Tag: Music education
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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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The experience of casual teachers at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Following on from my blog yesterday, I’m sharing the second article I prepared for @SydneyCon students before the strikes last week, so they would understand why we’re striking, and perhaps even join us on the picket line to ask for better working conditions for the teachers which we argue are better learning conditions for them.…
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Why our Conservatory students should care about the 40:40:20
This last week, I was a picket captain for the first time in my life, during the two-day #USydStrike. While I’ve decades of experience in social justice work, from marching in rallies, to picketing visiting politicians, through to my teaching and research/creative work, I only joined and became active in the National Tertiary Education Union…
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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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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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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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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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Nurturing Vulnerability to Develop Pedagogical Change Through MOOC Participation and Public Blogging (Book Chapter)
A chapter I wrote with Catherine Zhao and Danny Liu drawing upon data from my MOOC, The Place of Music in 21st Century Education, for the Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning, edited by Janice L. Waldron, Stephanie Horsley, and Kari K. Veblen. Abstract Despite several decades of ground-breaking achievements in music education research…
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Music Zettel Ep. 8 – A load of Pollak
We’ve just had three wonderful days with our Maker-in-Residence, Linsey Pollak! In this episode, I reflect on the learning that went on, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Good, and we hear from my students who were involved in the residency at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. If you’d like to hear more music from…
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Music Zettel Ep. 7 – Teaching like a musician
In this week’s podcast, I interview Brad Fuller, director of music at Northern Beaches Christian School, about his pedagogical approach to teaching the class that I described in Episode 6, where our undergraduate pre-service Music Teachers wrestle with jamming with chord-playing instruments that are totally new to them and the philosophy of the Creative Music…
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Music Zettel Ep. 6 – The Creative Music Movement
This episode features a “flipped learning” video that I made for Key Approaches in Music Education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the first year course that I mentioned in episode 2. For those wondering what “flipped learning” means, it’s when you take a part of a class that you’ve traditionally chalked-and-talked, and “flip” it…
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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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Music Zettel Ep. 3 – Orff formula arrangements
This week’s episode is drawn from my first two lectures this semester in Composition in Music Education. We look at some of my own Orff-style arrangements and original compositions and discuss how these can be both a pedagogical and compositional model for teaching and learning. The resources I mentioned in this episode include: My Train’s…
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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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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…
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UWS MTeach lecture 1
I’m a casual lecturer at the University of Western Sydney, because I just can’t fit enough things in my life. At UWS I work in the Education school lecturing the Masters of Teaching method course which deals with integrating technology into the year 7 to 12 music curriculum. I also focus on integration of the…
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Teaching composition and the affect of technology
At the moment I’m really enjoying reading (and commenting on!) another composer’s blog. The composer in question is Kenneth Froelich and his blog is at http://electricsemiquaver.blogspot.com/. I think the topic of Froelich’s blog, how to compose with notation software like Sibelius and Finale, and what pitfalls to avoid, is a really important one. It’s also…
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SixEightThreeFour
This piece is part of my Symphony of the Child, commissioned and premiered by the International Grammar School in Sydney in 2009. It uses alternating six-eight and three-four time signatures, like a Flamenco, and is perfect for middle school classes to perform. In this unit of work students move from performing the piece in class to…
James Humberstone 