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/

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!

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.

Practise Makes....Better

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

Welcome and welcome back! By popular request (well, one person) I am re–presenting some of the material presented at last year's International Honor Band and Choir Festival and in a previous column. It once again is recording time for auditions for Honor Band, Choir, Orchestra and Middle School Honor Band. Jon Hodge has shared a guide for recording which is linked from the News page on the AMIS web site. My previous article is in the HeinSite archive on the AMIS web site - I've used the same quote to make it easier to find. This is a "variation on a theme" so apologies if you have heard the melody before. These same techniques may also be used to record your whole group in rehearsal or performance.

A brief philosophical diversion. One goal of the audition recording process is to present an accurate view of the performers capabilities and abilities through performing prescribed literature at controlled tempi and using common articulations. It is therefore possible for like to be judged against like. The tempo guidelines in the vocal audition for the song are the acceptable range for performance. Whether or not you artistically agree with that choice, it is what is given for the audition. The audition committee has made mistakes and is, indeed, flexible, but if everyone uses that range of tempos it is possible to compare how a variety of singers handle articulation, phrasing, diction, and rhythmic accuracy. To make an analogy; everyone is driving their individual cars on the same racetrack, with the same bends, straights and curves.

We, as artists and educators celebrating music, wish to minimise the intrusion of the recording process on our performers. They are nervous enough, and a teacher flapping about pushing buttons, setting levels, adjusting stands does little to calm the nervous performer. It also does little to calm the nervous teacher who may not have an advanced degree in audio engineering or years of experience gigging in lounges and bars, setting up and taking down increasingly intricate sound systems. There is an easy solution.

Practise. You always try to have your performing group rehearse in the performance space under simulated performance conditions, don't you? When you are working with your students, record them from their first efforts. Let the students hear their performances and make decisions about performance adaptations (breathing, tone, articulation) based not just on your feedback, but their own - based on listening and evaluating their performance.

By using a microphone and audio interface for your iPod you can carry your recording studio with you in a briefcase or book bag. You may have to carry the stand as well - a perfect task for helping the student take ownership in the recording process. Although the audio interfaces are available for the iPod nano, I would still recommend the iPod video - the small iPod video has four times the recording time as the largest iPod nano. Ten megabytes (MB) per minute of uncompressed audio, so one hundred megabytes is ten minutes, one gigabyte is approximately one hundred minutes of music.

You will have to experiment. Unlike more professional solutions, there is no level control. You'll have to move the student backwards and forwards to find the "sweet spot". You'll also have to experiment with metronome placement so the student, accompanist and microphone can all hear its important message.

I tend to place the iPod on the piano and set the microphone up so it is facing away from the piano. I also place the metronome on a music stand at 90° to the microphone. The singer (in my case), then stands facing the piano anywhere from two to three feet away from the microphone. Incredibly large and colourful voices will have to retreat to avoid creating distortion. This uses the microphone's natural rejection of sound coming from directly behind to minimise the piano sound going to the recorder and maximise the singer's sounds.

I then start the recorder and record the entire half hour session. I keep a sheet numbered 1 to 50 and have the student say a number before each trial - I then put a quick + - or √ as a rough guide to my impression of the performance. I'll listen to the first recored track and readjust the microphone position if necessary, but after that it is hands off the technology and all attention is on the performer and their performance. If there is time, I'll link the iPod back to my laptop, pull the recording into iTunes. It tells me that there are new voice recordings available and asks if I would like to import them now. This also gives me a backup recording automatically as it remains on the iPod until I delete it. Once it is in iTunes, I can rename it with the singer's name. The date is automatically entered. I can then drag it into a playlist and burn it straight to CD so the singer can take it home and listen to their performance and reflect on what they can do to change it.

Since we are already used to recording rehearsals, there is less tension when it is time to record the final performances. Beforehand, I'll have read through the audition instructions to see how my students should be announcing themselves and if I am supposed to be making one track for each candidate or four tracks for each candidate, one for each exercise and announcement. I stick to the plan, repeat the process, and will eventually ask the student which of the "takes" is their final performance. I remind them that only complete "takes" of an exercise can be used. If a student is still making pitch errors, note errors and rhythm errors I will continue with their evaluation and reflection process, but we will probably come to a mutual decision at the end of their recording session that perhaps this audition still isn't ready to submit. This means that the performer and I have decided not to submit the audition and that their advances from early attempts have been acknowledged, but that the singer has come to a greater understanding about what is meant by membership in an honor group and probably has new goals for their musical studies for the year.

If the audition process for that student continues, I then take the student's requests, compare them with my track sheet, and edit the long session file and find the versions they wish to use using an audio editor. Both the editors mentioned below have wave shape editors so you can see the conversation, singing and the metronome. I then export the final tracks as .wav or .aiff files and place them in a folder with that student's name. I'll also name the tracks, for Soprano 1 in this case; s1announce, s1ex1, s1ex2, s1song.

The final tracks are then dropped back into your CD burning application of choice - I still use iTunes as it creates yet another backup of my edited files and makes it easy to create a second CD as my insurance copy. There are numerous available for every platform: Roxio Toast, EasyMediaCreator and Nero come immediately to mind. Then, the dreary part; I go to the Lower School music room when no one is there and listen to the entire recording. This is my check. Is each audition complete? Are the tracks for each candidate in the correct order? Does it play on that stereo? How does it really sound? Any problems and it's back to the audio files. Hopefully recording problems like distortion will have been discovered earlier in the process. Then I'll take the CD(s) home and try the, on my stereo. If I have time, I'll listen to the whole thing again. If not, I'll listen to the beginning of the CD, the middle, and the last track. Then it's time to fill in the paperwork that accompanies the CD(s), the online form that accompanies the audition, and get the package ready for mailing.

So there it is in a nutshell. Practise. Demystify. Involve the student in the evaluation. Read instructions and follow them. Celebrate success at every stage of the audition process and remember that you are the first member of the audition panel.

Rick Hein
rahein@mac.com

Resources:

Audacity - Free - (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

* Record live audio.
* Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
* Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
* Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.

SoundStudio - $79.95 - (http://www.freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=5012)

Sound Studio 3 is an easy-to-use Mac OS X application for recording and editing digital audio on your computer. Digitize tapes and vinyl records, record live performances, create your own mixes with crossfades, tweak the levels and EQ, apply digital effects and save in all major file formats with Sound Studio 3!

xtrememac micromemo - $59.95 - (http://www.xtrememac.com/)

• high-fidelity digital audio recorder
• Turn your iPod into a portable recording studio. No tapes, no batteries, no cables. MicroMemo™ plugs • into your iPod to record interviews, meetings, lectures, a new guitar riff, or any audio content directly to your iPod nano or iPod video.

Sony ECMMS907 Digital Recording Microphone - $99.99 - (http://tinyurl.com/2flrab)

• Electret Condensor Stereo Microphone with Mid-side stereo system
• Wide Dynamic range for capturing high-quality sound through digital recording
• Directive angle can be set to between 90 and 120 degrees depending on environment and source
• Triangular shape design, fits comfortably in your hand

ROXIO - Toast & EasyMediaCreator - (http://www.roxio.com)

Nero - (http://www.nero.com/)

Garageband and iTunes ($79 - free with new Apple computers) can also be used to import voice memos from your iPod using iTunes, drag them to the desktop, drag the desktop file into Garageband, trim out talking and excess metronome run, and then send back to iTunes, where it can be burned as a CD.

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”.