These seminars and blog postings are specifically for beginners and/r elementary school children to become comfortable with using the iPad as a means to be creative.
Our new flyer for September 2014
FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY, SAVE 25% ON OUR WORKSHOPS
Its that time of the year where the kids are back to school, meeting their new teachers and classmates and interested in what the year ahead has in store for them.
For the remainder of September up until October 17th try one of our Garageband workshops at 30% off.
Over $100.00 in savings! In a 25 child classroom, that works out to only $10 per child!
Check out our FAQ section to learn more about our services and how having a Garageband workshop in your class could be beneficial and exciting for your students.
25% OFF WORKSHOPS UNTIL OCT 17
Posted in iPad Recording Seminars-E101, Opinion, Philosophy, Technology
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So why are the kids still learning to play the friggen tuba and French horn? No disrespect to those instruments but for the last 50 years of pop music, there’s nary a tuba to be heard.
Our son arrived home from school today and was very excited about music class. This is the first year (grade 7) that instrumental music is offered in public school. He’s set on learning to play the flute. (I’m guessing because it’s the lightest instrument to carry home.) I’ll certainly support any choice he makes but suggested that, of all the instruments offered by the school, the saxophone is probably the most “in demand” in music today. That didn’t seem to concern him too much however. I can guarantee you this though; Had the multi-instrumental capabilities of GarageBand been offered to him, he’d have jumped at it. Not only is an iPad light but it’s also remarkably diverse with the choice of instruments offered. And seriously, why learn to play a flute when that’s the only sound it will make? You can’t make a flute sound like a piano. Why not learn the piano? The piano now triggers all instruments, including drums and flutes. Furthermore, every pop record being made today is comprised of electronic instruments and if you’re ever going to get a job as a musician, being a pianist is the job that’s in the highest of demand.
I don’t personally know anyone that learned to play the tuba in high school and is still playing it today, or any other “band” instrument. The budget to purchase these instruments and maintain them is enormous, not to mention the space they occupy in a music class. Times that by an entire school district and you’ve got one hell of a chunk of cash sponging off an already depleted department. Educators and administrators have been arguing the merits of music classes in school for quite awhile now and when I look at their arguments in this light, it’s hard to disagree. However, if music classes were brought into the future and treated with the respect they deserve, I feel it would be a win/win all the way across the board.
We should be teaching our kids how to create music they enjoy rather than force feeding them with archaic marching songs played on smelly old (heavy) instruments. We should be teaching kids how to create a broadcast, a soundtrack, a song that they could actually make a living on. Technology has placed unlimited possibilities in the hands of anyone who wished to give it a go. It’s not like it used to be where a musician would have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on instruments and recording studios, after which to spend more on managers, producers, engineers, record companies, promotion etc., etc.
As a musician/educator, I find it very embarrassing that we’re failing to introduce our youth to the future of music/film/publishing when it’s now, easier than ever.
Book your Garageband Workshop today!
Courtesy of Kent State University
Posted in 21C Learning, Education, iPad Recording Seminars-E101, Re-Thinking the Music Lesson, Technology
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Francesca Adamo, Daniela Pileggi, Peter Willis, Martha Fitzpatrick, Liane Paixao
Students hard at work creating beats at Prince of Peace CS.
A “Thank You” card from the Grade 5 Class at Prince of Peace CS. <3
What Happens neXt, Happened HERE!
Posted in 21C Learning, Education, iPad Recording Seminars-E101, Re-Thinking the Music Lesson, Technology
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Taking music lessons in school to the neXt level.
As teachers struggle to grasp onto the subject of Ed Tech and come to terms with technology in the classroom, we’re making the plea just a little bit easier to wrap their heads around. By offering cross curricular workshops, slowly but surely we’re giving teachers hints on how to maximize their 21 C integration of tablets in the grade 2-8 classroom. Moreover, we’re enabling these teachers in fun and inspirational ways!
Our latest workshop asks students to bring in examples of their favorite people, things and/or life experiences. Using GarageBand on the iPad, we discuss some properties of music such as Mood, Tempo, and Pitch as to their relation not only with music, but with the students feelings about their chosen subject. What rhythms are best suited to represent a “happy” feeling? What does “scary” sound like exactly? Is there a sound that we can link to a “silly” feeling? Who’s more likely to have a “high” pitched voice, an elephant or a squirrel?
We begin by layering Apple Loops and finding sounds that represent the feelings of the student and by doing so, invoke critical thinking. Students are divided into groups of two so that they’re collaborating and discussing their ideas. The individual thoughts of kids, combined with pictures brought from home, are then assembled into iMovie or PowerPoint and accompanied by the 30 second piece of music they’ve created using GarageBand. The result is a musical slide show, created by the children that’s representative of their favorite people, things and/or experiences.
Video footage of workshops such as this will be posted here in April 2014.
Posted in iPad Recording Seminars-E101, News, Opinion, Re-Thinking the Music Lesson, Technology, Uncategorized
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When I was a kid in school, the only hope I had for ever becoming involved in the recording end of the music business was to land a job in a recording studio, and the average kid’s chance of that ever happening was about 1 in a million. The only other possible option was to get a huge loan from the bank and build your own however, without the experience necessary to run a recording studio, banks didn’t look to favorably on this option.
Book a classroom tour of a pro recording studio now!
Even as technology advanced toward the days of the home studio, companies such as Teac/Tascam began making 4 track open reel recorders but for a young teen, these too provided many financial woes. It wasn’t just the recorder that you needed in order to make recordings. You also needed a mixer, microphones, keyboards, guitars, amplifiers, speakers and the list goes on. The kicker is that, none of this high tech, expensive recording equipment guaranteed you with a “hi-fi” result. The equipment was only as good as the operator.
Assuming that you’d made a decent recording, how were you ever going to get it out there to the masses? There were no YouTube or Facebook sites for you to boldly solicit your awesome recordings. You were at the mercy of record companies, managers, publishers and the like. Once again, as a recording engineer, producer or songwriter, you were in the “dime a dozen” category. Millions were trying to do exactly what you were doing but without the assistance of social media.
There were no schools at that time specializing in Recording Engineering or Music Production. You were pretty much on your own unless you happened to know someone in the “biz”. By the mid 1980’s it became even more complicated. Digital technology was introduced. All of a sudden, and in the matter of a couple of years, analog technology was being weeded out in favor of the new digital technology. Vinyl recordings were being replaced with CD’s and computers were being introduced to the recording studios. If you didn’t embrace them, your days were silently numbered.
More and more recording facilities were using a digital recording system called ProTools. The majority of seasoned professionals scoffed at the idea of using a computer to record “high quality” records with and to this day, there are still many who are hanging onto that the theory that analog recordings are still the way to go. Unfortunately, those professionals are now mostly unemployed.