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!

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!

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”

.

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

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.

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!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

"We used to fool ourselves. We used to think our content was perfect just exactly as it was. We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding. And of course we were wrong. How were we wrong? By standing still or moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find, and as a result of course, consumers won."

Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music
speaking at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress

Happy New Year! Here’s wishing you all the best and the happiest in the next twelve months. Many of you will have received or given holiday presents of portable music devices. A colleague who is a great jazz afficianado commented upon his return to the chalkface after the holidays that he only received one CD for Christmas this year - a record low. He was not sad, however, as in the stead of physical media he received over $100 in iTunes Gift Cards.

As mentioned previously, this is the age of the cloud. More and more services are available online and the push is on for a greater availability of the ubiquitous connection - 24/7 fast wireless access. The connection styles are multiplying as well: Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are being joined by Wi-Max and other emerging standards. Operating systems are becoming redundant.

One of the hottest selling items in the UK this autumn has been the netbook - a small (7” - 18cm) screen, Linux or Windows XP with Ethernet, Wireless and a small by today’s standards hard drive. They appeared on the market and sales of standard laptops dropped like stones. A few broadband providers saw a market and offered the netbooks free to anyone who took out a contract on the 3G mobile broadband network. Mobile broadband and a netbook for as low as £15 a month, 24 month minimum contract. Fits easily in a briefcase, a complete basic computer for managing E-mail, contacts, the Internet, office applications, photos and more.

Another hot seller has been the Apple iPhone. More expensive than the netbook, but fills a different niche. Unlimited data in the home country, access to Wi-Fi Hotspots, links to iTunes and a new Exchange like system for mail, contacts and calendars. Easy syncing of contacts and mail between computers using the service. Plus it is an iPod - plays back music and video - and has digital camera.. Small enough to fit in a pocket, manages E-mail, contacts, music, video, photos and the Internet.

In these changing economic times, the consumer is still king. If someone sees a market, they move in to fulfil the need. If they judge correctly, they win. The music industry is adapting to the times as well. Amazon now has a download store in most of its markets. They looked at the competition and found that there is a need for a one-click easy ordering system providing non-DRM music at a relatively high quality. Being wise, they decided not to set up their own system of interface to the wide variety of music players available. Instead, they offer a free application that links your computer to the store, then gives you the choice of automatically adding the tracks to your iTunes or Windows Media Player library.

As the year moves forward, you may think more and more about the music industry's journey and think of the journey music education has taken. Have we moved on with the times and are we offering the skills needed in the twenty first century? Already the industry is looking at netbooks as portable twenty four track recording studios and the iPhone as a portable four track recording studio. Our students expect technology to become smaller, have more features and cost less. As they experiment and play with the technology they find ways to use it to make as well as listen to music.

Don’t be afraid to practise using the technology you have as an everyday part of your classroom. Record rehearsals, video your singers, encourage student composition and perhaps have a technology recital that includes a laptop orchestra.

The future’s not ours to see, que será, será...

Rick Hein
rahein@mac.com

Only the beginning

Somewhere
Inside something there is a rush of
Greatness
Who knows what stands in front of
Our lives
I fashion my future on films in space
Silence
Tells me secretly
Everything
Everything

James Rado & Gerome Ragni
“The Flesh Failures” from Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical

We start this year as we do every new year at the same place that every piece of music ever written or improvised begins: with an inhalation of breath in silence. All of our journeys lie before us. The ground before us is untrodden. The plough has yet to break the soil. In our ears and in the air around us are the reverberations of the past.

We may have a plan for our journey this year. Concepts, style, manner, repertoire and expectations are some of the things we bring to the door of our classrooms. Our students will return to school refreshed and changed from the students who left at the end of the previous year. Not only because of the transient nature of the international school. Our students are growing and changing daily and they certainly did not stop over the summer. How many times has your best treble boy singer left in June excited about the prospect of Middle School Honor Boy’s Choir and not returned in the autumn because the family has suddenly been transferred to a new city?

You have been changed over the summer as well. You have reflected on your season and made mental (or physical) notes about what to do differently. You may have taken part in a workshop or course that has radically revised your pedagogical approach. You may have explored, if you followed the advice in last year’s finale, new software and played your way into a new appreciation and understanding of technology or even a new instrument. Whilst we expect our rate of growth and change to be somewhat slower than out students, we are all still growing and changing.

One tip from the world of the technology is the excellent iTunes Store. It used to be the iTunes Music Store, but it has grown and expanded with the addition of movie and TV rentals and sales, the iPhone Applications Store, and iTunes U.

ITunes U is a companion to the wonder that is YouTube. The Observer recently ran a feature on the 50 Greatest Arts Videos On YouTube. http://tinyurl.com/5ru4uu Here is a teaser from their Jazz section - John Coltrane performs 'My Favourite Things', 1961; Billie Holiday sings 'Strange Fruit', 1959; Ella Fitzgerald duets with Dinah Shore, 1960s; Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie perform 'Hot House', 1952; Barbra Streisand on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, 1961.

Fine art performances abound as well – Nureyev dancing The Nutcracker, Jack Kerouac reads from On The Road, accompanied by the jazz stylings of Steve Allen, Callas, Von Karajan, Bernstein. Follow the tinyurl link above and then start searching to compile your list of performances.

Back to iTunes U. I open iTunes (free ar http://www.apple.com/itunes/) and go to the iTunes Store. I click on iTunes U. At first glance I see Smithsonian Folkways Recordings for those looking for archive recordings of folk and world music. There are videos, discussions of music and technology and an outlined series of lesson plans using Smithsonian videos and music to introduce music of world cultures. I do a search for Jazz History in the iTunes store and find the NPR Podcasts. First few titles: Jimmy Smith: Organ Grinder Swing; Village Vanguard: A hallowed basement; Betty Carter: Fiercely Individual. How About Marin Alsop’s Clueless About Classical Music, also in the podcast area.

Best thing about these resources? They are free. Yes. Free.

Download iTunes, go to the iTunes Music Store, stock up your library of teaching resources for free. That should help fill your year with the colourful reverberations of happy voices and instruments.

Play To Learn and Grow

In a very short time technology has changed an entire generation’s behavior radically, and it behooves all of us who are not from that generation but whose daily life involves interaction with them, such as parents and teachers, to learn as much as we can about the new behaviors.

(If you are someone who doesn’t think behavior can change that fast around technology, try to think back to how quickly, when telephone answering machines first appeared, the norm went from “It’s rude to have an answering machine” to “It’s rude NOT to have an answering machine.)

Marc Prensky
The Emerging Online Life of the Digital Native 3

Many of us are reminded daily that we are strangers in a strange land. We approach the field of play in the classroom from a different direction than our students. What is normal to us is quaint to them; what is normal to them is unknown to us. Luckily for us, we have a weapon that many of our colleagues in other disciplines lack: our work as performing musicians has a strong collaborative element to it. We ask our students to work together, share, criticise themselves and their peers and synchronise sounds created by various anatomic or mechanical means to achieve a collaborative result. The group can achieve what the individual cannot.

Likewise we have a strong individual component to our subject where there are levels of performance - benchmarks for want of a better word - against which performers can measure their technical and artistic prowess as they progress in their studies. There are competitions, festivals, master classes and more where students perform for a "master teacher" and are critiqued and helped to work through problems that may be holding them back in the advancement of their studies.

Or discipline also contains the "experimental" branch where an individual sets themselves against the task of transcribing what they hear in their head to paper, or analog waves or bits. Tonalities, tunings, harmonies, melodies; combinations of instruments. voices and, well, who knows what in order to create "in the air" what previously only existed in their imagination.

How lucky we are in this digital age, that many of the tools of our trade have become ubiquitous objects in the household and school environment! Our digital native students can't imagine not being able to use a sequencer with realistic sampled sounds to program a piece of music. Creating music tracks and burning CDs, editing and creating DVDs, stop-motion animation - all with edited original soundtracks or mixes and mash-ups of their favourite music. They think nothing of creating formulae in spreadsheets to simplify their calculations and explore "if, then" questions. Digital images, instant messaging, blogging, Facebook, MySpace, Meebo, Twitter are the ways that they communicate. The mobile phone that we digital immigrants struggle with, is the everyday tool of choice for the digital native: camera, SMS, for starters and the more advanced phones include GPS, radio, Internet browser and access to the normal "office" style applications. We digital immigrants buy CDs - our digital natives download, usually from a Peer-to-Peer source or a Torrent that is outside the normal legitimate channel of distribution that the record companies have created.

We ask them to record reflections and progress on worksheets: they would prefer to have a wiki where the entire group can reflect and interact as well as individuals have individual pages where they can "soliliquise" and accept comments from their friends. Our concerts are posted on YouTube and the performing groups organise sites on Facebook. I am inspired by my fellow teachers who have taken the first steps into social networking and used Facebook to organise reunions and school celebrations. I am also inspired by, and more than a little envious of, my colleagues who tell me that the audition materials we supply are posted on their school provided web sites and the students download them, record the audition, evaluate their own performance and submit their best efforts back to their teacher via E-mail or the department shared space.

What is the end of year message in al of this? Ah, grasshopper. As the spring turns into summer and we begin to de-compress and re-create, all of us digital immigrants need to take a little step out of our comfort zone and explore some of the technology around us. If you have an interactive whiteboard, prepare a set of flipcharts for a favourite lesson. If you don't have an interactive whiteboard but have a projector or beamer in your room, prepare some PowerPoint or Keynote presentations of a lesson that you teach. Explore that mobile phone. Grab the digital camera and take a photo essay of your your holiday and use one of the free or inexpensive photo editing tools or web sites such as Picasa or Flickr to share your images with your friends, family and the world. Open up that copy of Garageband, Acid Pro, Cubase, Sibelius, Finale or whatever new music tool you have and play. That's right. Play. Arrange a song, write the Romantic Composer Rap, score that arrangement that you've always heard in the the back of your head.

Enjoy exploring the technology and enjoy some of the "new ways" of approaching our subject.

Simple Gifts

Country music is just three chords and the truth.
Harlan Howard

Sometimes it is the simplest stories that make the greatest impact. The finest writing is often the simplest and most direct. Many of us see beauty in zen koans. Haiku has fascinated readers for centuries. The starter for this piece appeared in an Emmylou Harris special called "The Ten Commandments of Country". One of the statements she made, after proffering that they really should be "suggestions" not commandments was that, "If love didn't hurt, there'd be no country music."

We might extend that idea to other types of music. If we think back to some of the memorable moments in our lives, the pain of a lost love or unrequited love or a broken heart will probably be present somewhere. Think of the songs that you have sung or performed where the subject or theme has been the pain of love dying or growing without reciprocation. Listen to the songs of John Jacob Niles, then bring out The Silver Swan. In studying the music of Appalachia, home of the roots of what today is called "classic" country music, he found links through images and language to the Elizabethan English poets.

Now the aural distance between "I Wonder As I Wander" and "Achy Breaky Heart" also tells a story of an urbanisation and transformation of an acoustic art and the people who perform and listen to it. In a gentler world we might say that the growth of the symphonic ensemble followed a similar path as it went from gut strings to wound. As the world grew noisier, the music grew louder as well. Much of modern day country is coloured with the twang of the electric guitar and the throb of drums. Blame or thank the Bobs - Wills and Dylan. From the big-band boogie of Texas swing to the electrification of folk music, the times, they were (and are) a-changin'.

The three chords provide the structure. Same three as the blues and many hymns and patriotic songs. We've all learned them. There is usually an image in the words that catches the ear of the composer. When we think of love, that love need not be limited to the romantic ideal, but may also include the love of beauty and sometimes the disappointment that pursuit of love can create. Take the following:

Songbird in a golden cage:
She'd prefer the blue.
How I crave the liquor of her song.
Poor bird who has done no harm:
What harm could she do?
She shall be my prisoner her life long.
My songbird wants her freedom:
Now don't you think I know.
But I can't find it in myself,
To let my songbird go:
I just can't let her go.

Jesse Winchester’s lyric, sung recently on Spyboy by Emmylou Harris, has the same swing between sweet and sour; happy and sad; and pride and disappointment that marks much of our journey through the world. The composers of art songs from every era have played the same balancing game. We each recognise our self in the singer and in that recognition, the humanity we share. Labels will get in the way: a simple melody, well sung or played will conjure up all the beauty that a heart can hold.

Ripples in the still pool

Once in every show
There comes a song like this
It starts off soft and low
And ends up with a kiss
Oh where is the song
That goes like this?
Where is it? Where? Where?

A sentimental song
That casts a magic spell
They all will hum along
We'll overact like hell
For this is the song that goes like this
Yes it is! Yes it is!

The Song That Goes Like This
Spamalot
Lyrics Eric Idle, Music John du Prez

Not all of our musical experiences will scale this peak of self-reference, but Eric Idle is not one for letting anything go without wringing every drop of humour out of it that is possible. You will remember some of his other hits, Always Look On The Bright Side of Life, The Universe Song, and most other songs from Monty Python. Certainly the compser's name looks a bit familiar, doesn't it?

"Pastiche!", I hear you cry. Well, even Stephen Sondheim has had a go at that. Remember Follies? Maybe you've had the experience of performing Mozart's edition of The Messiah? Pastiche is such an ugly word, yet as a composer and arranger I know from many hours looking at blank pages that the audience is most comfortable hearing what they are used to hearing. Look at the wild success that the major/minor diatonic system has been having since its introduction. Tell your modal jazz guys and gals that they are using a system of tonality even older than that and they won't believe you.

As a composer, you always looking for your voice. You spend hours in lessons and in writing practice pieces and studies. Sometimes, your voice eludes you. You sit waiting for that magic spark to get you started. I'm sure that my fellow contributors to this august journal will agree that putting the first words on paper is the difficult part. Well, maybe they wouldn't, because just as in musical composition, drafting and redrafting is the order of the day and I would say that keeping the words (or notes) on the paper is the hardest part of composition.

But where does the magic spark come from? Ask any professional and they will tell you the spark is the first excuse of every writer or composer. Just like any other skill, composition takes practice and effort. Diligence. Devotion. One of the best ways to work is to keep a book of score paper and a pencil near your favourite chair or in your school bag and jot down that little tune that comes in your head, or that catchy phrase, or that rhythm that popped in to your head. If you hear a song you like, make a note. Combination of instruments? A news story? Children speaking in the lunch line? An observation about a picture? A picture? Anything that snaps you into that different state that makes you notice. Once you've got a collection, the more difficult part will start as you now have a collection of sparks.

That's right, the excuses are gone now. You've noticed something in the world around you that caught your creative interest. Find fifteen minutes to stretch your creative muscles. If you are not a good lyricist, find a poem you like, a Bible verse (or any other inspirational imagic text) or try an instrumental piece or a piece with obscure Latin-sounding words and syllables. Not a confident pianist? Write a solo line. Can't write melodies? Write a rhythm piece using body sounds. Don't know what the body sounds are? - define your own set.

Some of you must be shocked by now and wondering what has happened to me. We're quite a ways into the piece and I haven't told you to use technology to solve a problem or buy a new piece of software to get inspiration or go to a cool web site that is full of ideas. Ah, grasshopper, we must look within to see more clearly what lies without.

As your year draws to a close, you'll be starting to think of ways to pass your summer holiday. Courses, gardening, family and travel are some of the ways that we find to re-create. You know the way that you like to recharge your spiritual batteries and to get ready for another frantic year of school life, festival life and life in an ever-changing world. Be bold and take a step on a new path this summer. The journey of a composer is a journey of creation where the experiences of your life are distilled through you into an object - a creation. It is a product that arises from you and reflects you and your world at that moment of its creation. As a performer, you've learned how to re-create that moment when you perform a piece. Now as a composer, you have to take the leap into the world of vibrations and order them to your will, so others can feel what you feel as you create your music.

Unleash your creative powers. Set the water rippling in the still pool this summer and watch the waves of your universe grow to new peaks and catch the glint of a previously unseen light.

Keep rippling.

The Internet Grows Up

But the very success of YouTube strongly suggests that there won't be another YouTube, simply because one site downloading 58 percent of all Internet videos and that site, in turn, being acquired by the second-biggest video downloading site that also has more money than God, well the YouTube guys would have to commit mass suicide to blow their lead at this point and I don't see that.
Robert X. Cringely
Changing the Game
I Gringely

Welcome to the birthing pangs of Web 2.0.

Now everyone can be a publisher. Who needs broadcast media? Our recent International Honor Band and Choir Festival made AMIS history by being the first to have selections from the performance posted online. You can visit youtube.com and search, without the quotes, for "AMIS honour" and find eleven short videos of the concert. As I write, the finale has been watched 1,077 times. That's about twice as many people who saw it live on the night. Now I know you're going to say that it's about even, counting all the performers, but allow me to luxuriate in that number. Looking back in time, it was not long ago when we posted pictures of the 1999 Honor Jazz Band Concert on the budding Internet, (or Web 1.0 as it has now become), and it took five months to have 1,600 visitors. In four weeks we have had two thirds that number and they are watching video, not still pictures.

To quote Bob Dylan yet again, "The Times they are a-changin'." Your students are the ones who are tremendous multi-taskers. They listen to music, IM, blog, surf the web, work on their Facebook or Bebo sites, comment on others walls, read the comments on their walls and respond, then check the photos on Flickr or Photobucket and add a few tags then check out digg or slashdot or post a link to their del.icio.us page. Oh yes, occasionally homework rears its ugly head, but Google makes short work of research these days. Build a bibliography by cutting and pasting the URL, author and so forth into "Son of Citation Machine", paste the result into Word, autosort paragraphs alphabetically and Robert is your proverbial paternal or maternal sibling. If even that is too much work for you and your ethics run closer to the dark side, there are plenty of sites selling term papers and coursework.

It has been reported that over 75% of Internet connected homes in America now are on broadband. We are coming ever closer to the age of ubiquitous computing. Have a question? The answer is online and your computer is now always online. Our cellphones have more computing power than the original home computer, and possibly more power than the early mainframe computers. They are definitely more flexible. You can now take photos, play music, take videos, E-mail, write word processing and spreadsheet documents. What is more, you can take your instant creations and with one or two button presses post them from your phone to the Inetnet for the world to see. We are both consumer and publisher. Who needs an editor?

As mentioned last issue, at this point copyright begins to rear its ugly head. Many people post video captures of their favourite broadcast programs. People's right to privacy also begins to become an issue. Everyone is now a paparazzo and the picture of you doing that amusing dance with your eyelids peeled back and the twisted leer may not appear all that comical the next morning on a web site. Since everyone is their own publisher, how can you judge the expertise of the poster? Does an analysis posted by a twenty year old undergraduate history major carry the same weight as one published by a twenty-year veteran political analyst from a major broadcast syndicate? Who pays for these publications? Are there advertisers? Look again at your YouTube search page - you'll see at least two and probably two others.

The other element in Web 2.0 is the connections between events. I mentioned tags before, and they are the hot spots that link images to other images, other people and other sites. Images link to other images and there are new connections and a new social network is formed. Links are shared, connections made along the lines of the phenomenon "six degrees of separation". Tagging and mashups of data, maps and photos are a feature of Web 2.0. Anyone can tag a location on Google Earth and link to a picture they took of that location and have stored on the Internet. As an example, visit www.programmableweb.com and search for an audio visual "oral history" of Route 66.

Google is working at being the nexus of the links - the hub of all the connections. So is Yahoo. Notice two names missing from this article so far? I'll bet you did. The desktop is irrelevant to Web 2.0. Apple, Microsoft, Linux, or even something yet to come - the network is the computer. You can now, through a variety of providers, have a suite of programs that is 100% Microsoft Office compatible without using a program written by Microsoft or paying a penny to purchase them. What's more is that you can also create, share and publish these documents without ever saving them to any local computer hard drive.

Where has Apple been? Pioneering a legal way to sell music without physically producing cds or tapes or lps. Following the message of John Negroponte in Being Digital Apple have found a way to sell bits, not atoms. They have sold a few atoms as well. In the five years since its introduction, Apple has sold its 100 millionth iPod (atoms). And to make it even dearer to the hearts of the business world, its companion the iTunes Store (bits) has sold over 2.5 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and over 1.3 million movies, making it the world’s most popular online music, TV and movie store. Remember, Apple gives away iTunes.

Everyone wants a piece of Web 2.0 - even at a one or two percent pay rate the numbers generated by the new social web are truly mind boggling.

Tidings of the season

"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing were a miracle. The other is as if everything were a miracle." Albert Einstein

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke

As we approach the midway point in our academic year, the topic in this column generally turns to "what are the new gadgets for Christmas'. The festive season is one way that our personal stock of technology can be increased, to almost quote the fab four "with a little help from our friends".

The first is a set of tools to help you in your classroom. No, really. We all have a variety of devices that we use to record our progress day by day. Many of your classrooms have state of the art stereo systems. But how many of you record your group on a regular basis and offer them the chance to reflect on their performance and the changes that have taken place in their performance over time? Wouldn't you like to have a one touch recording system that you can carry easily and set up at a moment's notice? Here's a candidate for that magical combination.

Apple's new iPod has the ability to record at CD quality. It does not, however, have any form of built in microphone. Previous iPods had the ability to record at "voice memo" quality which is unsuitable for music. A third party, xtrememac has introduced a device, the micromemo, which has a small microphone that clips on the iPod dock connector and allows for direct one click recording to the iPod. The files are stored as uncompressed .wav files in mono and transferred to iTunes when you connect the iPod to your computer. The micromemo works with the new "Fifth Generation" iPOds that playback video. It will not work with the iPod Nano or Shuffle.

Once your recordings are on your computer in iTunes, (free - remember?), it is about a three click process to burn an audio cd. You can also just store them on your iPod and computer. Immediate layback can take place when you connect your iPod to a set of powered speakers or plug it into your classroom stereo and press "Play". The recordings consume about 10 megabyte per minute of stereo audio. Recording a fifteen minute session will use about 150 megabytes. The smaller iPod with its 30 gigabyte hard drive will hold at least 100 hours of stereo recording, plus about 3,000 songs from your music library. The larger iPod holds 80 gigbyes, so you can more than double those figures.

I hear you say, "Mono - I thought that died with bell bottoms and paisley shirts? Yet you've given us stereo recording times - what gives?" You're right: there's more. The small microphone on its flexible stalk can be removed. revealing a 3.5 mm socket. Many of you will already have a battery powered stereo microphone, like the Sony ECM-MS907. Pop a fresh battery in it, turn it on, plug it in, press record. You're now recording at CD quality in stereo. Flick the small switch on the micromemo from "Mic" to "Line" and you can record at CD quality straight off your mixing desk or home stereo. Yes, you can now digitise all of those priceless LPs that have never and will never be reissued as CDs. Certainly these small boxes must contain some serious magic!

The second gift you can give can be shared with everyone you know. It is free. Visit http://www.pandora.com. Pandora is Internet radio, but with a difference. It is an outgrowth of the Music Genome project. A group of musicians analysing music in terms of melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. You create a radio station by requesting a song or an artist. Pandora then sifts its musical genome database and finds songs that are genetically "like" the one you selected. It then creates a playlist and plays you music that is like the song or artist you selected. You can give a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" on each song as it plays to refine the databse's criteria. You'll need a broadband connection and a nice set of speakers.

The third gift for you is the most magical and mystical and one that is within the reach of all of us. It is the chance to bask in the reflected glow of the gift that you have given to your students, the gift of music. You have been instrumental in offering them an opportunity to collaboratively create a sculpture in the air that affects everyone who hears it. Take the time to recharge your batteries. Whether it is by travelling to new places and experiencing new cultures and ideas or by snuggling into the comfort of your own home surrounded by those you love and those who love you, take the time to refresh and renew your creative essence.

Enjoy all of the magic of your holiday season.

And gladly would he lerne, and gladly teche

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Umberto Eco
Italian novelist & semiotician

As we look back on our route to our current positions, we can find the logic in our steps: these courses, this university, the right job, the right performances – the list goes on. We all look back and usually find a logical explanation for the way things happened. When we work on music we look for the construction of the piece, the structure so we can convey the logical plan of the author.

Our academic lives have been built piling datum on datum and searching for the structure and building information. We then analyse the information and through the logical tools find the higher level structure that we seek and construct knowledge. As we examine more and more data and build information and analyse the resultting structure we gradually grow to understand what is acknowledged as wisdom.

As educators we are in the business of leading others in the same dance. We lay out the progression and encourage our students to make the same steps on the journey and build on the structure that we, and others, have erected.

What do we do when all of our assumptions are challenged? What do we do when there appears to be a new way of doing what we do and believe we do so well? How do we examine the path we followed?

We look at the professional practice in which we participate. How are others practicing the art of teaching? Many of us have been exposed to new styles of thinking brought about by neurological research. The nature of our subject has grown in time and become more mature. The understanding of the role of the conductor has become more codified. We would like to believe that we are more aware of the individual and their style of thinking and understanding. The effects on the students of preparing a performance and developing their musicianship have been more fully observed. In our own way, we all have been examining our paths towards wisdom and looking for our way to the new ideas.

During the year we will have opportunities to listen to the work of our colleagues, whether at festivals or in the groups lead by our colleagues at our schools. We will also listen to and lead performances of students who have all arrived at that time and place on a variety of paths from a variety of locations.

As we watch and listen and teach, both in our classrooms and in the concert hall, we must all be reminded that we are still dancing that dance of learning and moving towards the light of understanding.

Changes

To everything, turn, turn, turn;
There is a season, turn, turn turn;
And a time for ev’ry purpose, under heaven.
Turn, Turn, Turn
The Byrds, after Ecclesiastes

Welcome back to a new year! For many of us it is back to the same job, for others it is off to a new school. For some others it is a wonder when the new school will open or when you will be able to get to the new school. For AMIS it is the start of another Festival year and for the AMIS web site, it is a time for a new look.

Over the summer, we’ve been working to redesign the AMIS web site to make it easier to quickly find the information you need. To save you logging on, here’s the “new face” of AMIS. All of the Festivals are now permanently listed down the left hand side. Click on the name of the festival and the latest information will appear instead of the Berlin Honor Band and Choir finale picture.

The blue bar across the top is a link to the major sections of the web site. Once again, one click and the information appears. So in the new look AMIS web site the main section links are always there and the Festivals are always there. One drawback - any bookmarks are solely for the first page.

We’ve worked at getting all of the new information up there, including Director’s Handbooks and Hosting Handbooks for all Festi- vals. The forms are in the process of being reworked and we’re hoping that everything will be tick over nicely by the middle of September. If you are looking for a form and can’t find it or it doesn’t appear to work, please E-mail me at the address at the end of the column would hope to fix it within twenty four hours. Likewise, have a look in the AMIS Mailroom and check that your address and teaching position are correct. If they aren’t, please let me know at the E-mail address at the end of the column. If you’re not on the AMIS Mailroom and would like to be, please fill in the form either on AMIS News or the AMIS Mailroom.

So log in to www.amis-online.org.uk or amis-online.org.uk and check out the new look AMIS web site. See you next issue for more “Notes, Thoughts and Random Musings”.