I am thrilled to announce that we have been working very hard over the past few months at SoundTree to create a unique new education online store that offers educators the absolute BEST prices on all aspects of music technology. The SoundTree Online Store has over 200 “Classroom Tested, Teacher Approved” products that have been hand-selected with the educator in mind. Aside from our guaranteed lowest prices, we are also the only online store to offer free shipping on all orders (except outside of the continental US). No minimum purchase required!

I know that this seems like a shameless commercial, but I can’t tell you how happy I am with this new resource for educators. I urge you to log on to the store today to check it out. Everything is in stock and ready to be shipped - including Kaossilators! If you would like to subscribe to SoundWAVES - the free email newsletter from SoundTree - click HERE and you’ll receive monthly notices about product specials. We’ve got a wonderful podcasting bundle for Mac & PC users!

Start shopping today!

I received an email yesterday from Bill Bauer to join a group on the Apple Learning Interchange network called Music and the Macintosh. There are already 35 members, and the group includes a wonderful collection of experts.

If you use a Mac to make any type of music, I strongly urge you to join the group as well. It is free and only takes a few moments to set up an account. There are also quite a few other group on the ALI that you might be interested in as well. As my friend Rob always says, See you on the circuits!

Korg recently launched a new microsite for the Kaossilator - my favorite piece of gear for 2008. Check it out. There is a great demo video that shows all of the functions of the device, as well as a very cool rollover diagram of the device where you can learn all about what each of the buttons does. There is also a place for you to submit your own videos of yourself playing the Kaossilator. I will finish editing a video that I made of my former students playing Kaossilators (the Kaossilator Orkestra) by the end of next week.

If you’ve been interested in checking out this great new device from Korg, I highly recommend checking out the site. Let me know what you think!

This past weekend, Barbara Freedman, from Greenwich, CT, invited me to a live streaming broadcast of a session that she was presenting at PodCamp 2.0 in NYC. Although I have heard of live streaming video sites before, this was the first time I actually logged on to an event to watch. She used a website called UStream.tv to broadcast her session. I was amazed that the website allows anyone to create a virtual TV channel for FREE! I decided to set one up to see how difficult it was.

In short, this is one of the easiest things to set up - even easier than creating a blog! Simply sign up fr a free account, enter some preferences (what video camera and microphone your computer has) and you’re finished. You simply click “Broadcast Now” and the site does the rest. You can send out an invitation to your friends and/or contacts to watch your show live. The great thing about the site is that it archives your shows so that if people miss the live broadcast they can always watch the video at a later time.

I believe that this site has some pretty big implications for education. Teachers could broadcast their lessons to students who are not able to be in the classroom. Distance learning could be greatly enhanced by teachers recording actual lectures to students around the world. It is also a great way for students who attend the class to review what was covered later in the day or week. Conferences of all types could be broadcast over the web so that others could virtually attend (even if a small fee was charged). Students could create simple TV shows and/or podcasts as assessment opportunities. The possibilities are endless.

I urge you to check out the site, create a free account, and start streaming video today.

TI:ME President-Elect and good friend of mine, Amy M Burns, has just joined the blogosphere and I would like everyone to take a moment to visit her blog and welcome her. Author of “Technology Integration in the Elementary Music Classroom“, Amy’s new blog - titled “Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog” will most certainly become a vital resource for elementary music educators who are looking for effective ways of integrating technology in to the music curriculum. She has already posted some great information, and I know that her expertise in elementary music education will make her blog THE place to go for great lesson ideas, tricks & tips, curricular integration strategies, and more!

Welcome Amy!

Before reading any further, if you haven’t already seen the video, take a moment and watch a great video on YouTube called iBand. They have a few other videos as well that you might be interested in.

What do you think?

I believe that this is another example of how music is changing and how it is the students that we teach that will reshape the way music educators approach performance ensembles in the future. That might seem like a bold statement, but I am a firm believer that the technology shown in the video makes music making very inviting for students. While the tune might not be the best composition ever created, it shows how innovative kids can be. Take two iPhones and a Nintendo DS and Voila! you’ve got a band. Instead of fearing that traditional performing ensembles will die because of technology (a huge over reaction) I believe that music educators have an opportunity to bring performance experiences to many more students than those who are currently a member of a performing ensemble at school. Ask yourself how many students (what percentage) in your school are members of the band, chorus, or orchestra? 10%? 20%? 30%? Even the best music programs in America would be fortunate to have more than a 50% participation rate? What about the vast amount of students who will never have an opportunity to perform? Sure, you might have a Battle of the Bands once a year to showcase some of the millions of kids who play guitar, bass, drums or keyboard. I’ll bet that many of the students who are not performers at school are closet performers at home, using the same technology that the iBand uses. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have every student performing? Do you think that technology could make that happen? Websites that offer free software downloads that contain music making opportunities level the playing field in terms of socioeconomic status. Are the iBand members musical even if they are not playing “instruments”?

I’d love to hear from you and your students. Perhaps you could show the students the video and get their reactions. Have them post their comments here! Are you an iBand fan?

For those of you who have spent any time with me in the past three months, you know that I am a HUGE fan of the new Kaossilator from Korg. You can listen to some of the compositions that I have made with it as well as a recording of ten middle school students in what I call the Kaossilator Orkestra on my podcasting site.

Recently a friend of mine sent me a link to a fantastic album created by Gary Kibler from London called “The Yellow Album”. It is perhaps the best illustration of the music making capability of the KO1. What Gary has done is nothing short of miraculous. The KO1 is a dynamic phrase synthesizer that uses a touch pad to create music. There are no keys at all and it is not that easy to create a melody without any mistakes. Here is the description of the Yellow Album from Gary’s site:

“The Yellow Album” is the first full-length album produced and performed entirely on the Korg Kaossilator device. No other effects, EQ or sounds were added. The audio was digitally recorded directly off the unit and the only external editing performed involved simple volume balancing. The musical challenge was to attempt to make the two-bar loop limitation of the on-board phrase recorder sound less repetitious by playing the touchpad live, solo-style, over the loops during the recording.

I strongly recommend visiting his site and downloading the album today. It’s completely free, and it is really good!

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

During my visit to Berklee College of Music yesterday, I was shown an amazing online resource that I believe is the only one of it’s kind. The Stan Getz Library is an online searchable database that allows you to enter any jazz musicians name and see all of the recordings they made not only as a leader, but all of the recordings that they played on as a sideman as well. If you enter “Paul Motian” for example, you get to a page with 73 listings. Each listing includes a click through to a full page about the album, including all of the standard record catalog listings, as well as all of the musicians that played on the recording (with each name being clickable once again to see all of the recordings they played on). I am a huge jazz fan, and have always loved the incredible network of musicians - each playing on so many other records. This community atmosphere has always been very interesting to me, especially when compared to the clan-like atmosphere in rock.

I strongly recommend checking out the catalog yourself. It is a great tool for jazz educators who are interested in both the history of jazz and finding great recordings to play for their students. Thank you Berklee!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Robert Brannan, known as elderbob, for a very interesting project being run on a website called Musicbridges.  Here is a brief description of what Musicbridges is trying to do:

The site is a webcasting network of musicians and music educators dedicated to helping those involved in music and technology explore, discuss, and collaborate covering topics on music gear, music in education, ways to successfully create global recordings, and music lessons. Musicbridges is part of Worldbridges. They are also the ­home of the 2008 EVO  -  Music in Education Course.

My interview, part of their music education course titled “I Got Rhythm - Music in the Classroom”, has been posted, and although the beginning is pretty rough (we recorded the entire interview over Skype and there were some network problems) I think there are some interesting points.  While I was being interviewed there were a number of participants in a web chat who were interacting with me at the same time.  They have their own Yahoo Discussion Group, which I have joined, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens with this.  It was a great experience, and I urge other music educators to look into what these visionary people are doing.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

The folks at Garritan have produced a wonderful Christmas album that features their sound library for the past three years. I wrote an entry on this blog last year about the 3rd edition, and decided to share with you the 4th edition of the album this year. The album, which is free, has accompanying cover art and a label, and it can be purchased as a physical CD. The album cab either be streamed from the Garritan site, or you can download the tracks and listen to them on your favorite MP3 player. The album features the following songs:

1 ) I Saw Three Ships Medley by John Raybould
2 ) O Little Town of Bethlehem by Dan Kury
3) Christmastime by Gunther Bombe
4) Förunderligt och Märkligt by Ken Weissman
5) God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen by Randy Bowser
6) Carol of the Birds by Dan Powers
7) Ave Maria by Laurence Harvey
8.) Angels We Have Heard On High by Keith Walls
9) Come, O Come Emmanuel by Karen Peace
10) Silent Night by Tim Cohen
11) Hark! The Herald Angels Sing by Gary Shannon
12) The Shepherds’ Lonely Vigil by Jerry Wickham
13) O Come All Ye Faithful by Michael Bolt
14) Forest Green by Stefan Kristinsson
15) Sleep, O Sleep, My Lovely Child by Jack Cannon
16) Nations Awake by Matej Hrovat
17) Lieti Pastori by Fabio Vicentini
18) Deck the Halls by Toby Bresnahan
19) Christmas Festival Overture by Colton Provias

The album is terrific and it truly highlights the quality of sounds in the Garritan Sound Library. I strongly recommend downloading the album and adding it to your Christmas playlist.