The world lost a giant of music this past Monday. His name was Don Butterfield, and I am proud to say that he was my teacher. It is safe to say that I would not be a music teacher if it weren’t for Don. I would never have called myself a tuba player if it weren’t for Don. I would never have gone to Montclair State if it weren’t for Don. I would never have taught in New Jersey if it weren’t for Don. I would never have met the wonderful people who called Don a teacher, mentor, and friend. I would never have perfected my imitation of the nicest guy in the world. I would never talk so much during my concerts if it weren’t for Don. So much of who I am today is because of this gentle giant. With an iron grip, wicked sense of humor, and a gentle heart, Don taught me everything I know about music, and much of what I know about life. He had so many words of wisdom - many priceless, many hysterical.

I met Don back in 1987. He was recommended by my brother’s drum teacher Gary Chester. When I asked Gary who he would recommend I study with he instantly said Don. The first time I met Don was in a practice room at Montclair State. I’ll never forget the things he put down in my book after the first lesson: buy a tuba, build a block to raise the tuba up to your mouth, learn all of your scales, remember the 3 breath rule (one for your brain, one for your lungs, and one for the horn), and when you get a tuba have the lead pipe extracted so that you can see your music. I went to the old Giardinellis in Manhattan the next day and bought a Yamaha tuba. At my next lesson I walked in quite proud of my recent acquisition and Don had a horn for me. It was a King Stradivarius - just like his. He found it for me. Imagine that - one lesson and he was looking for a tuba for me - one of the world’s greatest tuba players was thinking about me. That’s Don in a nutshell. He was one of the most generous people I have ever known.

I have so many stories I don’t where to begin. I can hear his voice, I can see his basement, I remember the names of pieces yet to be written hung all around, I can hear his sound. That sound. The most beautiful tuba sound ever attained by a musician. Those sayings: “One, two, zipadee doo, WHACKO!” - “Straight Ahead!” - “I had a few inches cut off of my large intestine. I’ll be fartin’ sharp for the rest of my life.” - “Jim, take my advice - always pee sitting down.” - “Excuse me, have you seen Mr. Buttaworf?” Those hugs. Those bandanas. The coffee with 10 sugars. The windshield wiper on the brow move. The stories. That smile. I will miss him every day. I didn’t realize until today how much of an impact he has had on my life.

Rest in peace Don.

I was quite interested when I read the headline of a recent article on Wired.com that read “Web 2.0 Replaces Music Teachers“. Obviously the author was trying to get people to read the article, but I found that the tone of the headline was purposely provocative - especially to music teachers. After reading the first paragraph, I realized that the point of the article was to discuss a new software application called “In The Chair” from an Australian software company by the same name. The software, which I first heard about at the MENC National Conference in Salt Lake City this past spring, allows users to experience a virtual performance experience by playing a piece of music (in a manner similar to SmartMusic) and seeing a video of a conductor (from the vantage point of a musician sitting in an orchestra) conducting the music. I thought that Sibelius had acquired the company but I haven’t found any evidence of it.

Anyway, the author of the article goes on to discuss other applications that were unveiled at a recent Web 2.0 conference in California, but I couldn’t get past the headline. Can a web-based application really take our jobs? How does an application like In The Chair even approach replacing a music teacher? Can you imagine a room full of band students lining up at a computer to use the software? Why give music teachers another reason to worry? How about letting cyber-authors write articles for Wired Magazine? MusicEd.net co-founder Evan Tobias posted a similar entry a few weeks ago on his blog, Catalysts & Connections.  He raises similar questions.  I urge you to check out his blog as well.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

I recently finished the book The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine. Anderson illustrates a phenomenon that he calls “The Long Tail” where the age of hit-driven music (as well as many business models) is over and we are now in an age of the niche market. The niche market describes the musical preferences of audiences over the past decade and how the internet has influenced these preferences. With services like Google, Amazon, and iTunes, users have an infinite amount of choice, and with the recommendation features that each of these services can provide, they can make purchases based on the buying patterns of other users who purchased the same song. With all of this choice available, listeners are tending to find their tastes increasingly outside of the mainstream pop world and more and more in specific smaller genres, like Acid Jazz.  Niche markets combined are now larger than the traditional hit-based market, not only in music but in literature and films as well.  Speaking personally, I know that my tastes have definitely followed Anderson’s premise.

As you can see from the graph to the left, there are only a few things that sell really well - these are “hits”. There are exponentially more things that do not. Anderson states that it is all of things in the long tail of the graph that actually sell more when combined. Services like Amazon and iTunes benefit greatly from this curve in that their inventory can be limitless. As long as an item sells even one copy a year, it is still selling. Traditional brick and mortar stores can’t afford to have those items sit on shelves. So what does all of this mean for music technology?

Anderson mentions GarageBand and other music production software a number of times. Software titles and the distribution power of the internet allows students to produce music are opening up opportunities for their music to be heard by many people. Additionally, blogs and social networking sites such as MySpace.com are making it possible for students to promote themselves in a way not possible a few years ago. I have found that music technology is also making The Long Tail a reality for teachers as well. I remember my college days having only a few music education resources available - even fewer music technology resources. Publications such as MEJ and my local NJMEA Journal were about the only resources I had. Today, with the help of the internet, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of resources available to music teachers on a very wide array of topics. It seems that every facet of music education has a website dedicated to it, as well as a professional society. My own blog in fact is an example of The Long Tail. My blog is one of many dedicated to music technology. There are blogs written by jazz educators, choral music educators, band directors, handbell choir directors, early music educators, etc. Google the term “music education” or “music technology” and you’ll get millions of hits. While the main resources are still valuable and remain the “hits” of music education, there are so many more valuable resources that are also available to appeal to the niche music educator in each one of us.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

You might already know that iTunes has a fantastic feature that allows users to create custom CD covers with artwork and track listings for their playlists. To create a CD jacket, simply select File>Print from the menu. You will then open a menu that gives you a number of printing options. If you have created a playlist for burning a CD of an existing CD, the cover art will automatically appear, as well as the track listing. This enables users to create a cover for their CD when they burn it. I find that one of my only criticisms of the whole digital music revolution has been that you don’t get to read the liner notes that come with store-bought CDs. While this option still leaves out the liner notes, it does create something of a cover for your CD box.

From a curricular point of view, whenever a student creates a piece of music and sends it to iTunes they can also create cover art that can be included. At my school I have a Young Composers Club. At the end of last year I had my students create cover art for their songs and we included this artwork in the CD insert. To get the student artwork into iTunes, simply have the students create the art in a program like Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop Elements and then save the work as a JPEG. When iTunes is open you can copy the artwork and paste it into the window at the bottom left corner of the iTunes interface. Voila! Your artwork is in!

Students will enjoy seeing their cover art on a CD insert and it’s a great way to incorporate the visual arts into a music project. You can even use literary or visual artworks to inspire compositions and then include those works into the CD insert - a true interdisciplinary project.
I welcome your comments a suggestions.

Microsoft released it’s long anticipated Zune this week to challenge the iPod from Apple. In a recent article in the New York Times titled “So Much Music, So Few Choices”, the author points out that the Zune will follow the trend of offering nearly 2 million songs on a proprietary store called Zune Marketplace that will encode the files with an anti-piracy encryption that makes it difficult (but not impossible) to burn multiple copies of a music file, but also only playable one hand-held device, like the Zune. Like iTunes that uses the Protected AAC format, the Zune uses it’s own DRM friendly format. All music files can easily be converted to an MP3 by burning the files onto a CD and then reimporting them as MP3s. The Zune is able to play music and video files as well as display pictures. Two things that separate the Zune from the iPod are the built-in FM radio receiver and a wireless capability that allows Zune users to share music with each other, similar to the Palm Pilot.

It will be very interesting to see how the Zune does against the iPod that currently boasts a 78% share of the hand-held music player market. The commercials that I’ve seen for the Zune a pretty hip, but they certainly have an uphill climb.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

If you are one of the many who have spent hours online looking for decent music clip art to no avail, look no further.  Music Graphics Galore is an incredible website filled with  hundreds of clip art images related to music that are not only free, they are copyright and royalty free as well.  This site has been around for years under a number of different addresses, but they have finally found an easy-to-remember domain name.  If you visit this site you will find many different clip art images that can be used when creating concert programs, department letterhead, websites, handouts, newsletters, and more.  There are images of virtually every instrument - many in different sizes (including animated images as well).  There are also clip art images that are perfect for creating musical backgrounds, borders, and even musical buttons that can be utilized on a website.  To download the images simply select the image from the menu, then either Right-Click (PC) or Command-Click (Mac) on the image to download it.  I suggest creating a folder on your hard drive called “Musical Images” to organize all of your graphics into one folder.   I highly recommend bookmarking this website and using the images to enhance your printed materials and websites today!

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

If you have not already upgraded from Sibelius 3.0 to 4.0, perhaps this will convince you to…

Sibelius 4.0 comes with an amazing feature called Worksheet Creator. This feature gives Sibelius users access to 1700 premade worksheets that cover a wide variety of topics. Many of the worksheets cover the fundamentals of music, but there is one aspect that I strongly urge you to utilize in your classroom. If you click on File>Worksheet Creator, and then click Next, you get to the choices available for the Worksheet Creator. Among these choices is the 03 Selected Repertoire option. If you select this option, you are then presented with different types of repertoire, including the works of Bach, works for piano, instrumental works, songs for teaching, examples of canons and rondos, poetry for composition inspiration, and more. Each of these option brings you to yet another menu where you can select specific repertoire. In all there are 476 pieces of music that teachers can use to analyze, teach musical concepts, print out, or use as inspiration for composition. Teachers can either print the repertoire out for their students, or even better, the students can complete the assignments directly in to the file - being certain to save the file under a different name (I like using the students’ last names to keep myself organized).

To illustrate this, select 01 Selected Bach Keyboard Repertoire then select Chorale 167. This opens a Sibelius file containing the complete Chorale 167 - Du großer Schmerzensmann. Once the file is open, students can use the Lyric tool to enter their analysis under each chord. They can also arrange the work for an instrumental ensemble. The file can be edited by the teacher or student in many ways. It’s only the imagination of the teacher that limits what can be done with it. If you have never explored the Worksheet Creator facet of Sibelius 4.0 - perhaps you’ll consider it. It is a phenomenal resource for any music teacher.

As a resource, I have also attached Robin Hodson’s Quick Start Guide for Sibelius 4.0. This amazing PDF document condenses the manual down to 22 pages. Highly recommended! I welcome your comments and suggestions.

This year at my school I have been utilizing podcasts as an assessment device in my general music classes. In 6th Grade General Music, my students are all assigned an American Folk Song. They research the history of the song and download a MIDI file of the song on a fantastic website: www.contemplator.com that contains hundreds of folk songs from teh British Isles and America. Once they have researched their song, the students (who work in groups of 2) learn the words and the melody of the song in preparation for recording it into GarageBand. The students use GarageBand to import their downloaded MIDI file, and then they set up a vocal track to record themselves singing the folk song. Once they have performed the song, they create a short narration that covers the history of the song. The final podcasts are then exported into iTunes, where they are converted into MP3 files. Using our file server, the students hand in their completed MP3s, and I compile all of them into one large podcast - serving myself as the podcast host. To listen to one of the completed podcasts, click HERE. My 8th Grade General Music Class has a similar project, where students research the life and music of a famous composer. To hear their podcasts, click HERE. At the TI:ME NJ Conference, I presented a session on podcasting. To view the PowerPoint presentation and hear a podcast of it, visit my website: www.jamesfrankel.com. I hope you start podcasting with your students soon. It’s a great way of getting students excited about music! I welcome your comments and suggestions.

This past Thursday, TI:ME NJ hosted the first ever Technology In-Service Conference at the Franklin Avenue Middle School where I teach. We had nearly 100 educators gathered together to learn about technology and the role that it can play in the music classroom. Dr. Thomas Rudolph was our Keynote Speaker and did a wonderful job providing teachers with an overview of how technology can be implemented in a school music program. Amy Burns, Joe Cantaffa and I presented sessions about our school music programs and how we use technology in our classrooms. Dr. Lee Whitmore from SoundTree and Robin Hodson from Sibelius also presented sessions. I have heard from many of the attendees how much they enjoyed the conference, and we are looking forward to presenting many conferences like this in the future!