Apple announced an innovative program yesterday that allows iTunes customers to purchase albums with a 99 cent credit if they have bought a single from that album in the past.  For now you’ll also get a full credit for every song from that album that you already bought.  There is a limited time offer that extends this program to any song you’ve purchased in the past.  Eventually it will switch over to a 6-month period in which you can Complete Your Album.

The iTunes Music Store now has a button prominently displayed on the home page.  When you click on it, you’ll see every album that you are eligible to purchase at these discounted prices.  I think it’s a savvy move.  One of the main draws for customers at the iTunes Music Store is the ability to purchase just the songs you want from an album.  Perhaps this new program will encourage to check out other tracks from the artist.  It will be interesting to see how well this program does and what implications it might have toward piracy.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Music Education Technology Magazine is a fabulous free resource for music educators containing articles and lesson plans that utilize technology in the classroom.  You can get a free yearly subscription by visiting the website - and you’ll receive 4 issues a year.

I have been writing for the magazine for a few years now, and my latest article, Read Me! is about four books on music technology that I believe every music teacher should own.  I am also featured in an article by Scott Watson entitled Desert-Island Technology.  Check them out.  Let me know what you think.

In this month’s edition of the SoundTree Email Newsletter, a lesson plan that I wrote is featured.  The lesson, Film Scoring in the Music Classroom: Duck and Cover, has students create short scripts and film scores to a clip from the 1950’s film about preparing for a nuclear war (evidently all you need to do is “duck and cover” and you’ll be fine).  Teachers can use either GarageBand or HomeStudio - or the many other sequencers and notation software programs out there - to complete the project.  The lesson plan includes two film clips: one without the original audio, and one with.  Check out the lesson plan (and the many other fine lesson plans on the SoundTree site) and let me know what you think!

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Believe it or not, the last of the lawsuits over the original Napster was finally settled yesterday in a German court, seven years after Napster first appeared - forever changing the music industry.  In an article in today’s New York Times, the German media giant Bertelsmann has finally settled the last lawsuit with EMI over it’s financial backing of the original Napster.  Back in 2000, Bertelsmann provided $85 million in loans to get Napster up and running and they have been paying settlements to the many record companies who sued them over that funding.  Since the original Napster only facilitated illegal file sharing they really had no choice but to make these settlements.  In a similar settlement last year, Bertelsmann paid the Universal Music Group $60 million - a settlement that paved the way for Universal to buy Bertelsmann’s music publishing unit for $2 billion - seems like a pretty good deal to me.

So who’s next?

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Have you ever wondered why the RIAA is taking such an aggressive position against music piracy? Perhaps is because recent data is showing a sharp decline in CD sales. According to an article on Wired.com, CD sales have plummeted in the past few months, dropping 20% in the first quarter compared to last year. The data, collected and reported by Nielsen SoundScan, shows that sales are slumping sharply. But why?

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, there are a number of factors pointed to: piracy, iTunes, WalMart, and the fall of Tower Records. The record industry blames much of the decline on piracy of course, but what about prices and inventory? We were all sad to see Tower Records fall, but perhaps the reason why was because of their high prices. Was it just me, or were their CD prices slowly getting higher and higher each year? While the big box retailers like WalMart and BestBuy certainly played a major role in stealing sales away from stores like Tower, I’ve never purchased music from a big box store - mostly because they only stock the best selling CDs (and their jazz section is terrible). The article points to iTunes doing brisk business with single tracks but slower album sales - not surprising really. This business has not covered the losses seen in CD sales though and that is making the RIAA nervous. Perhaps this might explain their recent poison pen campaign.

In my opinion, the reason for the slumping sales is the inventory. Have you seen the top selling albums right now? Call me old, but when 2 of the top 10 albums are by former American Idols and the rest are by people you’ve never heard of, perhaps the real reason that sales are slumping is because the inventory is a bit shaky. It’s all about supply and demand.
I welcome your comments and suggestions.

It may not seem like a big deal, but today’s post marks my 100th post for my blog. I have been blogging since September, and I have to say that it has been one of the most enjoyable aspects of my career so far. Taking time each day to sit down and reflect on the role of music technology in education has been rewarding in many ways - both personally and professionally. I think that what makes blogging such a powerful tool for educators is the dialogue that it facilitates. Connecting with fellow educators around the world on this blog - through comments, linking to other fabulous blogs, and reading tons of content, has illustrated what can be done with Web 2.0. I believe that it has widespread applications throughout education, both in the classroom and out of the classroom. Connecting with students, teachers, parents and administrators through this medium only helps to improve education - through sharing ideas, suggestions, and discourse.

I hope that you enjoy reading my blog, and that you’ll keep coming back. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave comments over the past 7 months. They mean a great deal to me. I am looking forward to maintaining this blog for many years to come. Until then I’m aiming for 200.

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions.

You may think that I’m crazy to suggest using Nine Inch Nails in a music classroom - but hear me out on this one. I’m not really a fan of NIN but they’ve done something that has amazing applications in any music classroom (grades 6/7 & up). I was checking out the Apple website for their hot news stories (desperately waiting for word on the release of Leopard) and I came across a story called Reconstructing/Deconstructing “Survivalism”. Trent Reznor and NIN have made their latest single Survivalism available on their website as a GarageBand file. You can download the 104MB file to your computer and open it up in GarageBand. It is an amazing look at how GarageBand can be used at the highest level, and it’s also a perfect way to introduce students to song form.

What makes the idea even better is that NIN allows users to do anything they’d like with the song - remix, mash, whatever. They are planning on adding a feature of their site that allows users to then post their version of the tracks onto their homepage. They are also planning on releasing every track off of their new album the same way. What a great way to get students into music making - utilizing primary source material to create new works. The GarageBand interface provides students with a familiar environment to edit, transpose, add loops, create new melodies, add backing vocals, anything. It is a powerful lesson for students, and I hope that teachers take advantage of it.

As always, be sure to screen the song before using it with your students. While there is no explicit language, it is NIN - pretty dark stuff. Hopefully other bands will do the same thing with their music in the future.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

The Internet Public Library is one of my favorite websites for finding public domain works on the web.  This not-for-profit site began in 1996 with a purpose of providing researchers, historians, and scholars access to works that exist in the digital domain.  Included on the website are moving images, music, audio, text, and software - all that are in the public domain.  This means that virtually everything you find on the site can be used in the classroom for projects without fear of violating copyright law.

One of my favorite things to do with students is film scoring - and they love it as well.  The Prelinger Film Archives is hosted on the site and it is amazing.  There are thousands of films from the public domain available in a wide variety of formats.  These films include old horror movies like Nosferatu and classic TV commercials.  You can download any of them for use in student projects.  There are also thousands of audio files on the site - everything from the Grateful Dead to famous speeches from history.  You can use any of these files with sequencing software to create interesting loops and mixes - and you can rest easy about copyright law.

I strongly recommend you check the site out for yourself and spend some time browsing through the large collection of works available.  It is an important website for anyone concerned about preserving public domain works.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

A friend sent me this video recently about globalization, our future, and the role that technology will play in it. You need to watch it.

Click HERE: Shift Happens

After watching this video, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What implications might these statistics have for educators?
2. Where is technology in the classroom heading?
3. Are we helping to prepare our students when we use technology in the music classroom?
4. What is the role of the arts in education in an ever-shrinking world? Is it more important or less?
5. What is the future of music education in the world to come?

I welcome your comments.

I’m usually not one for rumors, but I have been wondering for quite some time what the delays at Apple have been in terms of releasing iLife ‘07, Leopard & the new Apple displays. I was reading some of my favorite blogs (Steven Johnson, Ars Technica, Creating Digital Music) last night and came across a common thread - there is a rumor out there that Apple high-end sequencing/digital audio software Logic is finished - there won’t be an update. Apple might be getting ready to release a “ProTools Killer” application. This new application will incorporate a touch-screen interface and use a new musical instrument that Apple has patented. Now this is all speculation of course (and wishful thinking) but I have to admit I’m really curious to see if these rumors are true or not.

I vividly remember the release of GarageBand and the completely new feel of the interface (although it used some of Logic’s programming). Because Apple acquired Emagic - the company that created Logic - rumors have been swirling that they’ve been working on a new application that will change everything again. With the launch of iPhone coming up in June, the touch screen interface is certainly a possibility. Being able to use a touch screen display with an audio editing/sequencing program would be very interesting and it would change the way we make music with computers. A new instrument? Even more interesting.

For now, we’ll have to wait until Apple releases iLife ‘07 and the next version of Logic - or whatever is coming next.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.