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Final Reflection

First of all I’d like to say how proud I am of my fellow future music educators! After the PoL on Friday night the 19th of June (which was a huge success by the way!) I came away with not only a sense of pride but also a newfound respect for my fellow peers. The amount of effort everyone put into their projects was astonishing, in particular those who wrote their own ebooks, which were very impressive! To name a few go check out the ebooks found on https://lucylearnsstuffcom.wordpress.com/, https://jessmusedtech.tumblr.com/, https://macklinmustech.wordpress.com/ and https://amysungmusiced.wordpress.com/. Such inspiring works!!

Reflecting on the course as a whole, TME has taught me so many interesting and helpful skills under the legendary guidance and instruction of techmeister James Humberstone. Things such as multi-cam filming, using Ableton Live, Soundtrap and editing in Adobe Premiere have been instrumental in cementing my confidence not only when using technology, but also when teaching in the classroom as before I was never the tech savvy type of guy so without this class things could have gotten very awkward for me in schools when year 7 kids start showing me how to turn a computer on! This class has also helped me expand and develop as a musician on the whole as all these new skills have allowed me to pursue previously unreachable personal goals regarding recording/editing my own projects which will be available soon on my website. 

All in all, a big warm and heartfelt thank you to James Humbertsone and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music for allowing such a program to take place in our university studies! A final hearty cheers to all my peers in TME who have aided in showing me the true potential that technology has to benefit not only our classrooms but the world as a whole. 

Cheers

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Final Product for Major Project

Over the last few days I’ve worked tirelessly putting all the final parts of my project together! Editing Song for Japan in Adobe Premiere took a bit longer than I anticipated and when I finally finished it I accidently overwrit the project with one I was going to use for my tutorial videos...I’m actually such a silly goose. So at 12am that night I started to redo my project which of course didn't take as long the original since I kinda knew what I was doing now. In hindsight it was actually fortunate I had to do it again because I could then write down the steps I was taking to then use in my tutorial. Also I did end up changing a few things anyway because they worked better the second time (not sure why)? So I guess there was a silver lining in this unfortunate calamity. 

Anyway, after I last posted the audio recording of the piece on my blog I then recorded my audio recording/editing tutorial (or part I) of my project which encapsulates the beginning of my project from when I recorded my 4 parts in audacity, to when I finally edited them in soundtrap using an array of different tools. 

A few days ago I then recorded part II of the tutorial which covers the whole process of visual editing in Adobe Premiere, now strap yourselves in for that one for it is quite a long watch! (but obvs you can scrub through to the points you want to watch). 

After I recorded my part II tutorial I then went and kept the project I made in the tutorial since it yet again turned out to work much better than the previous two takes! After making a few minor edits my project is finally done and I couldn’t be prouder of the result. Alas, each of the three files are too big to put on here so I have attached a link to a folder in my google drive which displays all three videos! I also intend to show my recording of the piece, plus parts of the tutorials at our PoL this Friday night which I am very keen for! Mainly to see everyone else’s projects! One in particular I’m very keen to see is the massive virtual performance website put together by Josiah Lau whose progress and final product you can view at https://josiahlau910.wixsite.com/! It’s called Ensembly and the reason I have such a divested interest in it is because it relates so much to my intentions with my own project and website I’ll be creating. 

Speaking of which after this semester is finished I plan on creating a website where I’ll upload all future recordings I make of myself performing works for saxophone quartet and possibly other instruments in a multi-screen setting (Song for Japan included). I’ll post a link in my blogs in the future after I create this website! 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12efJacxd0Y2pwHMkR8nwNQqWngf3aLc8?usp=sharing

Cheers legends!

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Week 13 - Ethan Hein Week!

For our final week in TME we had the pleasure of attending a zoom with the legendary Ethan Hein, who is an extraordinary music educator and one of the few people who can use Ableton Live proficiently! In saying this his main area of expertise is technology in music education (very convenient for us) and below you can find the link to his personal blog if you have an interest in that particular field: http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/

He began by walking us through a certain function in Ableton called the Vocoder. This is essentially an instrument of speech coding which synthesises the human voice. You can use this tool to basically create a playable instrument using your own voice, for example, you can access all levels of pitch on one sample of a sound you’ve recorded. In this particular seminar Ethan used various recordings of Michael Jacksons voice, mainly hee hoo’s. A good purpose behind this function is that if you are someone who wants to record a lot using your own voice and are a proficient composer, yet struggle to sing in tune, you can use the vocoder to ‘autotune’ your vocal recording (by changing the pitch). An example of this in a real world context is a recording that Ethan showed us by Herbie Hancock, named I Thought It Was You which you can view below: 

After he showed us this video, Ethan went on to show us how to warp these particular samples, which we’ve had some experience in before. Another interesting function he showed us however was the use of beat repeat, which is an explicit function of Ableton. All it does is simply randomly repeat randomly selected segments of your audio samples yet, as simple as it sounds to use, it takes a lot of time and effort to get it right. Due to this I have developed a large appreciation for those who use Ableton on a daily basis to create their musical projects and was very impressed by Ethan Hein's vast arsenal of tech wizardry!

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Week 12 - Organisation Is Key

For our second last lesson in Music Tech we did a recap of the entire semester and reflected on the implications all the skills we learnt had for music education. We focused on both the pros and cons of technology in both the classroom and in general. For example, knowing when to be present online and when to dedicate time to the things that matter most in life (for me anyway) such as family, friends, intimate relationships and above all, time to just relax yourself away from the screen, for me, simply reading a chapter in a book. It’s all about balance when it comes to technology and that has certainly been put to the test recently due to our current circumstances. Yet we should still remain vigilant in our efforts to focus on ourselves once in a while and leave the online world where it is, for it is not going anywhere anytime soon and every minute we spend online could be a minute missed in the outside world.  

   We spent a bit of time on how notifications such as email can diminish ones productiveness and reasons behind why this is. We used the simple analogy that the brain can operate on two tasks at the same time i.e listening to music while driving, assuming one of these is automated. However once a third activity is introduced, the rate of efficiency in both these original tasks decreases exponentially. My phone is always buzzing with little notifications whenever I’m at my laptop so I’m in the habit of attempting to leave my phone to the side on silent while I’m using my laptop (esp. when working!). 

Towards the end of the lesson James discussed organisation methods for a daily or even weekly routine and how to best manage workflow. He displayed his own calendar and method for allocating which tasks are essential and which ones can hold off till tomorrow or next week. In other words it’s all about time management which I’ve never personally been successful at. However after watching James manage his own extremely busy workload I figured what’s the harm in trying myself for once. So albeit not in the same way James does it, I have installed a calendar in my room which is a start in organising what’s coming up next yet still requires thought as to how much time a particular task should consume. 

Speaking of tasks and deadlines I have made a start on my major tech project which, in the briefest sense, is a video of myself playing a piece for saxophone quartet on all four saxophones and compiling it so that you can see me playing all the parts at the same time. Above, you can hear my first edited audio take which still requires some adjustments and still needs to be synced with the videos (woo here comes some Adobe Premiere work...). The piece is called Song for Japan, hope you enjoy! 

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Week 11 - Auralia & Musition

This week our class looked at two music education based programs, Auralia and Musition. Auralia is an ear/aural training program where you can both train and test several aural skills such as pitching intervals, chord progressions and dictating melodies. You can also customise the content in order to cater for education levels ranging from year 7 through to a tertiary level of study. Musition is essentially the theory training program of the two and covers content from simple note values to analysing harmonic progressions. The benefits these music programs have for music education are plentiful, for one you can set assessments from both programs that can either contain general content across the board or be individualised depending on the student need. Therefore this is a critical boon for differentiation in music classrooms to both adjust the difficulty for students who need it and vice versa, extend those students who exceed expectations. 

   We had the pleasure of being joined by the creator of both programs, Peter Lee, who demonstrated how to create the quizzes/assessments and even separate the students in the class into different groups depending on the need which is a massive time saver for a teacher. Another HUGE, possibly the biggest advantage these programs pose is the feedback system. The marking for these assessments is automatic and for the quizzes students receive instant feedback. The different classes can be automatically graded or compiled together at the teachers discretion.

I personally never had one of these programs insinuated into my high school music classroom which in hindsight is a bit of a disappointment for if I had my aural skills developing from year 7 it would have greatly enhanced my ability to understand and achieve well in my aural classes at the Conservatorium. Musition would have also helped prepare me for Harmony and Analysis classes and would have made them a bit less stressful. I certainly intend to use these programs in my classrooms when I begin teaching so I can give high school music students of all abilities the opportunities I never had.  

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Week 9 - Ableton Live

This week we covered how to mix and match different beats and songs using the program Ableton Live. However before we developed the necessary skills to use Ableton ‘confidently,’ we were first asked to mashup 2 different song components with sampled beats using good ol’ Soundtrap. Given the short amount of time we had to do this exercise I must say I hadn’t been that stressed for quite some time! However I managed to scramble something up by combining the beat from Lorde’s Royals with the chorus from Sia’s Chandelier. Suffice to say it didn’t quite go as planned as it was difficult to line up the different tempi of both samples.

We then got introduced to Ableton Live and its many features which made mixing and matching samples much more a piece of cake compared to Soundtrap. We were then asked to do the same task as above using either the list of samples provided or if we were feeling rather ambitious, we had the option of using any song we wished and mixing that up with sampled beats. Now I know you must be thinking “of course he’s gonna use When the Saints” and yes you are right I did attempt to use the song for this project however I did encounter some difficulty lining up the tempo with the beat from Royals so as disappointing as it is I gave up on that endeavour. However all is not lost for I thought of another song I thought to be just as good and well-suited to this task. Using the beat from Royals and the first verse plus the chorus from Down on the Corner by CCR I created my ‘masterpiece.’ After we mixed them together we were tasked with creating our own drum kit rhythmic pattern using the page https://learningmusic.ableton.com/make-beats/play-with-beats.html then importing it into Ableton. As an extra challenge we were required to use the built-in synths in Ableton to create our own synth bass accompaniment to our remix.

Overall it did work out quite well and was most certainly a challenge, however I am glad I learnt the skills necessary to operate a program such as Ableton Live even at this basic level. You can hear my final product by viewing this link :)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uSjZuBqlj1MLZJ9oGm6tGNzYOnQwwruR

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Week 8 - The Maker Movement

This week we covered the prominent aspects of the Maker Movement which involved us watching several videos in the first half of the lesson. One of these videos was an interview with one Phil Nanlohy, who explains the Maker Movement in more depth and specifically how it relates to educational purposes. He covered the logistics in creating a Makerspace such as financing and safety and went on to explain its versatile nature in the sense that other subjects i.e TAC departments and music can share the space with minimal practical issues. I gathered from the interview that the main purpose behind a Makerspace is to encourage and support collaboration between students in a PRACTICAL environment. Yes they collaborate sometimes in other classes yet not in the hands-on manner that a Makerspace instigates. It provides students with a change from the ‘daily’ routine that is their timetable and this variety makes the students school life much more enticing and exciting.  

The second half of the lesson involved us having our own little interview per-say with the big man himself. Phil answered many of our questions regarding the implications this Maker Movement has for music education in particular and this served to truly prepare us for what reality might look like once we graduate. After this we were then tasked to create our own ‘instruments’ using our recycling...yay trash digging! However I encountered a slight dilemma, I had emptied my recycling the day before and the bin truck came that morning so I had to think of something fast...

Realising I had a case of Boags Premium at my disposal was probably the best epiphany I’ve had in my life (or maybe I was just thirsty). Anyway five beers later I was prepped to carry out my experiment (both physically and mentally) and adjusted the pitch of each bottle using water (didn’t want to let beer sit in there too long right?) in order to create the first five diatonic pitches of a major scale (didn’t actually test for exact pitch but who really cares!). Of course no one should care for the exact pitch because it’s really the tune that matters! Now what song do I know that only contains five pitches? (p.s let’s be glad it’s only five because who knows what state I’d be in if I intended to recite Rite of Spring...probably Russia tbh)

Well you heard it here first, behold the premiere of When the Saints performed on the infamous Boags Pipe!

Courtesy of Boag’s Brewery, Tas. 11/10 would use your product again.

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Week 7 - Synthesising and Coding

This week we delved further into the web of technical stuff we can’t understand and began to look at basic synthesis (basic = very difficult) and the different sounds you can use on Soundtrap. We looked at an example synth sound and were given the opportunity to experiment with the four different sound waves of Sine, Saw, Triangle and Square. We could also tweak these in certain ways such as using the Mix option to blend two of these sounds together (10/10 would NOT recommend doing this with Saw and...well anything!!) or by adjusting the amplitude through manipulating attack, delay, sustain and/or release. And like I said, this is the ‘basic’ synth sound, there are several more that are much more complex yet surprisingly free such as Helm and VCV Racks. 

This however was only the first half of the lesson. After this we entered the realm of coding where half of the definitions and terms just flew over my head. This coding segment was helmed by Rowena Stewart, an expert in computer coding and specifically using code for music making. She introduced us to a program called SonicPi which allows you to use similar commands present in the cmd on your PCs but using them to represent certain pitches and play them in a consecutive fashion, hence creating melody. So you all know where this is leading...

You could also stack multiple pitches to form chords and set a tempo (I’m quite certain you could alter the dynamics but can’t exactly remember how). You used commands such as ‘play’ and ‘sleep’ to represent sound and silence respectively and the # symbol to represent sharps e.g C#. We were then tasked to write our own melody (yes get ready for it) using the skills we just learnt and present them to the class. Now there are so many songs and tunes that I know so it was very difficult to decide on one to use...hmm...there has to be some song that I perform every time I get the chance, just one that I use for every single blog post...what could it be??

SURPRISE SURPRISE! (Kinda wish I didn’t choose it now just to bamboozle you all)

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Week 6 - Formatting and Editing with Adobe Premiere

This week we covered how to implement our newly-found skills in multi-cam filming into the editing department. This is where we took another multi-cam video and synced up not only audio but images as well through a program called Adobe Premier (never using Photos app on Windows ever again!). The process was slightly complicated and I had to go over a tutorial vid a few times but once I understood it, everything just opened up.

Now as some of you reading these blogs are probably aware I have a slight obsession with When The Saints Go Marching In and I’m not going to disappoint in this blog :)

Therefore below you will see I have played an alternate version of when the saints with not only the chords/voicings but the lyrics as well (courtesy of screen capture) for you to follow along if you so wish.

At the end of the lesson we briefly went over different scenarios where some children/students, who don’t live in the big smoke, also don’t have access to an internet source or at least don’t have an internet strong enough to download large files. In these scenarios we discovered that utilities such as iBooks acts as an interactive tool where you can incorporate the same materials you would usually i.e audio, video, images and people can access said materials in a pdf manner but the difference being you can interact with the document via touching the images/videos etc (how cool!!). So yeah in short this is definitely a resource I would use if I was teaching out in rural and remote NSW!

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Week 5 - Multi-Camera Filming with Audio Syncing

This week we spent the first hour of our seminar looking at a video of how to set up multiple cameras from different views, with a standard setup consisting of a fixed camera, with another being flexible in terms of being able to move around in case you are the only one operating the setup. We learnt that it’s always best to also have multiple mics running just in case something goes wrong (very likely with technology, or maybe with just me...). There was a big focus on the importance of lighting as well and just being aware of the quality of the lens combined with the given lighting in the room (some natural light is preferable).

We also learnt that how you position yourself in the frame is indicative of the message you might be trying to convey e.g close-up, dominating chest-up posture suggests a serious, forceful message whilst taking on an angle view from the camera, such as a diagonal one, would be used to dictate a more friendly and passive message. Furthermore, we discovered that clapping at the beginning of any take is essential in order to calibrate or ‘sync-up’ all angles and audio that you’re shooting from.

The second hour consisted of us being slightly more practical (as practical as you can be operating in isolation). We were tasked to individually use multi-cam filming to film us doing literally anything, or alternatively to use a ‘cheat’ method in the case we did not have several cameras in possession. I personally used the ‘cheat’ method which consists of filming the entire project, followed by filming a close-up of something then switching to that close-up while the original video played over the top. We were given about 40 minutes to complete the task and I am not exactly a guru with technology, so this did push my stress levels to the extreme. I thought I knew exactly what I was doing...but filming it was the easy part. I could not find windows movie maker on my computer so had to use the Photos app instead. I realised that I actually had to switch physical camera views in the project, but was too stressed at the time to realise. So what I ended up doing was overlaying the audio of the original clip over the close-up. This was just in the scenario that I was showing how to play the chord progression in a tutorial clip as it were. Above you will find my recording of me displaying the second chord progression in my version of ‘When the Saints go Marching In.’

Enjoy x

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Week 4 - Music Notation Software

This week in TME our cohort explored several of the most common music notation software programs used in music classrooms. These include Noteflight, Finale, Musecore and Sibelius. We primarily discussed the similarities and differences between these programs, such as how easy or difficult it is to export files and what you can actually export them as. For example, Sibelius is the only one of the programs that can export video which would be a great boon for those wishing to upload tutorial videos with a score to play along in the background. This feature would even be useful for classroom teachers who wish to share their own arrangements to a class where Sibelius might not be available. 

However, programs like Musescore actually have their own website where you can view free scores and download them to use for educational purposes. I have in fact utilised Musescore’s online database to discover repertoire for a sax quartet I’m currently in which has proven to be a huge time/money saver. 

Many more things were explored throughout the various programs, but despite the pros and cons of these softwares, I personally prefer Sibelius as my default music notation program primarily due to the fact that I actually spent $400 on the thing. It has been rewarding though through its wide variety palette hence being easy to navigate. 

The most useful thing that we learnt however was the ability to essentially ‘take a photo’ of a particular section of your score and transfer it like any other picture to another program such as Word, Powerpoint etc. Even after all my years of using the program I never realised Sibelius and Musescore had this little sneaky feature. Now gone are the days of manually taking photos, cropping them, downloading them and putting them into my documents. Honestly made incorporating score excerpts from Sibelius so much easier.

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Week 3 - Critically Thinking about Technology in Education

This week we essentially learnt that if you want to use technology in your classrooms to aid in your teaching pedagogy, then you first need to critically think about why you’re using it, and if it is going to be truly productive for the student’s individual learning.

Primarily we discovered that since social media platforms (Youtube, Facebook etc) emerged, many perspectives regarding the usefulness of this technology have come to light which has lead to two certain extremes: Childhood at Risk vs Childhood Empowered. Currently there are no views that highlight a ‘middle ground’ as it were, however it is then up to us as future music educators to critically think about both stances and devise a pedagogy that utilises a mix of the pros and cons of those stances.

We also learnt about the redundancy effect which involves the use of one reading information simultaneously to hearing it. If both our auditory and visual working memory systems are in conflict, then we will learn something, but not nearly as much as we could without the distraction.

*EDITING BLOG*

In regards to my blog page everything is formatted quite well I believe, having a bar at the top that allows me to access all the important information that I would require. My blogs can be easily viewed in a reverse chronological order therefore making the page easy to navigate. What I did change was some font and background colours to make the page a bit more snazzy. 

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Week 2 - Microphones

This week in Technology in Music Education at Sydney Conservatorium we learnt about different variations of microphone design and how they impacted the purpose of the specific microphone. For the purposes of education in schools we discovered that dynamic microphones are cost effective and durable hence why in a classroom setting, they are the most viable. 

Condenser microphones on the other hand are much more ‘fragile’ I guess, costing somewhere between $800-$1500 I believe although I could be wrong. these particular mics have two sides that pick up sound from wider angles hence why they are best used for recording performances in large, open areas or even podcasts.

We then moved onto learning how to record multiple tracks using a software that did turn out to be quite convoluted. Staying in time proved difficult and we ended up with a unique recording of When the Saints go Marching In. Unfortunately we ran out of time before we could fix up the issues.

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Here’s a glimpse into some super cool music-making activities using the music program soundtrap under the guidance of James Humberstone @ Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Give it a geez if you have the time! Enjoy :)