in this process. I did discover though, by accident, that I can have ALL the different instruments show up in my Chromatik library under ONE Piece Name vs every PDF showing up and creating a VERY long list! See the screenshot below… you see that I had uploaded Five Good Natured Variations BEFORE I discovered this process. I had a whole bunch of PDF’s showing up (with the instrument as a part of the title) creating a very long list in my library (I was already DREADING having very many pieces in my library because of this issue – Management was going to be a nightmare!)

Example of each individual PDF vs All PDF’s listed under one song title

Then I discovered that all I had to do was give each part the exact same Piece Name as I uploaded them to my library and then Chromatik created a folder for me and listed all the different parts under one Piece Name! This process was a bit hit and miss though – sometimes I had to type in the Piece Name twice to get Chromatik to pick up on the fact that this was a piece that was already in my library. Once Chromatik did pick up on that fact the name of the Author automatically popped into that field. Then I had to pick which part I was uploading. Then all the parts show up in my Library as a drop down menu list under the Piece Title as you see in the above screenshot for Variation Overture.

Here is a screenshot of the uploading process – you can see that I typed in the Piece Title and then Chromatik input the Author Name (that’s why it is a darker grey)

Naming uploads

There will be more to come as I work through figuring out this web site.

I am fully behind the ideas they are working to implement here. I also realize that this is in the early stages of it’s life. That is why I am willing to overlook some of the annoying issues I have run into. Things like it NOT being obvious of how to upload music and there not being a guide that describes the process. Or the fact that I cannot re-order the playlists, the fact that I have NO idea how they figure out the order in which pieces show up in your music library after you download them and the fact that it is a bit slow at times.

The service is free! Plus is you are a school they will donate a FREE iPad2 if you implement this at your school and get 100 students to sign up! Of course one of the reasons I am using this service is because they also have an iPad app, which is also free.

Rhythm apps for teaching music

There have been several apps that help practice and learn rhythm concepts the past few months.

MyRhythm, from Gregory Burk, is an app that helps you practice your rhythmic skills, co-ordination, listening skills and memory. MyRhythm is full of features that anyone from a non-musically trained person to someone who is is music classes will appreciate. The app does not use traditional musical notation to show rhythms. It simply uses a grid of dots that are filled in, or not, to indicate whether you should be tapping the large pads in time with the groove that is being played.

When you start up the app there three main modes you can go into… 1)Challenge Mode 2)Study Mode and 3)Creative Mode. The screen shot you see to the right is about the same in any of the three modes. In challenge mode you listen to and watch a pattern being played then the little violet and blue dots are all taken away and you have to play back what you just heard. It’s an answer and call mode in other words. In the Study mode the idea is the same except that the violet and blue dots do not go away and you can still see them and you do not get to listen to the rhythm being played first. Then in the creative mode you are able to create your own rhythms. It is in this mode that you can do another time signature besides 4/4. In the other modes all I found were 2 measures of 4/4. Of course no where is there ever any mention of time signatures in this app. There are four levels of difficulty to play around with. No matter which level you are in the timing algorithms being used to decide whether or not you are playing the correct rhythms are very strict! It is not good enough to simply hit that pad “close” to the rhythm! You have to really get into the groove and sub-divide so you are accurate! Mentioning grooves…. there are options to play along with simply a metronome or a very long list of different grooves at different tempos. Gregory did a great job of making sure there was enough variety here to keep you interested and challenged for a long time!

option settings for MyRhythm

I like the fact that there are many options in this app…. the different grooves, the call and answer, the creativity section, the ability to change several levels, the choice of what sound you hear when you tap the pads and how easy it is to quickly tap the new rhythm button to try the next rhythm. Even as a band director I like the co-ordination skills this builds even though my kids don’t always need to use two hands to play rhythms in class. I think students will find plenty in this app to keep them interested. There is an iPod/iPhone version of the app as well.

I don’t like that this app only deals with 8th notes. As a music educator I don’t like that music notation is not used and yet at them same time I think there is a place for this type of graphic notation in a music class. Another slight issue I have is that I am pretty skilled at rhythm and I have to work really hard to get all the notes green! Now, maybe this is because I’m not as good as I think I am at rhythm BUT I KNOW what I am going to hear from the kids! No, seriously though, I do believe the app has a little bit of issue “hearing” correctly played rhythms sometimes.

Wish list – I do wish there was a way for my students to keep score of their progress as they work with this app.

green and red dots on MyRhythm

Creating music with iPads

There have been some outstanding new developments in the world of music for iOS users this past few months!

First has been the actual release of AudioBus for iOS. As they say on the iTunes Store… This is a revolutionary new inter-app audio routing system allowing you to connect your AudioBus compatible apps together with virtual cables. In other words…. I can be playing a synth on my iPad, like Magellan, and record it into my MultiTrack DAW on the same iPad! This opens up very different possibilities of being able to record from a long list of currently compatable apps into other apps on one iPad instead of having to have two devices or using audio copy/paste. Check out their website for currently compatible apps as the list is changing almost daily!

In the late 80‘s I remember spending many hours programming keyboards for the ministry team at college that I was involved in. It was great fun to get inside of a synth patch and make all sorts of tweaks to it to come up with a new patch that was my own. Little did I imagine then, that I would be able to do this on an iPad with a color, touch screen! Check out the list of apps othe AudioBus page. I think there are some outstanding apps there that will make some outstanding music! Imagine if we could get these apps into the hands of our students in a non-traditional music class!

Audulus

Another major development is the development of apps that allow your creativity to fly to new heights! One of those apps that blew me away today is Audiolus. Audulud is a modular synthesis app that is available for the iPad as well as the Mac. This app allows you to create synth sounds from scratch, one step at a time! I can not begin to imagine the possibilities of this app in a music class combined with science concepts being integrated all in one mega fun unit! Your science teacher and you, the music teacher, could have a hay day with this app! You have got to watch the tutorials on their tutorial page! This tutorial in particular floored me when I started to get a grasp on what this app is capable of…. I love how it starts with a demonstration of the outcome and then it takes you back step by step to build the patch starting from absolutely nothing! (Wait…. isn't that the model for a great lesson plan?)

Lastly, I would like to leave you with a couple of great examples of amazing performances from people who are truly creating amazing music using iOS and iPads/iPhones. Both of these groups have active YouTube channels that I would suggest you subscribing to

The first person is Rheyne – Rheyne uses live looping with analog keyboards, USB controllers and iOS devices. The videos on his channel are all performed live! The integration he has between all the apps and devices is stunning! His music is digital and does not attempt to re-create an acoustic instrument performance!

The second group is the DigiEnsemble Berlin – This is a group of professional musicians trying to turn mobile devices into instruments. This group has music of both the electronic nature as well as classical and everything in between. You can see them recreating a classical string ensmeble using iphones and ipads for instance or performing Starlight (from the alternative rock band Muse) and then performing a magical, musical interpretation of Silent Night.

This sort of musical creativity needs to be taught in our schools alongside the traditional Band, Choir and General Music classes. Of course that means new classes need to be created and staffed! The biggest reason we need these sort of classes is that our students would be forced to become the innovators, the ones creating and designing the final product. There are not many programs like these in place yet so the development of this type of course is going to muddy water and the learning process will be messy. Let's wade in and get dirty!

 

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iPad Apps for Music Teachers To Use

I am currently using these apps frequently in classes (well I WILL be – we haven’t really started school but we had Band Camp already)

FileMakerPro, ForScore, UnRealBook, AnyTuneHQ, Avid Scorch, Cleartune or Tonal Energy, Tempo, Fingerings, NoteShelf, Evernote, Reminders and of course Safari and the Music app. I also use ShowYou for videos. I use AirSketch to display PDF worksheets to write on during class. Of course Dark Sky and the Weather Channel are very handy during marching season as well!

I am currently working on figuring out;

Smart Seat, TeacherKit and Teacher Assistant. For taking an in depth look at our marching I am starting to use Ubersense or Coach’s Eye or Coach My video.

Those are the apps that I am using DURING a rehearsal on any given day.