Music Theory textbook on iPad

I've upgraded to Lion, dowloaded iBooks Author and have begun working on a Music Theory textbook.  iBooks Author seems very easy to use and I am sure newer versions will be even slicker.

I hope to get a template done this school year and finish over the summer.  At least that's the plan.  I currently don't use a textbook in my music theory class, so in theory the book is already written.  Right?

Authentic Experience in the Music Class

Today we had our first rehearsal of iAlchemy the piece we commissioned from Doug O'Grady and will perform with the Waterbury Symphony.  There are nine parts for iPads.  Four iPad parts on five iPad/strings.

I started with a discussion of professionalism.  We are responsible for our parts and that's no joke.

I put the most experienced musician on the iPad soloist, and the three choir members on the other iPad parts.  That way they can rehearse during choir if needed.

We spent a good twenty minutes looking at the score.  This is a music theory class, almost all students who are taking their first music class.  We talked about keys, modality, chord progressions.  I asked the students to mark up the score and begin to draw arrows between parts that were doubled.

We then rehearsed the ending (m.67 to end).  We had reminders about note reading (thats an F) and then, since we are playing on iPad keyboards, which F?  It was nice to be able to say F4 and have the students pick up on that.

We split into two groups, ipad/strings and iPads and rehearsed.  By the end of the class we kind of almost played through the piece along with the recording.

There was A LOT of theory done in the class today.  Authentic experience for music theory class is not easy but I think this project will drive a lot of learning.

Music Theory Textbook for iPad

iAuthor, iTunes U, and the new iBooks is kind of what I've been waiting for.

I'm going to write a music theory textbook.  I understand that this isn't perfect, you can't create ePubs, you have to be in the Apple system, etc...

But I hope to create a book I can use in my class (and hopefully you can too).

My goal is to finish by the end of the school year.  What would you want to see in an iBook for theory?

Spring Choir Repertoire

After much discussion with twitter colleagues I have solidified the Spring 2012 repertoire.  There is a lot here.

My choir:

• 34 students, 8 boys.
• Mostly 9th graders, mostly new singers.
• This is my third year.  We went from 12 to 34 members this year.

My needs:

• Songs to feature my boys.
• I always split the time between solo, small grop, and large group.  
• I need songs that develop voices.
• I have an accompanist now, so I can stretch a bit.
• We are recording an "album" in April.  So I have chosen some public domain.

So I decided to do a "best of" cycle.  I'm going to hit some historical highlights and some traditional choral repertoire.

Large Group:

• Sing We and Chant It.  Renaissance favorite of mine.  This will definitely be a festival tune.  We will sing this SAB and SATB (small group)
• Mozart's Dies Irae. Classical selection.  We will sing SAB, which I am usually against for classics.  This is a reach.
• Shine On Me by Dillworth.  Gospel.  I really like this song.  Everyone can sing it.  We will use this to focus on diction discussions.
• Beautiful Day by U2.  Closer, graduation song.  Rock/modern.  Vowels make this song harder than it looks.
• Homeward Bound our flowy-choir-beautiful song.  Graduation potential.  We are singing SAB.

Small Group:

• Guys and Dolls selections.  This is where I can focus on my guys.  Sit Down, Luck Be a Lady, the Fugue are cool guys songs.  I hope to kind of show choir these.
• Motown acapella type (TBA)

Solos:

• Bist Du Bei Mir by JS Bach for our Baroque selection.
• Lots of American songbook songs including Somethings Gotta Give, Always on My Mind, Nightingale in Berkley Square, etc...

We start Tuesday.  Can't wait.

Midterm Exam

We just took our midterm exam.  This is what was on the exam:

Band: I have mostly beginning students who started on their instrument in September.

• Scales: Bb, C, F, G concert.
• Sightreading (at level .5)
• Piece: Sawmill Creek (from Standard of Excellence Book One) for most, the more advanced kids played harder pieces.

Choir:

• D major scale
• Sightreading (Level 1)
• Piece: Caro Mio Ben

Theory:

• Reading for understanding
• Harmonic Analysis (I give SATB, they provide roman numerals)
• Melodic Harmonization (I give roman numerals, they provide SATB)
• Analysis of piece (chord 1 is a E minor in 2nd inversion, etc...)

Overall this was a very good exam.  Plenty of students showed me quality work.  Most, if not all, realized they can work harder.

Mulligan and Jobim

Why isn't there TV like this anymore?
 

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