Heart of Gold

Link if the above does not work through filter.

CMEA Conference 2012

My impressions of the CMEA conference so far is that there seems to be a lot less people here.  I'm worried about my slots tomorrow that I might be talking to myself.

I am presenting two workshops.  First at 8am is talk with Doug O'Grady outlining our iAlchemy project.

Second is an iPad workshop.

Here are the apps I will go over (very quickly...) in the session.  This list is by no means exhaustive or complete.  This is a music teachers conference.

• Youtube
• SixStrings
• Garageband
• Praisehymns
• Nota
• PBS
• TED
• Soundcloud
• Gibson
• Metronome
• Too Loud
• Google
• Wolfram Alpha
• Dragon Tape
• Glee
• Thumbjam
• Planbook
• ForScore
• DropBox
• Evernote
• FaceTime
• Skype
• iPod
• DustBuster
• MadPad
• Smartmusic
• Video Time Machine
• Jimi Hendrix/Sting
• Guardian Eyewitness
• NPR Music
• Puppet Pals
• Virtuoso
• Skitch
• Notability
• iMovie
• iShred
• Wild Chords
• Band of The Day
• JoinMe
• Soundcloud
• Book Creator
• Stopwatch
• OnLive Desktop
• Kindle

Now that I've typed it that seems like a lot...

Innovator?

I got featured in School Band Orchestra Magazine.  Read the article here.

Pierret Saxophone

Last fall I found a Baritone Saxophone that was in pretty bad shape.  I didn't even know I had it, it was being used in the art department for making three dimensional drawings.  I just got it back from Chuck (our repairman) and it sounds great.

But we know little about it.   Any facts you know would be helpful.

It a Pierret Saxophone.  It's serial number 53880.

Choir Rehearsal

We have three songs ready to enter the rehearsal process (notes and rhythms pretty much learned).



Comments and feedback welcome. 32 students in choir, 22 are 9th graders.

Feeling our way...

We are a few months into having the iAlchemy score.  At this point I feel each student knows their part at least 70%.  Now, thats not nearly good enough, but it means we've come a LONG way.  The composer did us the favor of including some super hard measures which most kids can play with me, but not alone yet.

One of the ideas of the project was that we would take students who have not played before in ensembles.  In fact, none of the students have BEEN to an orchestra concert outside of a few elementary school kiddie concerts.

This is a great learning experience, but its hard.  We have been messing with the string apps for a few months and they just have not been working.  We have had issues with control, volume, range, sound.  It just hasn't worked.

A few weeks ago I sent out a twitter call for ideas.  Chris Russell came back with Thumbjam.  This apps costs $$, like Garageband, and initially I was feeling it was the best, but not quite the right fit.

But tonight I spent significant time with the app and discovered that the accelerometer can be set to control volume.  So as the iPad gets tipped up it gets louder, tipped down it gets softer.  This is a huge help.  It also has a vibrato control.  So now, we truly will learn how to play the "instrument".

Tomorrow we get our first visit from the Symphony.  Wish us luck.  Lots to do.

What do you do?

What do you do when you are travelling to Italy to visit your sister city with your band and choir and they give you a tour of their town factory?  Which produces the liquor Limoncello?

And they give you three cases of it?

You give each kid two bottles to pack in their suitcase to take home to their parents.