Category: Music technology
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The Paul Grabowsky Sibelius Education Kit (from 2006)
There’s a funny story about this one. Sibelius 5 had lots of cool things to show off. A new audio engine, the Ideas Hub, support for VST and AU plug-ins, a new view in Panorama, super-easy cues and much, much more. Here in Australia Sibelius went all out and commissioned a work from composer Paul…
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Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials (Book, no longer in print).
Because this book is no longer in print, I have made the resources and tutorial videos (which are still quite relevant to the current version of Sibelius) available here! There are plenty of second hand copies of the book available if you need one. Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials was the only official, Avid-endorsed course for…
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Announcing the #SCMTME & MTeach Extension cohorts, 2022
Yes, it’s that time of year again, when I share my students’ websites with the world! We’re 11 weeks into my course MUED4002 Technology in Music Education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and as usual we’ve learned lots of simple techy skills (audio and MIDI recording and editing, graphic creation, creative commons and notation…
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Introducing the #SCMTME cohort of 2021
Well, who’d’ve thunk it? I’m back again after a quiet 10 months on this blog, to introduce the next cohort in my Technology in Music Education course at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Yes I did plan some other blogs, and a 3rd series to my podcast, but Covid, eh? Anyway, no time for excuses.…
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Luka Lesson X James Humberstone, locked down 20-21
Luka and I had been working on Odysseus since 2016, but it became clear that our massive orchestral-choral-Hip-Hop-cinematic theatrical work wasn’t going to premiere through the pandemic, so we got to work remotely, through the lockdowns, on three orchestrated video-poems, written and performed by Luka, with music by me. There’s a strong theme of Social…
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Drum Programming Minus One, and The Patented Humberstone Four-Finger Technique (Text Book Chapters)
I wrote two chapters for a wonderful new music education textbook, The Music Technology Cookbook, edited by Adam Patrick Bell. The book itself has 56 chapters, some as single activities for learning music with technology, and others linked ideas to create term-long projects with your students. My chapter Drum Programming Minus One is a play on the idea…
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Empathy in the time of division (viola & electronics)
JamesHumbers · Empathy in a time of division My submission for the 2020 “Art Has To Be Contagious” installation in Tübingen, Germany, Empathy in a time of division is for electronics with solo viola and delay. [See art-has-to-be-contagious.com for more.] Live viola performed by the wonderful Connor Malanos. Please contact me if you’d like to…
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Music Zettel S2E5 – Thongaphone!
Well, five episodes in five days, and today’s episode coincides with our public presentation of learning, which you can still sign up for if you’re very quick: https://bit.ly/InventIdeas. In this episode, I look at the 5th elective stream – new pedagogies and technologies – including projects to build new social media, to build instrumental ensembles,…
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Music Zettel S2E4 – Oh no, virtual choirs.
In this episode of Music Zettel, I look at the theme of Virtual ensembles, multi-screen mixes, and animation in recent work by my students following my Technology in Music Education course. I’m sure you’ve all been wowed by virtual choirs, orchestras, and other ensembles of people “performing together, apart” over the lockdowns due to the…
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Music Zettel S2E3 – Songwriting, composing, & creativity
In the third Zettel of the week, I take you through a number of songwriting, composition, and other zany creative projects that our pre-service music teachers have produced in response to my Tech in Music Education course. Music included in this episode is by Kyra McMorrow, Matt O’Brien, Katrina Wu, and Emily Turner. If you’re…
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Music Zettel S2E2 – Free Resources FTW
In the second episode of this micro-season of Music Zettel, I’m looking at projects undertaken in the stream of digital resources for teaching, learning, and music making, and the related content from my Unit of Study “Technology in Music Education” at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. We’ll look at a number of digital resources that…
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MusicZettel S2E1 – The Elephant in the Room
Here I am, back with a second micro-season of MusicZettel, after abandoning the first one just when it was getting good (or was it?). Anyway, in this episode I’m going to tell you what the plan is for this short season, and for the future, as well as about a fabulous event coming Friday! If…
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Introducing the #SCMTME cohort of 2020!
That time of the year has come earlier this year, as my Technology in Music Education class at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music has moved semesters this year (and next year moves a whole year earlier in the degree, so we can tool-up our students in their second year!). This year we also welcome some…
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Music Zettel Ep. 5 – Tech skills & industry collaboration
This week we are giving away dozens of free resources for music education and technology! I’ll be reflecting on the first 5 weeks of my Sydney Conservatorium course “Technology in Music Education”, which culminated in a media creation session with brilliant pianist Lolita Emmanuel in which the students were the film and sound crew. I…
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Introducing the #SCMTME class of 2019
The Technology in Music Education class that I teach at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music has been one of the most successful I’ve run over the last 7 years. I put this down to two things – first, that the main assessment task of the course is entirely student-negotiated (i.e. what they want to learn…
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Music Zettel Ep 1 – Introduction
The first podcast in my first ever series – Music Zettel – in which I’ll share ideas and resources from my lecture series this semester at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, in addition to content related to my free MOOC (online short course), The Place of Music in 21st Century Education.
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Remixular bells
In this unit of work you will examine how Mike Oldfield built the opening of his seminal progressive rock work Tubular Bells. By following each step as instructed below, you will rebuild the work yourself, remix it, and then compose a new piece based on the original. Simply follow the process outlined as follows. Listening Learn…
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Orff and aural learning-inspired arrangements by Sydney Conservatorium students
Every year at the Sydney Conservatorium I get to take one of my favourite courses, Composition in Music Education. The first task, after reviewing a number of creative music pedagogies, is to create a “mixed-bag” arrangement (one that will work for any combination of instruments at all) with aural learning elements. Actually, I talk about the…
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Technology in Music Education – 2018 cohort
This Friday brings one of my favourite events of the year at the Sydney Conservatorium – the Presentation of Learning for my Technology in Music Education course. This year’s cohort is just as exciting as ever, and some students have really broken new ground. If you’re in Sydney this Friday from 5pm (probably until around 8pm),…
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SCM Technology in Music Education 2017
It’s that time of year again – my Technology in Music Education course is kicking off here at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and my students have created websites to share their reflections on the course plus resources that they make. They’re establishing their professional presence online, and most of them for the first time! You…
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Beat programming to iMovie on iPads
I’m teaching at the Sydney University Wingara Mura Bunga Barabugu summer camp for young indigenous Australian songwriters this week … today doing a workshop on drum programming on iPad apps, then sending to iMovie to use as TV show opening credits music … I made this cheat sheet that I thought I’d share for anyone…
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On Hip-hOpera, the Glitter Gang, Humberrants, and becoming Senior in 2017
You’ve probably noticed that my blogging rate has somewhat spiked in the past couple of days. As 2016 creaked to its end, and I realised that it was less than 11 months since I was in Oxford giving my TEDx talk, I was rather astonished to think about everything that happened this year in my…
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My MOOC, 9 months after release
I really should have re-posted one of the many press releases or interviews I participated in about the MOOC (Massively Open Online Course – free to anyone) that I wrote and produced for the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney earlier in the year. Here’s one by the university itself, for example. And here’s the rather…
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My #TEDxOxford talk
I’m just in the middle of a blog reflecting on the year that was, and realised that I hadn’t actually blogged about my #TEDxOxford talk, so I decided to put that post on hold, and write about the talk – not just what it was about, but what it was like to give a TEDx talk! First, if…
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Free and impressive #MusicEd digital resources from my 2016 #SCMTME cohort
Last Friday my students in the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s Technology in Music Education course (from which my MOOC Music in 21st Century Education came) gave their Presentation of Learning. If you go to the Con’s Facebook page and scroll down to 18th November, you’ll see a series of “was Live” videos and can re-live the event!…
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Raising the Bar
A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak at one of the Unversity of Sydney’s Raising The Bar events – an opportunity for “leading academics” (their words, not mine!) to give a potted (30 minute) lecture in a bar to anyone who wanted to listen. My lecture was at…
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Slide2Learn conference, Sydney
I’m having fun at the Slide2Learn conference on mLearning in Sydney. Did a presentation this morning – the deck below was created in Apple Keynote and has been converted (and the many videos removed!). Here’s the session description: Reflecting on the uptake of music technology in schools in the 1980s, teacher, researcher and programmer Andrew Brown (Griffith…
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Piano, vibes etc. pedalling workflow in Sibelius
I’m in the middle of composing a large work for orchestra and choir at the moment, and as I was setting up my pedalling notation shortcut for the first time in Sibelius 7.5 it suddenly occurred to me that this may be a workflow that others haven’t thought of. I can remember back in the days…
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Live jamming Ableton-style, with iPads & USB MIDI controllers
I posted an obscure photo last week showing set-up for a lecture I gave the following morning. I’m interested to know if anyone else has tried anything like this in music education, because it seems like a big technological uphill to get there (tho “there” is quite geekishly cool). I’m thinking I might write at length…
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Songwriting in GarageBand with Musical Cryptography
I developed several units of work to go with my composition Passion for Symphonic Winds, and this electronic version has nothing to do with that work except that that’s where the interest in hiding messages in music began. Since I found it interesting, I thought my students would, and they’ve had a lot of success playing around…
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#SCMtech educational iBooks go live – download them free!
Last week my Sydney Conservatorium of Music Technology in Music Education (#SCMtech) students handed in their main project, worth 50% of the course marks. It’s an interactive iBook, designed for elementary or middle school music education, but also you’ll find they’ve shared equivalent resources to be printed or burned onto CD for schools that don’t have iBooks…
James Humberstone 