Teaching Music with Guitar Hero?

Christmas is over, but we are still rocking out with our new Guitar Hero III for the Wii here at home, and in our virtual stadium crowd thanks to some photoshop fun…

Several of the music-ed bloggers I subscribe to (see my blogroll) have discussed the idea of using video games to teach kids how to read music. Check out Engadet blogger Nilay Patel’s post on a company that has a created a “guitar hero like” game that uses a real guitar and gaming technology to teach kids how to read music.

And, if you really can’t stand playing GH with a plastic guitar controller, check out how to build your own custom full-sized Guitar Hero controller like the modified Strat in the picture below. File this under projects labeled “when-I-have-too-much-time-on-my hands…”

For Trombonists only

Photo Source: danny.hammontree

You have to share this post with all your trombone buddies. Check out the hilarious videos at thepetersonproject.

I wish I could embed a sample video here at the post, but they are unavailable. These are very clever short videos, films really, by Houston area freelance trombonist Steve Peterson.

WARNING: You won’t understand the humor of these videos unless you were in a college band/orchestra or are good friends with a knuckle-dragging-low-brass-yahoo.

p.s. I’m a trombonist.

Digital video and web-site review: a post about posts

What started off as a review post about the Flip Video quickly expanded into a larger discussion of using video in the classroom thanks to two excellent posts: One by Bob Sprankle at his bit by bit blog
and the other post (discovered in the comments on Bob’s post) by Matthew Needleman at his Creating Lifelong Learners blog

Now before you go and check out these two posts, let me give you my thoughts on my use of the Flip Video. I had been looking for an inexpensive (below $200) digital video camera to use with my music students. I initially purchased an Aiptek 720P HD Camcorder for about $150 at Target. While the video was excellent, the audio was unacceptable.

I was skeptical about getting a Flip Video, but you can’t beat Costco for a good deal on stuff you gotta have…I purchased a Flip Video Ultra for about $120. It records up to 30 minutes of video that is great quality in sound and sight for my purposes.

Some key bullets on having used the camera for awhile-
* I would suggest the Ultra Flip over the plain old Flip (see all the specs here) mainly because the Ultra comes with a tripod mount and looks cooler and is easier to hold.
* The zoom feature on the flip is virtually useless from more than 30 feet away IMHO.
*Mac users: the flip comes with pre-loaded software to allow you to play .avi files on your Mac OS. I could get the .avi files to play just fine in Quicktime, but was unable to import them into iMovie’08. I did get them to import into iMovie HD with no problem. (I’m still using Mac OS 10.4.11)
*This is a no-brainer camera for those of you think that digital+video=genius. It is very simple to use and the included cables for hook-up to your t.v. are a nice bonus for instant playback.
*Buy a USB extension cable before you come home with the camera. The flip out USB dongle is a nice feature, but I’ve found that it doesn’t quite work with my laptop USB configuration or my other desktop computers.

A PLACE ON THE WEB FOR ALL THOSE VIDEOS

I know what you’re thinking, “Not another YouTube like video sharing service…we already use TeacherTube.”

Do check out the intro video below from 5min.com. I think it has some neat things to offer, particularly the video music lessons that can be paused and slowed down. Could have some neat teaching possibilities for your students and parents. I like the 5 minute concept for teaching mini-lessons.

Practicing tips for parents and students: part 1

Photo Source: linlin (back now)

I want to call your attention to a great article I found on the internet about kids and practice. Here is the link:
Mom, I don’t WANT to practice!

I strongly encourage you to read it, but I will highlight some of the key points below:

“…When a child starts to learn an instrument, the experience is often treated as the new adventure it is; but after the first few weeks or months, the novelty can wear off and the child becomes distracted by other attention-grabbers like TV shows, playing with friends, and other things that don’t require sitting for 20-30 minutes for concentrated practice.”

Hints to Survive Practicing

1) Try breaking up the practice time into two segments each day. Have your child practice for 10 minutes before school and 10 minutes after dinner.

2) Come up with an incentive such as a quarter in a jar every time they practice. At the end of two weeks, let them spend their money at a store or to treat themselves to a fast food goodie.

3) Sit with your child during practic
e time. Not only is this a great time to learn with them, but it keeps them on track.

4) Have your child give you a concert at least once a month. Nothing builds up a child’s confidence and makes him or her feel like an accomplished musician like having Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa there as an audience. Plan the “concert” ahead of time and tell your child that they need to practice their lesson and then pick out four of their favorite songs to play for their big day.

5) Balance out practice time with a fun activity. Practicing DOES NOT have to be just playing your songs 3-5 times each. Integrate music flash cards, a book from the library about music, listen to some sort of classical or jazz music with your child and talk about the instruments you hear.

6) Let your child be the teacher for 10 minutes of practice time. Have them give YOU a mini lesson. You’d be surprised what you can learn from that little one!

7) DO NOT make practice time a yelling match or struggle of wills. There ARE times when kids just need a break from the daily routine, but let them know that that break is for one day only and the next day they will have to add some time on to makeup for their missed practice the day before.

Teaching them commitment and following through: Developing a consistent routine for practicing teaches your child that once they start something, they need to see it through even if it’s just for a given amount of time.

The BEST piece of advice I can give all parents is to stick with it. Be there to reinforce good practice habits. As teachers, we can only do so much reinforcing. It’s best to work as a team to help your child develop their talents and gifts. Praise them often even when they hit a few clinker notes.

New Book for the New Year: for teachers and parents

I get a lot of questions about a child’s music development. The best book I have found is “Your Musical Child: Inspiring Kids to Play and Sing for Keeps” by Jessica Baron Turner.

You can start anywhere in the book and it’s written with the right amount of theory and practical information for parents with children of all ages. It answers the following questions: “What makes a child fall in love with learning to play music? How does talent develop? When is the right time to start lessons? Which instrument is the best fit? Why is practice so challenging, and what can parents do to keep kids musically motivated? Where can a parent learn about music programs, camps, books, recordings, and other important resources?”

My MusEd Predictions for 2008…sort of…

Ok- this is not really about my predictions for music education…I am guilty of creating a provocative title for my last post of 2007 with hopes that you will read my final thoughts, resolutions, confessions and hopeful predictions about my practice as a music educator in 2008:

In 2008 I predict that I will:

*Plan ahead.
The immediacy of the internet and my own laziness has made me a lousy planner. No more last minute lessons or off-the-cuff rehearsals.

*Keep my chops in shape.
If I can’t wow my students with my playing or singing, I’m just a teacher. I need to be a performer as well as a teacher. As a general music teacher, it’s too easy to let my technique slide. I need to keep performing and practicing regularly.

*Only perform quality repertoire.
I’m done picking repertoire based solely on the label Editor’s Choice for my students. I need to take the time to find quality music; the kind that inspired me to be a music teacher. I need to remember that excellent music may not be easily accessible at first playing or singing for my students, but the reward comes in digging deeper each time the piece is rehearsed and performed.

*Convince my students that hard work and self-denial is what it takes to get results.
I need to remind my students that time spent practicing is the only way to get better. Can I create a culture of excellence based on good practice habits?

*Teach my students how to practice.
I will no longer tell my students to practice without defining clear expectations and outcomes for each practice session…(sounds like a future blog post).

*Use technology responsibly.
I vow to create meaningful uses of technology in my practice as a music teacher. I have been guilty of creating fun moments with technology, but now I need to plan (see first point above) on connecting my use of technology to standards and learning for each of my students.

Here comes 2008…I want to be ready for a new year of better teaching.

Photo attribution: by venegas

Free tempo adjustment feature in Quicktime

Today while I was rehearsing with my students, I needed to slow down one of the songs we were singing. There is a great feature in the free version of Quicktime that allows you to slow down the tempo of a song and keep the pitch the same. It’s much cheaper than any tempo adjustment software you can buy and is great for slowing down those tricky sections on any piece of music; guitar hacks like me love this software for breaking down those Clapton licks- Here is what you do: (the screenshots are from my Mac but the process is the same on a PC)

1) Open up a file in Quicktime.

2) Click on Window>Show A/V Controls

3) Slide Playback Speed control to slow down or speed up

If you slow it way down, the sound gets a bit “crunchy” but the pitch remains the same. Loop those tough sections, slow ‘em down, and you’ll get your chops up in no time.

Frets on Fire: we are shredding on our Mac

UPDATE: this is a follow-up to my last post about Frets on Fire. After poking around the FOF website, we were able to find a simple hack to get the program to work on my Intel based iMac. Here is what you do:

1) Download 2 separate versions of Frets on Fire: Version 1.1.324 and Version 1.2.438

2) Follow the directions from the screencast here to make a simple change to the program.

3) Start shredding!

You will definitely want to Google your way to adding more songs to the library. There is a great post here from the FOF Fan Forum on how to use Audacity to convert mp3 files to Ogg Vorbis files so you can create your own songs.

I see a lot of potential for a fun program you could use with your students…especially the creation of new songs. Let me know if you have tried this with your students.

Frets on Fire: freeware patterned after Guitar Hero

Frets on Fire according to the game ’s developers “is a game of musical skill and fast fingers. The aim of the game is to play guitar with the keyboard as accurately as possible.” It’s basically a freeware version of Guitar Hero where your computer keyboard acts as the “guitar” controller. Check out the short video of my son giving it a test run on his Vista computer. Notice how he is holding his keyboard like a guitar- right hand pressing the enter key in time with his fingers on the left hand pressing the function keys (I tried downloading the MacOSX version, but it caused my intel based iMac to crash…) Update: check out my post on how we got FOF to work on my iMac.

In addition to the pre-loaded songs, you can also “compose” new songs with the game’s built in song editor and Ogg Vorbis files. I had a blast trying to play Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. It’s surprisingly well done for a freeware program.

Book to read over Winter Break

File this under: books I should have read in my college general music class but will now read knowing that it will either inspire me or make me feel like a bad teacher…

The Ways Children Children Learn Music: An Introduction and Practical Guide to Music Learning Theory (Revised Edition) by Eric Bluestine is a great introduction to the sometimes thorny field of Music Learning Theory. An alternate title could be “Gordon Music Learning Theory for Dummies”- based on the research and ideas of Edwin E. Gordon. (I hadn’t heard of him either before reading this book….)

Some worthwhile quotes from Mr. Bluestine:

Music class is not simply a stop-gap during the school day during which students can relax between the “important” subjects; music is more than simply a source of entertainment, more than a means of raising the self-esteem of a relatively small segment of the student population. Music is a discipline as well as an art. And, like other disciplines, it’s worthy of study for it’s own sake.

We are not educating our students to become indpendendent musicians and independent musical thinkers…We music teachers should design a curriculum to help us teach better so that our students can grow musically and approach, maybe even surpass, our level of musical proficiency.

Let’s teach our students to strive not for perfect imitation, but for imperfect audiation. Why imperfect? Because a musician who audiates the music she performs is never satisfied with her performance. There is always “something wrong”-audiationally, technically- with the phrasing, dynamic choices, articulation, intonation, or rhythmic accuracy. Perhaps only the musician herself is aware that there’s a problem. A music student who imitates has no such problems. Her perfect imitation leads to perfect satisfaction. By contrast, the mark of any true musician, of any serious artist, is dissatisfaction-and a life of thrilling and unending artistic growth.