Batteries not included

‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ the Queen remarked.
‘What sort of things do you remember best?’ Alice ventured to ask.
Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There

The Queen goes on to remember the future punishment of the King’s messenger. Further discussion continues what would happen if the messenger was punished but then didn’t commit the crime. The Red Queen insists that the messenger would be improved if he were punished without committing the crime because punishment improves people. I know that the next thoughts will be heretical, especially at this time of year, but - here goes: every time we purchase technology we are punished because we do not know what the future holds. Formats will change, new computers will be more powerful and smaller.

That’s right. Mr. Technology is revealed to be wearing no clothes. All of the newest and best converging technology in the world cannot respond with the same sensitivity as a seven year old singing with her classmates. No matter how much RAM you have, how many virtual instruments, how many gigabytes of hard drive you can access your computer still only ‘knows’ one thing; is voltage present at some location or not. Even more worryingly if there is no electricity, it can’t even make that decision because without electricity, as far as we can tell, it is unconscious.

So as you leave catalogs open with advertisements circled or casually mention that it “...would be fun to have a digital camera to show Grandma what the new school looks like...” remember that our memory only works backwards. Cast your mind back...

The smallest child in your choir came up to you after the holiday performance and apologised. In all the excitement, they had forgotten the words and stopped singing. You went to her house for the holidays for the first time; the scarf was incredibly tight around your neck, the wind was cold as you walked up the drive to the door and as you stepped through the door the warmth of room fogged your glasses and you tripped on the boots on the mat and fell flat on your face, crushing the flowers you were carrying. What were the sounds, the colours, the smells?

Somehow, the right words were said, the correct thing done, care was given and that smoothed the way and made things right again. The warmth, concern and love all flowed and somewhere in your memory the event was lodged. What will take you back to those special places - a smell, a piece of music, an image, the weather? What do you see and hear when you are ‘there’ again? We have powers that scientists are only beginning to understand. Some can hear a pitch and give it a name; others hear music and see colours while others see colours and hear music. The gifts we posses are limitless and open to the future. Technology is only a tool that we use to capture a moment and externally store it. It is the internalisation of that moment that makes it timeless.

So as we hint towards the things that will create the images and sounds that may externally start a memory, let us look within ourselves. Let us rejoice in our humanity and give thanks for all of the love that has brought us to this place; the love that holds us together in this place; and the faith in the love that will lead us into the future. We must always be aware that the gift of our love will create the sounds and experiences that may live on in the memories of others long after we have gone. And unlike computers, many of us have had our most precious memories created without electricity.

Standing in the darkened church, the minister lit his candle from the one candle on the altar and passed it, first to the ushers, then to the choir. He began to sing and the choir and congregation joined in. As the light and sound grew and grew, the flame was passed down the row of seats. My father passed the flame to my mother, and she passed it on to me and as our candles were lit, we joined the singing. Sometimes even now as I light a candle, especially at this time of year, I can see the glow reflected in my parents faces and hear these words and sounds echoing in my memory;

Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

Originally posted on the AMIS web site December, 2002

CDs and iPods and Smartphones - Oh my!

‘I still like buying CDs,’ says Hornby. ‘But there are a lot of people who will never pay for music ever again. Why would you? I was talking to a 17-year-old recently, and he said he didn’t think his little brother had even seen a CD. He didn’t actually know that music came like that.’

Nick Hornby, quoted in “The day the music shop died”
John Harris, The Observer

The date on that quote is 2003. Notice that the music vehicle was CDs, not LPs. The CD was commercially made available in 1982, so it celebrated it 21st birthday in 2003. The record industry cooperated by making the CD and standard so it would play on any CD player.  The CD, when introduced, were uncopyable by the average user. You could tape a copy, but tape is a serial copy in that the order that you taped them in was fixed. You couldn’t program them to play the second, third and fourth track one time and the first and 12 track later as you could program CDs. The Album Era was supplanted by the CD Era. What had been introduced to supplant the once all-conquering CD? 

The iPod was introduced in October 23, 2001, about 8½ months after iTunes, Macintosh version, was released. The iTunes Store and a Windows version of iTunes was brought to market in April 2003. The iTunes store software was free, and the price for individual track was 99¢. iTunes has been credited with accelerating shifts within the music industry. The pricing structure of iTunes encouraged the sale of single songs, allowing users to abandon the purchase of more expensive albums. This hastened the end of the Album Era in popular music. The downloadable purchase raised its head. Rip your CDs and add it to your iPods. In April 2007 Apple sold its one-hundred millionth iPod. Yet sales of iPods were actually shrinking by 2009. Why? Apple debuted the iPhone in June 2007. The age of the smartphone was upon us. 

Remember back in the “old days”, when floppy discs ran the computer and you had to “boot it up,” How you scrimped and saved to afford your first hard disk? Ten megabytes, if you were rich. Remember that you thought,“I’ll NEVER fill this up!” Even the hard disk is not able to outpace it. In the intervening six years, smartphones are leading the way in consumer spending. That, accompanied by increasing expansion of the mobile the networks to expand 3G and 4G services and the advances made in high speed mobile broadband made the next logical step - subscription services where you could listen to any music.

Internet radio was the first step. The Internet radio station, an online form of broadcast radio, was the “playlist” played by presenters and featuring news and ads - the standard radio format.  You can have a smartphone app for each individual station assuring branding, advertising streams as well as providing a stream for apps such as TuneIn Radio. Subscription services such as Spotify and last.fm were offering free, with advertising, or a per-monthly subscription with more limited advertisements. The computer, not a presenter. was selecting and playing the songs based on an algorithm. Stuart Dredge, reporting summarising the Digital Music Report by IFPI in The Guardian stated, “Overall, physical music sales of CDs and vinyl fell by 11.7% to $7.73bn, while digital revenues rose 4.3% to $5.87bn. Within the latter sector, sales of downloads fell by 2.1% to $3.93bn while subscription streaming income rose 51% to $1.11bn.” What will be next? 

The answers, in the immortal words on Robert Zimmerman, “…are blowin’ in the wind.” I don’t know what Apple, Samsung and ??? are cooking up. What I worry about is this: how will you cope with the staggering amount of music that is available to you and your students?  How do communicate the idea of timeless works of art? How do you teach responsible curation? How can you inspire your students to come together and create music? 

You will find an answer to these and more through experimentation, pedagogy, and philosophy of education. You will find these based on your own formative experiences. You will find out from observing rehearsals at AMIS festivals. You will find out through the dialogues with your students. You will find out from your performance successes and, most importantly, from your performances that are not quite successes. 

We live in a fast-moving world. Three revolutions in the way we access music. I leave you with Wayne Shorter’s words: 

The challenge is to be in the moment and the thought of playing or writing what you wish for. What you wish the world to be like. Or playing what you see. What condition the world is in today. A lot of loose ends. And also playing music that you can’t anticipate. Uncertainty? Play that. We have to learn to deal with uncertainty and dialogue with the unexpected and dialogue with the unknown. Because the unknown can not be rehearsed. How do you rehearse the unknown? It’s something that’s coming out of the human existence that’s making us evolve and grow. On a humanistic level, we’re pulling out of ourselves what we didn’t know was there. That should be telling us a whole lot about eternity. No such thing as beginning or end in life.

Have a restful summer. See you next year!

A Few Reasonable Words

“ One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. ”

     – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happy New Year!

The most popular gift in the UK was the tablet. In the run up to Christmas, Apple reckoned that every 50 seconds an iPad was purchased online or in  the store. Kindles, Samsung and even the Tesco Hudl were flying off the shelves at similar rates. If Santa left an iPad under your tree, I’m recommending two apps. One is a utility app, the other a music app.

Documents, by Readdle, is the Swiss Army knife of the iPad. Basically, it’s a drag-and-drop interface connecting you to Box, Google Docs, iCloud, FTP, WebDAV (and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all!) You can make folders inside just like a computer. You can view and annotate .PDF files. You can view Office files, media and create text files. It’s a media player as well. You can connect via WiFi or USB and drag and drop between all your online accounts. Once you try it, it will soon become your go-to app for moving documents on and off of your iPad.

“What’s the cost?” I hear you say, “I bet it is expensive!” Well, you will be wrong. Documents is free. Like Apple offering the iLife suite free. If you bought a new iPad after 1 September, 2013, you can get Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie and  iBooks for free and use them in the cloud with your Apple ID in your iPad, iPhone and your Mac. Not to mention Mail and Calendar.

The music app is a chord-based sequencer with an intriguing twist. Gone are cheesy synths, synthesized drums.  SessionBand is world’s only chord based audio loop app. Recorded by London’s top session musicians, each volume as packed with musical fine touches. SessionBand comes in six “flavours” SessionBand Blues - Volume 1,
SessionBand Rock - Volume 1,
SessionBand Jazz - Volumes 1 & 2,
SessionBand Acoustic Guitar - Volume , and1
SessionBand Piano - Volume 1.

The interface is simple. I’m going to load up a demo song “The Girl Form Brazil” from the Jazz Volume 1 app. You can write your own changes as well. You tap on the “Play” button. You will probably want to hook up external speakers to your iPad.  Fifteen styles in each volume, ranging from Ballad, 12/8, Slow Swing to Bossa Nove, Fast Latin, Up Swing and Afro Jazz.  Volume 2 the palate gets extended to Slow Funk, Poinciana, ECM, all the way to Reggae, Boogaloo, 5/4 and 7/4!

Tap the “Write” an you enter into a mode where you tap on the end of the bar and insert chord by tapping on the keys of a piano.  Repeated tapping make the chords advance through the options. Pinch two fingers to shorten the chord or expand to make the chord longer. Elapsed time, fill, ends are all there for your asking. Transpose for the whole song – not pitch-shifted but the whole loop is substituted.

Tap the “Mixer” and the five-track mixer is brought forward offering individual volumes for the bass, drums, piano, lead instrument and metronome. You can record with or without automation. Go back to the main screen, tap “REC” to arm, tap “1,2,3” for lead-in bar, tap “Play” and you are recording. Press “Export” to save. Press it again and choose “Export” and choose from “Live Recordings” or “SessionBand Tracks”.  You are presented with AudioCopy, Email. AudioCopy is for GaragBand or other synthesizers who support AudioBus files. Email gives you and option of Audio Only, SB File and Both.

“What’s the cost?” I hear you say, “I bet it is expensive!” Yes, Virgina, it costs, but it not expensive. It’s available for iPhone £1.49 - £5.99 and iPad £1.99 - £5.99. SessionBand Jazz as £5.99 per volume, but there’s a massive 16,000 loops to play with. SessionBand Blues is £2.49.  Warning from SessionBand – don’t buy if your device is older than an iPad 2 or and iPhone 4S.

I guess it’s time for closing. Documents, by Readdle for organization and SessionBand for music.  That’s a fine start to the year.  See you next time!

SessionBand http://www.sessionbandapp.com

Documents http://readdle.com/products/documents/

In the heart of a friend.

My composition, “The Arrow and The Song” was a reaction to the challenge proposed in the last issue of “Amis Updates”. My piece is a setting for SSA and piano. It works as well a a unison choir or solo. Dick and Georgia Bassett commissioned a piece by Paul Hopkins using the text “The Arrow and The Song” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Here are my thoughts for constructing this piece.

The Arrow and the Song

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

First thing, I sang a melody to the text - “I shot an arrow into the air.” But where was the natural accent? Was it; “ I shot an ar-row in-to  the air”? I played around with it, and it just didn’t sound right. Where was the action?  Where was the actor? Moving the the accent to “I” and maintaining the secondary accent on “shot” seemed a solution. Now to symbolize the “shot”. I imagined shooting an arrow; the bow is drawn, aimed. Hmm, it wasn't’ aimed - further reading of the poem implies that. It seemed to me that an a leap was indicated a perfect fifth - no, to martial. Perfect octave - too much. Major sixth - hmm sounds good, with a hint of dissonance. Not a lot, but just a hint of the unexpected. The melody outlines a D6 triad- cool! Word painting - “It feel to earth” - descending line. “I knew not where.” Hmm - change the key centre! That’s the first two lines sorted out!. A descending sequence in the last two lines - decorated scale. Hmmm. The text runs out and it’s re not do. I know! The piano finishes off the phrase as an introduction to the next verse. The melody was an arc - 2 lines up - two lines down. 

I sang the second stanza. It fit, with a bit of rhythmic alteration. Now vary it for the third stanza. Where’s the drama? It is in the third stanza - “Looong, looong afterward.” - just saying it, the rhythm suggests itself. Sequence for the second line. The rest came in a flash. I repeated the last two lines in a mini-coda. 

Writing the accompaniment, I used tried and true method of boom-chick left hand on one and three, chords on two and four for  the first two stanza. For the third and fourth stanzas I reversed it with a pedal D. (Use the introduction for hand positions.) For the third verse I used the Rodgers and Hammerstein short - long - short rhythm - think “I Have Dreamed” for contrast and the feeling of tension that is created by pedal A with E minor chord followed by F# minor. A few more “finishing touches”, a modified thematic attempt at the end and it was done! 

“The Arrow and the Song” was dedicated “To Richard and Georgia Bassett - may your dreams go on and on.” The song is free of charge to all AMIS schools and license to copy freely granted to AMIS Schools. The song and a recording from Sibelius are available on the AMIS News Page. I hope you’ll at least consider it for your groups. 

Until the next time!

Dreams and Hopes

“Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn’t that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?”
Roger Ebert, (1942-2013), his last review of “To the Wonder”

In spite of the weather here in England, the end of school is in sight. No ends of lyrics have addressed this event. Whether you subscribe to Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” or The Happenings' “See You In September” or even Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”, the closing of the school year evokes mixed memories. Your mission, should you choose to accept Mr. Phelps, is composed of three parts:

Reflect: There are a lot of questions you can ask – it might be tough going. Søren Kierkegaard remarked, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” Remember the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year? Reflection shouldn’t beat you with your own rods. Take a good look, a realistic look and judge how you are doing. Did you the meet them easily or were you frustrated in not achieving the goal? Can you set better goal for next year? Can you set more challenging goals next year? Can you set more realistic goals for you student and your self?

Re-create: Go wild. Explore. Travel. Paint. Dance. Read. Sketch. Take photographs. Whatever you do to re-create that joyful self. Be creative. Compose. Arrange. Sing. Play. Master that particular nasty spot in the piece that you’ve always wanted to play or sing.  No more attendance, fire drills, telling offs and dressing down. Refresh your spirit.

Re-juvenate: Wait a minute – doesn’t re-create mean the same thing? There’s a sting in the tail. Literally take another shot a being “youthful” and learn a new skill from the start. It is very hard to learn something ab initio. Learn a new instrument. Learn a skill. Learn a piece of technology. Learn a new sport. Get your perspective aligned with your students. Try a different style of performance on your principal instrument. Try bluegrass instead of baroque; art songs instead of jazz.  Experience the thrill of conquering new heights and challenges. Chaucer said, “And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.”  Try your “inner student” on for size.

Teaching, like baseball, has its sages. I leave you with the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.”

Remember the three steps of your mission and have fun! See you next year!

Oh, the humanity...

“User Interface affects everything Humans interact with. Even other humans. Simplicity, clarity, elegance: chase these ‘til you’re exhausted.”

—	Andy Inathko

Happy New Year - officially. Well, in the Western world, where Gregory's calendar reigns supreme. I write this as the Julian calendar reached Christmas. What a marvellous world - not knowing when the year ends, let alone what year it is! I always take the first day of school as my New Year's commencement, greeting one and all with, "Happy New Year!". 

(Get on with it, Ed.)

Right. Andy Ihnatko is one of my favourite "go to" guys for interesting tech writing. He has been around side the days of the Apple II. Younger readers, look it up - the young Steves had a revolutionary product before 1984. Or 2007. Or 2010. "Simplicity, clarity, elegance…" - brings to mind "Sunday in the Park with George" with the Sondheim dictum, "Order, design, composition, tension, balance, harmony."

Apple is renowned for attention to detail, and no where is so obvious as the user interface. Many of you are unwrapping iPads and iPhones and wondering where to start. Jobs famously said, "If you see a stylus or a task manager, 'they blew it'." Apple designed the interface mimicking the keyboard, but limited space on the device put paid to the original design. Here are the "tricks" to make typing as easy at q,w,e. I mean, 1 2 3!

Today's Tip: Keyboard Tricks for your iPad and iPhone

When using the on-screen keyboard, press and hold down keys to reveal alternatives to the character that appears. 

Press and hold the "a" key to have your choice of ã, å, ā, à, a, á, â, ä, and æ. Works for capitals as well. 

Press and hold the " key and have your pick of «  „  ”  “  ».

Press and hold the "£" key to display ₩, €, $, ¢, ¥. 

Go on - press and hold all the keys to see what pops up.

Rather than switching to the number keyboard and then switching back to the letter keyboard, tap and hold the "123" key, then drag it to a number to select it. When you lift your finger from the number, the letter keyboard will appear again.

Double-tap the space bar to end your sentences with a period and a space. 

In your Home Screen, tap 'Settings' the 'General' and then 'Keyboard' and set up International Keyboards, including Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and even Emoji! Then a tap on the 'Globe' key enables you to change keyboards. 

Tricks for your iPad only.

Press and hold the 'hide keyboard' at the bottom right of your  keyboard and 'Unlock' and 'Split' buttons appear. 'Unlock' moves the bar off the bottom of the screen and 'Split' enables you to do 'thumb typing'.  Adjust the keyboard position by lightly touching the 'Hide Keyboard' key and dragging it up or down. Press and hold  'Hide Keyboard' again to dock, split, merge or dock and merge. 

You have to change habits to work in a tablet environment. The cloud forces a limit to how much you can take along with you. Go with the flow. Use you music player on your phone, pad or netbook with a severely limited playlist. You have a stand-alone music player for that. Use the camera on your phone for the "bread and butter" shots - sync to Dropbox or iCloud or one of the dedicated sites like Smugmug or Flickr. You'll be amazed at the resolution that you have at your disposal and camera apps are, literally, .99 pence. Try some out! 

I'm going to close here with thoughts that are appropriate for commencing on a journey, for teaching is a life-long journey of discovery.

“May you reflect upon the positive aspects of the past, plan and hope for the future, but most of all, realize that we have to live and adapt most readily in the present.”

and

“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”

—	Henry David Thoreau

Keep on experimenting!

Rick Hein

No news today? Read on, dear reader...

The one function that TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were.

David Brinkley

To divide one's life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.

Clifton Fadiman

Welcome to a new year! Changes abound on the AMIS web site! The first of the changes are these four buttons found on the homepage: amis-online.org

Subscribe to Latest News

Clicking on that link sends a message to your computer whereby you subscribe to the AMIS RSS feed. The AMIS news feed was created on 2009. Every change is the website gets announced in the feed. You have to set up on your local computer - Google Reader, Outlook or Mixtab to take advantage of it. Think of it - any change in the web site, you will be notified automatically! There is a link at the end of it for “More reading...” that links to the web site for further information. An example is located on the right hand side of the page under the heading "AMIS Latest News Feed". "HeinSite" has a news feed as well as many others on the web.

Subscribe to the AMIS Calendar

Clicking on the link will make your calendar sync with the AMIS calendar. Once again, you need an application like iCal, Calendar, or Outlook that’s local to you computer that displays calendars. On the latest operating system for the Mac “Mountain Lion”, you can set reminders that pop up on your desktop for events.

AMIS Alumni Group on Facebook

AMIS Music Educators Group on Facebook

AMIS can be found on Facebook! Like it or not, 2.0 is the social web and an important part of  AMIS is to advance the education of young people and their teachers in global issues and cultural diversity through the performance and study of music. What a fantastic way to to supercharge this process.

More changes are in store for the AMIS web site. Like Topsy, the web site has “growed and growed”. A team of designers is as we speak redesigning the web site to have a new look and feel and a more integrated look. Tim Germann, Georgia Bassett, Dick Bassett and I met over the summer with the web designers to give the essence of AMIS. We’re all excited to see what the designers come up with.

So Happy New Year! Hold on to you hats! Once again I leave you with the immortal words of Robert Zimmerman, “For the times, they are a-changin’”.

Life on the "Hi Cs" - Part 2

For me, singing together and making music together is a fundamental human experience, and I love the idea that technology can bring people together from all over the world and still participate in this transcending experience.
Eric Whitacre,
Quoted in "Collaborative Creation and Crowdsourcing in the Music Industry" by Nathaniel Whittemore

In previous articles the subject has been explored under the general heading of "The High 'Cs'"; Communication, Creation and Collaborating. It turns out that the alliteration was not original and is common practice in Web 2.0 writings, extending the list to Creating, Contributing, Communicating, Connecting, Collaborating and Curating.

You may notice an unfamiliar word in the title of the source of the quote - Crowdsourcing. The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines it as:

the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers

You perhaps know of Eric Whitacre's "virtual choir". In the words of Nathaniel Whittemore:

...Eric Whitacre—known for pushing the boundaries of classical and choral music—created a choir entirely online. Recording and posting a video of him silently conducting one of his choral pieces and sharing the sheet music for all the vocal parts, he put out the call for singers from around the world to perform the pieces solo and on video.

In other words, he took the steps of Creating the work, Communicating his wishes to "bring people together from all over the world" and Connecting them in Collaboration, through the video of his conducting, and finally Curating in the video on YouTube. Just as on a pop song, tracks are recorded and mixed in a variety of studios around the world. The players need not meet - their studio is virtual.

The singers sent in their virtual performance on video. That right, video. One chance for a "take". Whitacre had 185 voices. Scottie Haines mixed 243 tracks of individual "one part on a track" sound. The video was a success - here's Whitacre's reaction:

When I saw the finished video for the first time I actually teared up. The intimacy of all the faces, the sound of the singing, the obvious poetic symbolism about our shared humanity and our need to connect; all of it completely overwhelmed me. And it must be said that a lot of the credit for its beauty should go to Scottie Haines, who spent untold hours editing and polishing the video. (BTW, Scottie and I ... only met once in the ‘real world’, unlike 99% of the Virtual Choir, whom I’ve never ‘met’).

The Virtual Choir was a success. Virtual Choir 3 was released the second of April, 2012, and 4 is on the way.

Virtual stores, virtual music, samples, tracks, stems - where do I start? Read. Explore Soundcloud, a virtual studio-online community complete with the opportunity to form groups and work on projects. Explore - make mistakes and learn from them. Most of all, encourage your students to audition for AMIS Festivals. There, unlike Whitacre, you have the chance to meet the students and the teachers and make music with them - live and interactive. To have a common purpose of making the music live and breathe. The feeling of that experience is moving in its own right.

“The High ‘Cs’” have another member in the music world - Challenge. Strive to make the most musical audition that was ever recorded. Give it a try - record the audition. It was Wayne Gretzky that said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

Have a restful and challenging summer!

New Ideas, Simple Solutions, and Memory to the Rescue

I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.
John Cage

For every complex problem there’s a simple solution, and it’s wrong.
Umberto Eco

Welcome to the end of “AMIS Updates” for this time. Chances are your started reading at the front cover, leafed through the articles selecting something to read in a little while, something to read much later, and something that grabbed your interest and your read it right now.

Your read with interest: “Yes, that's the exact problem I've been having!” or “I never thought of that approach!” or “That's a new piece by my favourite composer!”. The magazine article enlightened you or extended your knowledge. You have reached the back page, your expectations heightened – “What whimsy has he come up with?”

I draw your attention to the excerpt from the Apple press release below:

GarageBand Now Available for iPhone and iPod touch Users
CUPERTINO, California—November 1, 2011—Apple today announced that GarageBand, its breakthrough music creation app, is now available for iPhone and iPod touch users. Introduced earlier this year on iPad, GarageBand uses Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch interface to make it easy for anyone to create and record their own songs, even if they’ve never played an instrument before….

Pricing & Availability
GarageBand 1.1 for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch is available on the App Store for £2.99 to new users, or as a free update for existing GarageBand for iPad customers. GarageBand is a universal app that runs on iPad, iPad 2, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPod touch (3rd & 4th generation).

GarageBand was already on the iPad. £2.99 - and you get to sync with your desktop app, E-mail your song, and save your creation to iTunes. Eight track recorder, guitar amp simulations and smart instruments are included. User-friendly in the extreme, access for the novice user is amazing.

For the desktop/laptop user, MacRumours on the 8 of December reported, "Following our report from earlier today regarding Apple having discontinued the boxed versions of Logic Studio and Express, Logic Pro 9 and MainStage 2 have now appeared for sale in the Mac App Store." Price cuts were outstanding - $199.99 for Logic Pro and even more amazing $29.99 for MainStage. You'll have to allow for the Internet while you are loading the complete libraries of sounds.

Logic Pro is the professional digital audio workstation (DAW) for the Mac. The "go to" application for countless engineers and producers. MainStage is an application for live performances. Once you have a Mac laptop, and MIDI controller keyboard with USB interface, you have a killer keyboard sound - and more! To quote:

MainStage 2 lets you take your Mac to the stage with a full-screen live interface, unmatched hardware control, and a massive collection of plug-ins and sounds. 



The ultimate live rig 
-

Perform live with 120 instrument and effect plug-ins or work with your Audio Units plug-ins 


- Import settings from Logic Pro and GarageBand to bring your studio sound to the stage
- Combine instruments and live audio, such as keyboard and vocals, in a single patch 

- Seamlessly switch between patches without stopping sound output or cutting off held notes
- Design rich keyboard patches using splits and layers

Mac laptop users: run, don't walk to take advantage of this great deal on MainStage. No more multi-keyboard to lug, only keyboard, Mac and an amp. While you're at it, consider Logic Pro.

‘Hang on,’ I hear you say. ‘What about Eco's quote?’

Ah, there's the rub. For every simple solution there's a simple answer as well. "You mileage may vary." (YMMV) For harpsichord sounds, grand piano or harp sounds as an additional instrument as a part of an ensemble, for sure - I've used it. For incredibly busy music making with fast changes, your only option is mutli-keyboard rig with grand piano, Fender Rhodes, Clavinet, Yamaha Motif and a Nord Stage 2. But I'll bet if you mapped the performance out, you could get away the grand piano and MainStage. Yes, YMMV.

Until next time, dear readers, I leave you pondering your options with the ultimate quote of performance.

The older I get, the better I was.
Van Dyke Parks, reported by Tom Nolan in the cd booklet with “Smile”

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Is It Live or Is It Virtual?

“Every day, think as you wake up, ‘Today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others. I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can.’”

— His Holiness, the Dalai Lama

The idea of writing a common place book does seem a bit odd the the twenty-first century world. The practice of copying out a fair copy in your own hand as a reminder about bits and pieces of useful information constituted a form of scholarship. Thomas Jefferson filled many volumes, mixing useful facts, opinions and sketches for further investigation. My pages of quotes online is a homage to that spirit, a virtual common place book. The HeinSite structure gives a hint at my thinking. I'm writing this on my iPad on my way to the AMIS Board Workshop at Church Farm House, using Pages for the iPad. Syncing it all together is Dropbox, although iWork.com could do the job. Let's explore...

“There is no shame in not knowing. The shame lies in not finding out.”
Russian proverb,

Knowing your boundaries is useful in life. Physical, mental and temperamental may come to mind. You want to play the flute. You get a flute, take some lessons, practice and...what do you mean? It's that easy? Ah, if that were only true. You haven't set a boundary, a goal for your flute playing: "to get a professional standard", "to play along with the hymns at church" or "my spouse plays the guitar and I want to play duets” and “I thought that's good sound." Whether you want to spend the requisite 10,000 hours required to achieve mastery at a psychomotor skill level or play for you own entertainment, the choice is yours. You've set a goal, a target.

Intellectual curiosity comes under this as well. The mind hungers for a challenge, right? Your always stimulated to know more, know better, know deeper. You are in the business of providing your students with authentic learning, meaningful goals and achievable, yet challenging, standards. We need a wilderness, a wild place to test us. Which leads us to next maxim:

“‎Not all treasure is silver and gold.”
— Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Relationships are precious. Those you love are more precious than gold and silver. They are your rock. They are your support, through thick and thin. Cherish your relationship; nurture it with love.

The love the teacher has for his students and the work that achieved are without a doubt the most satisfying benefits of the job. The bonds you make through teamwork and practice are strong. You may influence a career choice, have a crowning achievement, discover an 'a ha' point or a knowing smile at the end of the concert that says "Yes! We did it and we did it well!". As the ads say, priceless. Which leads to...

“Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”
- Francesca Reigler

That goes without saying, but from time to time we need to reminded of that fact. Life is what you make it. Seeing the good instead of the bad is an acquired skill and needs practice. Remind yourself of the first quote on this page. I'm giving you time to read it now. Then on to the final statement. You will be shocked and amazed at the simplicity. Visit http://virtualcommonplacebook.tumblr.com to take a look. For once, I have no further comment.

“Looking back over a lifetime, you see love was the answer to everything.”
— Ray Bradbury

It all starts out with an idea...

You don't get taken with the colors of paints that you've got. You've got to narrow it down. It's great to have all the possibilities, but it all starts with an idea.

To sit there and hope something will happen is like dumping 400 gallons of paint on the floor and hoping a picture is going to emerge. It doesn't work that way.

Michael Nesmith
Wired News

Who is this visionary popular artist, some of you might be saying. Those of you who have studied American popular culture or were teenagers between 1966 and 1969 will recognise him immediately. He was the Monkee with the woolly hat. Since those early days, he has been credited with inventing MTV, spearheading the country rock genre, and writing one of the first online novels.

The genesis of this inventing spirit may become a little clearer when you learn that his mother invented Liquid Paper™. She was divorced, down to her last dime and mortgaged the house to go into production. Little Michael and his friends packed the boxes and delivered the product on their bicycles. He came from a family of innovators and people willing to risk everything on what they believe.

Daniel Barenboim, in the Reith Lectures for the BBC, claims that the musical journey is not the result of the movement from A to G. Rather it is the journey from silence to A that is the heart of the musical journey. You've heard it before in this space: great art is born of restraint. Here are two musicians from wildly different genres adding their voices to the argument.

One of my composition teachers gave the assignment to write a piece, less than three minutes, using only one note. It could be used in any octave, but only that one note. By constraining the melodic and harmonic content, we were forced to explore rhythm, repetition, variation and dynamics. This stretched our compositions into a new path. We had to "think different" to solve the problem. Whilst the pieces weren't masterworks, when we played them at the next lesson we were all amazed at the variety of compositions that appeared.

When we are using our new sequencers, whether they be Garageband, Logic, Amadeus, or whatever the newest latest tool is, we must remember that in order to learn to use the tool, we must structure the approach with appropriate restraints in order to allow invention to take place. In using today's loop based sequencers, one of the key skills is editing. How can you take the material presented and modify it to fit your needs? Add notes? Subtract notes? Transpose? The wise teacher amongst us then asks the student to explain why they made that choice. The answers may in the first instance be, "Because it sounds better." The educator in you won't let that answer stand. You'll look for a way in to see what the student is thinking.

As you follow the curve of the year keep thinking differently and looking for new creative approaches for your students. Look for the ways of getting them to own the music and the music making process. If you have the access to technology, create some "wacky" composition projects. Who knows – great beauty and a deeper understanding of music may be born from your constraints.

Life on the 'High Cs'

Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?

Joseph Campbell

Welcome, dear reader. From this leaping off point, for jump is far too prosaic a word, we are going to journey together into the rapidly expanding world of technology. “Haven’t we done this before?” I hear you say. Yes, gentle reader, we have discussed this theme many times over the past ten years or so. However, in the words of the oft quoted Robert Zimmerman, “The times, they are a changin’.”

We once again stand at a crossroad. Some might argue that we are once again meeting with a stranger carrying a violin in the middle of the night. Others might say that we are being offered a chance to emerge from the restrictions of old practices and dance in the bright light of a new dawn. (Get on with it, Ed.)

The spectre of the always connected life looms on the horizon. With that comes the relatively new concept of device agnostic transfer of information. For the sake of a catch phrase, lets look at the “High Cs” of life in the modern world of technology by asking the question, ‘What do you do with your computer?’

Most answers will boil down to the two of the cornerstones of the High Cs: communication and creation. We will leave creation to our next meeting and explore some of the new ways of communicating. The twenty-first century is growing more and more dependent on constant communication. Students of today have been accused of giving up when the answers to their questions are not immediately obvious. E-mail is too slow, instant messaging is their preferred mode of communication. No doubt, our mentors and professors would say the similar things about us, as would their mentors and professors. We are now connected, for better for worse. How have you adapted your educational life to this?

How do you communicate with students, parents, peers and colleagues? Do you go looking for information or do you expect it to come to you? Connection leads to new pathways for communication. Do you distribute information via a wiki, a website or via a blog or Twitter? Do you push information to students or do you expect them to pull it from your sources? Have you built a personal learning network?

“Too many questions!” I hear you exclaim in frustration. The twenty-first century provides many avenues for communication. AMIS provides a fairly simple method of pushing information to you through the RSS feed. You can use a simple piece of software available for every device on every platform - an RSS reader. RSS is an acronym now largely expanded as Really Simple Syndication. By using a common structure, information can be abstracted and a wide range of information can be pushed, via subscription, via the Internet. By subscribing to the RSS feed at http://amis-online.org.uk/amis.xml using an RSS reader you will receive a message when a new event is posted to the RSS stream. This means that you can receive notification on your smartphone, iPad, computer and netbook. Because of internet standards, information is no longer necessarily tied to one platform, device or operating system, it is known as device agnostic transfer of information.

In an earlier conversation we talked about the AMIS calendar being available online. Many of you browse to the website and look up the dates for the festivals and workshops. It is hoped that some of you have subscribed to the calendar and can see it on your device’s calendaring program and can overlay it with your personal calendar and your school calendar. If you have not done so, subscribe to the calendar at the following address: http://ical.mac.com/WebObjects/iCal.woa/wa/default?u=rahein&n=AMIS.ics

Long term afficianados of this particular column may have already subscribed to its RSS feed. If you wish to read this online and be notified of the next instalment as soon as it is published, visit its online home, http://heinsite.blogspot.com/, and subscribe to “posts”.

How can you adapt this to your classroom? Create a calendar on any one of the services available or investigate if your school’s E-mail system or virtual learning platform already offers this feature. Place your rehearsal schedule online and include any special things students may need to successfully rehearse. If you go one step further and attach this to a blog, your students can then comment on your posts. Do you ask students to reflect on their performance and on group performances? How do you share these reflections? If you go one step further, you can create a wiki page or discussion forum where you create topic areas and students can create and contribute to the collective knowledge you are trying to build. Once again, your school may already provide you with such a platform.

You may have noticed another ‘High C’ appearing: collaboration. According to some definitions, authentic learning experiences are those which best enable learners to be engaged with their learning. Some of the common elements in authentic learning include facing real-world experiences and problems. We already provide plenty of real world experiences by constructing performances by a diverse group of individuals in real time. By inviting another layer of participation and collaboration with your colleagues and members of the class you foster the growth of a more authentic learning experience. You also take another step on the pathway to becoming a facilitator who encourages others to explore, grow and contribute to the end product.

By looking for ways to bend the technology into your service, you can learn more about and from your colleagues and students. The partnership you form through performance can be strengthened and expanded. You might also find that the resulting performances become better, richer and more emotionally satisfying.

Not a sound on the pavement

Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?

Marcel Proust
Swann’s Way, “Overture”

No, you have not stumbled into a Theory of Knowledge class. No, I am not less sane than usual. Yes, it will be another one of “those” columns. Climb aboard the ride and pull down the safety bar .

It is sometimes the smallest things that will have the greatest effect. As music teachers we build associations to many hundreds of pieces of music through performances throughout our careers. Not only do we remember the musical details, but we remember the entire scene of the performance and in some cases events around it.

Stop and think of a piece of music that you have performed. Pick any one. Get the sound of that piece going in your mental music player. Can you see the venue where the performance took place? What were you wearing? Who else was performing with you? Can you see it from your point of view as a performer or as an outside observer? Now the catch - what emotion are you feeling? Are you remembering the emotions of that performance, the emotions that surrounded that time in your life, a mixture of both, or some strange mixture you can’t quite determine?

Brain researchers have been exploring these phenomena, amongst others. Using MRI scans and prompts requiring the subject to remember events or perform tasks they are identifying areas of activity in the brain that correspond to a variety of activities. In one study they showed a silent movie that had a variety of sounds visually depicted - here’s the description by Ian Sample writing in The Guardian:

Volunteers clambered into an MRI scanner and watched silent movie clips. Each five second video included a scene that implied a sound. There were animals in action: a howling dog, a mooing cow, a crowing cock. There were musical instruments: a violin, a bass and a piano key being struck. Three final videos showed a chainsaw cutting down a tree, coins being tossed into a glass and a vase being dropped and smashed. All played out in silence, but even typing that I could hear the buzz of the saw, the sharp clink of coins, the crash of the vase. Like the author, I presume that as you were reading the descriptions of the scenes you created the sounds in your mind’s ear.

The study then goes on to raise what may be the answer to why we became involved in music education. According to the lead scientist in the study, Kaspar Meyer, the visual stimulus would not trigger the the mind’s ear to hear the sound if we had never made those sounds or seen and heard those sounds being simultaneously made.

It is our task to create the opportunities for our students to build those aural, physical and emotional associations. We tend to call them by the mundane names of practice, rehearsals and performances. By creating for them the best environment to build that framework of emotions and sensations we recalled in our earlier exercise, we do the most to influence their development as musicians, learners and citizens of the world.

And the best part is, we benefit as well.

Words, Words, Words

Because e-books were not explicitly mentioned in most author contracts until about 15 years ago, disputes have arisen about who has the right to publish digital versions of older books. But along with other publishers, Random House, which releases Styron’s works in print, has said that clauses like “in book form” give it exclusive rights to publish electronic editions. In a letter to literary agents in December, Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, the world’s largest publisher of trade books, said authors were “precluded from granting publishing rights to third parties” for electronic editions.

Motoko Rich

New York Times

25 April 2010

As we bring this year to an academic close with concerts and festivals and the first glimmers and glints of who will be where next year, let us pause and examine the turning point at which we find ourselves in the intellectual property world. “How does this affect me? ” I hear you cry. The short answer is, in many ways that you may not have thought, Grasshopper.

Intellectual property relies on contracts, and contracts are, despite the opinions of their authors, written by mortals. There is no such thing as an iron-clad contract as time has a way of making its intentions known. All of the music that you buy from your favourite supplier is licensed from the author/composer/librettist under a contract. Contracts are limited by their terms and conditions. If the person drawing up the contract is neither omniscient nor incredibly precise in the language they employ, the contract may be unenforceable or offer loopholes in the terms and conditions that may be exploited by either or both parties.

When choral and band arrangements are contracted, there are a wide variety of rights that are under negotiation. Distribution, performance, duplication, medium are some of the principal rights that are covered. As you can see from the quote above, the medium through which the material is published is becoming an issue. As an author, there is a separate negotiation for audio recording rights, film rights. screenplay adaptations and extensions to contracts. Most of us who use online services for purchasing music are waiting for the day that all work will be offered as “print on demand”. We may well be waiting for a long time. Many publishers would like to see this happen as it would mean a relatively inexpensive solution to keeping a publication in print and in stock. Many authors would like to see this as it means that more of their titles are available for performance (and for sale). Why hasn’t it already happened? Read the contract.

If a contract has not specified electronic means in its terms and conditions, the author has the right to enforce the contract and not allow electronic distribution. That means opening up a renegotiation for electronic publication rights with everyone involved in the publication in question. “Everyone?” I hear you ask? The composer, the arranger, the lyricist or poet if the choral work is taken from a pre-extant text all have a say in the publication or non-publication of the piece, depending on their original contract for the piece. If any one of them does not agree the terms, the contract cannot be completed and the piece cannot be published electronically.

This is one of the reasons why films of events such as “Woodstock” have featured artists and songs. Unless all the performers agreed, including the composer and lyricist, the pieces could not be legally transmitted. It could be argued, if there were any advocates, that the pieces filmed, but not used should not even have been filmed. However, since ownership of many rock and blues songs is cloudy at best they were at least filmed. If the film distributors could not find a clear title for a composer or lyricist, the song could not be included in the film. Also if a band did not agree to their performance being distributed, no film rights. If a songwriting partnership disagreed, no film rights. For film rights read any rights and you’ll see the state of the current publishing field.

The current publishing field also has to cope with the emergence of a global market where copyright has always been specified nation by nation and in global treaties. If a country didn’t sign the treaty, any copyrighted material that entered the country had only the rights granted by the country where the material was located. The Internet can be filtered by nation so there is some form of discrimination possible. However, the licenses for publication have historically been granted nation by nation, often with differing publishing groups in differing nations. A case in point are my own books from Novello. The first three books are not licensed for sale in the US and Canada. The next four are available world wide, so Novello and MusicSales negotiated a different agreement with the holders of the publication and distribution rights.

So bear a thought for the publishers as you search for new repertoire and materials. Everything so far has presumed that for the most part the people concerned with the title want the piece to remain in print. It may surprise you that there are authors and composers, such as the late J.D. Salinger, who do not wish works to remain available after the initial contract period expires or in any altered form from the original specification.

I leave you with the contract terms offered me from Novello. Their lawyers are pretty sharp and I think that you will appreciate both the brevity and impact of their work.

In consideration of the payment set out in this Order you hereby assign to us with full title guarantee the entire copyright and all like rights in and to the product of your services performed by you pursuant to and under the terms of this Order (the "Services") for the full period of copyright including any and all renewals, revivals, extensions and reversions therein throughout the World to hold to Music Sales Limited absolutely. You hereby confirm that the payment referred to above shall be the entire payment whatsoever due to you in respect of the Services (including for the avoidance of doubt any further payment that may otherwise arise in respect of any rental and lending rights under the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 1996) and, further, you give your consent to the Services being used in any form and in any media whether now known or hereinafter designed or invented without further payment of any kind whatsoever.

Enjoy your summer and re-create!

So You Want To Be A Rock And Roll Star?

"It encourages kids not to learn, that's the trouble. It makes less and less people dedicated to really get down and learn an instrument".

Bill Wyman, former bass player for the Rolling Stones

"It irritates me having watched my kids do it. If they spend as much time practising the guitar as learning how to press the buttons, they'd be damn good by now".

Nick Mason, Pink Floyd
both quoted in The Guardian, 8 September 2009

Two masters of their instruments air their views on the “Guitar Hero” phenomenon. From reports from my students, it appears the more real guitar or drums you can play, the more you have to “unlearn” to play the game. I have to admit, I’m sure like many of you, I played the beta version of “Guitar Hero”. That was the version where you actually learned to play the instruments then formed a band and played for tribal gatherings then known as sock-hops or dances.

Back in the dark ages in junior high I was in a band formed in the wake of the British Invasion that rehearsed in my basement. As I had been taking organ and tuba lessons for three years already, it was down to me to learn the songs in order to teach them to the rest of the band. I expanded my studies to include electric bass guitar and then transferred them to the upright bass to begin playing in the orchestra. So there I was from an early age listening to records, playing along, writing a variety of charts for my colleagues and co-conspirators. As at least three of us in the band, up to six in one incarnation, were also in the choir we were pretty good at vocal stylings and could cover not only songs by Chuck Berry and the Beatles, but also songs by such luminaries as the Beach Boys, the Cryan’ Shames and The Association.

So I suppose my innocent teen age pursuits shaped and fed my already fairly large interest in music. In our house music was something that happened the same way that you ate dinner in the evening. My father played trumpet and organ and my mother and her twin sister sang in a duet act, both performed at least semi-professionally in the Chicago area. As a result of my extra rock band training, neither ear training nor melodic dictation ever proved to be difficult in any of my courses. Similarly, class piano improvisation requirements where not as trying as they were to many. That early “Rock Band” game began as “do what they did” and turned eventually into “take the structures they used and develop a unique variation that is yours”.

I continued to play and sing in a variety of ensembles in High School. My band director needed a keyboard player for a lounge/club gig and asked if I could play a Hammond B3. As it turned out, I could and I then embarked on a career in the lounges and clubs of the south side playing standards, learning yet another style and set of performance theories and rules. This pattern continued through university and beyond.

With the growth of the Internet and the many tablature and lyrics sites that now exist, the technology has lifted some of the repetition out of transcribing songs and arrangements from contemporary popular music. Our students can now see their heroes performing on YouTube and concert videos. There are digital recorders built in to many hand held devices. Digital playback devices exist that allow songs to be slowed down without changing the pitch so students can play along with soloists. Students who have the music fire lit in them can find many avenues to stoke the flames. According to Alex Rigopulos, co-founder of the firm which created the Rock Band series, “We’re constantly hearing from fans who were inspired by Rock Band to start studying a real instrument.”

Mozart created his musical dice game to pass the time making music. Xenakis recorded burning charcoal to create a piece for the Brussels World’s Fair. The artists of musique concrète sliced reel-to-reel tapes into “samples” and distorted them and stitched them together or overdubbed them to create music. Today our students drag loops and beats to create songs, record and manipulate original sounds and source sounds in samplers. Algorithmic composition and “chance music” are now accepted compositional techniques. Our students make music in many ways, appreciate music in many ways and share their musical talents in a variety of ways.

Perhaps that is all the “Guitar Hero” is - another way that students socialise through, participate in, and express themselves with music. I am sure that we as teachers would hope that once the “Guitar Hero” game is conquered, all of our students would quickly resume the life-long game that they have undertaken; making music an essential part of their lives as intelligent consumers, enlightened critics and expressive performers and creators.