Music Education + Business = Win Win

Last week we were fortunate enough to be contacted by Marty Albertson the former CEO and current non-executive Chairman of Guitar Center.  We decided to do a little research on him before our call and learned that his is a very cool story.

He started as a clerk and rose through the ranks all the way to CEO.  He weathered through sales of the company, buy-outs of partners, and even led the company from public to private status (and back again?).  He champions a 'slow-growth' strategy that he believes will benefit Guitar Center over the long run. This is all good stuff.

Marty's initial e-mail to us ended with a very interesting sentence that caught me just a tad off-guard.  He said "I have spent a great deal of time over the past several years investing in the music ed world we depend on. I would look forward to seeing your program."


I'm not sure why I was surprised as it makes so much sense.  Head of a company that sells instruments and gear is interested in music education success... so they can sell more instruments and gear! It's crystal clear and seems to be sound business logic as well (no pun intended). We were humbled that Marty contacted us and were pleasantly surprised to learn that he wanted to talk about music education with us 'outsiders'. But you see, as a businessman and passionate music fan, he understands the importance of music education on many levels.

For example, we are all familiar with the benefits of music education; how students of the arts continually outperform non-art peers on the SAT, how cognitive reasoning is elevated, and  and how playing music can instill in students "the good habits of mind that can last a lifetime" among others.  These are noble and just reasons for the existence of foundations like VH1-s Save the Music and The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation (of which Marty is a board member) but they are not the only reasons.

The basic premise that 'more music makers = more music SALES' is... in my humble opinion, no less of a reason to 'save the music' and for music educators to become more business savvy. This can and should be a win-win situation.  


I know that each time a shop makes an instrument sale, there is a potential lesson for a teacher (whether it's here at DSM or online at DLP)  and perhaps another potential member for a local band or orchestra program. And I know too that if the teacher does his job well, he will make a lifelong ambassador and purchaser of music and its related products or services. That's a Win-Win. 

I suppose it was the word 'depend' in Marty's initial e-mail that struck me the most. I wondered to myself if music educators understood this?...Then I chuckled at how silly that sounded. Of course they don't.  Music educators are trained to sight sing, read scores, transpose, and fix the occasionally bent octave key. These are wonderful attributes in the band room, not so useful in the real world.  We are trained to do one thing, and do it well. But in most cases, a music ed. major's 'business hat' is most often only worn when dealing with local shops that provide (hopefully) quality rental instruments to their band and orchestra programs.  

This leads to a disconnect between school music programs and the outside world, including the business world (and in many cases, the music world - but that's another story for another time).  In short, this disconnect is a real and palpable one. If you don't believe me, read the account of our trip to the MENC (now called NAfME) National Conference or see for yourself by attending a NAMM show and making a note of who the majority of music merchandisers are courting. You might also try listening in on any of the national round-table discussions on music education and see how often they address 'the other 80%'. 

So I believe it's time for a change.  Let's try to...

...encourage future music educators to be more entrepreneurial minded by making business training part of their basic required curriculum.  

...work with businesses to leverage the current interest in adult music education and start reaching that portion of 'the other 80%'.

...use technology to make music educators more accessible and to reach more people of all ages and all levels of ability interested in learning music.


And finally, let's not be afraid to become more entrepreneurial in spirit and to work with businesses of all kinds for a 'slow-growth' approach to creating more music makers. It can be good for everyone's business - a true win-win.

Contest Give Away!

Are you a music learner? Are you an iPhone or iPod Touch user?  Well, here's a chance to add a FREE, cool app. to your menu from DLP and our friends at EasyEarTraining. Its perfect for honing your listening skills on the go and a great compliment to the DLP Kore Series.

The RelativePitch App includes:

Training Mode: 14 lessons guide you from beginner to expert, teaching you all the intervals in the octave.

Testing Mode:Check your progress by trying to get the highest score in testing mode. If you distinguish intervals correctly, you’ll unlock new levels and new challenges in training

Custom Mode: If you’re having trouble with one specific piece of training, set up a custom training and testing session to target your problem spots.

So what is relative pitch? Unlike "perfect pitch", relative pitch is common among musicians, especially those who are used to "playing by ear", and a precise relative pitch is a constant characteristic among good musicians. Unlike perfect pitch however, relative pitch can be improved with practice! Thanks to EasyEarTraining this app can help do the trick!


3 ways to win. Enter as often as you like between October 6th and November 1st!


1. Comment on this blog
or
2. Like us on facebook
or
3. Re-post this link on twitter


Good luck - we look forward to announcing the winner on Thursday, November 3rd!

6 Things I've Learned WhileTeaching Music

I was recently discussing a typical day of teaching at DSM and DLP with my bestest friend Gracie. She thought it was funny that I spent more time telling her what I had learned from my students versus what I had taught them. She suggested I write a blog about this idea, and though it's probably not exactly what she had in mind...here goes:


6 Things I've Learned While Teaching Music


6. Teaching music is a calling... a much different calling than being a musician. If you are a great player but can't relate to people, then please go concentrate on your gigging career.  And thank you in advance from our profession.


5.  If you are teaching music and don't enjoy it, you should seriously consider choosing another line of work.Your students can tell if you like what you do or not. If you are lucky enough to teach music and enjoy it, congratulations and welcome to the club! 


4. Teaching music requires interpersonal skills. If you are a 'people person' you might be a good music teacher. If your idea of a perfect day is being alone with your i-pod and the Oxford Companion to Music, you may want to seek out a library position.


3. "Liking music" and or "knowing music" have little to do with "teaching" music. Your students want to know that you care about them, not the music they are learning.

2. Having the best curriculum, the best 'chops', the best instrument, or the best facility does not guarantee that you will be a successful teacher. Good teachers will be successful without these things and conversely, they will not help a bad teacher very much... if at all. 


1. Music is not important, people are.  

The Future of Music Education? BRIGHT!

"Walking to the Sky" by Jonathan Borofsky 
Nasher Sculpture Garden
Dallas, TX

-Never before in history have we had such a wealth of information available at our fingertips.

Amongst all the doom and gloom there are reasons to be optimistic about the future of music education...if you know where to look.  Here's why we think so.

Technology and Information Delivery

What an exciting time we live in!  I choose the news I want to read before even getting out of bed in the morning.  My HTC phone has the web and my bookmarked sports pages are a simple click away.  And it's usually just moments after the alarm clock goes off.

Never before in history have we had such a wealth of information available at our fingertips.  Some estimates say that Google has indexed over a trillion web pages and receives several hundred million queries each day through its various services. This is how people are accessing their information and with the increase in popularity of hand-held devices, they are getting it when and where they want.  The internet is ideal for relaying information and both teaching and learning music is perfectly suited for this medium.

-Future music educators are going to question the norm and

we'll be a stronger profession for it.

The Feisty Spirit and Creativity of Future Teachers

Our future teachers are products of a connected community.  They expect their favorite restaurants, apparel lines, or yogurt shops to have websites and facebook pages. They want to know what the latest developments are and they want to feel in some way 'familiar' with their chosen brands. Likewise, these folks are not going to settle for 'business as usual'  in their vocations; whether it be music education or micro-economics, all disciplines are changing right under our feet. 

When I was at the University of Hartford's Hartt School of Music, I had a chance to see Bruce Springsteen, 6th row - Hartford Civic Center, (not admitting the year!).  Let me tell you, this is like hitting the lottery for a kid from south Jersey. However, the concert conflicted with a 'mandatory' saxophone quartet recital scheduled for the same evening.  

To me this was a no-brainer; play the concert like a good student, not letting down the other members of the quartet , or skip out and have a once in a lifetime chance to get this close to Bruce and the Big Man.  No problem, Bruce played for 4 and half hours including the solo to Badlands on the chair in front of us, and Clarence was spot-on during his solo on Jungleland.  I still have no idea how the saxophone trio fared that evening. 

The point is, I, like many college students, have no fear of breaking or at least questioning rules and norms that we deem to be suspect. Right or wrong, this spirit is inherent in all of us and it's most likely not going away. I have faith that future music educators are going to question the norm and we'll be a stronger profession for it.

-It's up to us to produce quality materials that meet the growing demand 

and expectations of learners everywhere.

Expectations of Learners

Where do you go to find a new place to eat in your area? Where do you find out how to make a meal with what's leftover in the fridge, or get help with a minor medical issue? The web? Me too, I love me some Google. 

Music learners (and by that I mean ALL music makers, not just 12 to 18 year-olds) are increasingly turning to the web for help. They're using YouTube and sites like Discover, Learn and Play  to get the information they want and accessing it on their terms. Traditional methods of teaching and learning are being questioned and we're finding that there is indeed more than one way to 'skin a cat'. It's up to us as a profession to embrace new methods and produce quality materials to meet the growing demand and expectations of learners everywhere.

-people of all ages and talent levels are discovering the fun 

and proven benefits of playing music.

The Market for our Product
Have you seen the stats regarding music industry revenue lately? These numbers reflect sales from record labels, music publishers, recording artists, performing artists, composers, concert venues and merchandise companies; includes revenues from sales of physical recordings, digital music services (online and mobile), music publishing and live music. Here they are:

2006 ($60.7 billion), 2007 ($61.5 billion), 2008 ($62.6 billion), 2009 ($65.0 billion), 2010 ($66.4 billion), 2011 ($67.6 billion)

That's a whole lot of interest in what we do boys and girls! This years NAMM show had the largest turn out in its103 year history and prompted this from Joe Lamond, president and CEO:  "I believe that we are now on a path of recovery and future growth as more people of all ages and talent levels discover the fun and proven benefits of playing music."

Yes, the future is bright. And we look forward to getting there!

Finding Inspiration Part 2: Between the Folds

We're continuing the "finding inspiration in unusual places" theme by bringing to your attention an amazing documentary about (of all things) origami, called Between the Folds.  I've seen this program twice before and remember being overwhelmed with inspiration.  Interestingly, I was not in a hurry to try origami, but rather, I was inspired to be better at explaining my ideas about my work in music and in particular, teaching music. 

In the same way that a few great movies suck me in, (The Godfather, Napoleon Dynamite, and Annie Hall to name a few) if I happen to catch just a few moments of any scene, I am then completely rapt and usually there for the remainder.  Such was the case last night with this amazing Independent Lens piece on PBS. I decided to make a few notes while I watched and wondered why I found it so engaging, inspirational, and addicting.  Here are some thoughts:

First,  each person who spoke about origami spoke passionately.  There are origami "artisans" of course, but there are also doctors, teachers, and "folders" of all sorts who relate their passion for the art so eloquently that it makes even the casual observer take interest.

Next, each interviewee was able to explain very complex ideas in relatively easy to understand soundbites. This really struck home with me as I remembered that our mantra during the creation of the Kore Series was, "if you can't articulate a musical concept in a few sentences, then you don't know it well enough". 

If you're making mistakes, you are actually in the process of learning.

It was also surprising to learn that folding failures were often saved or filed both literally and in memory banks as building blocks for future successes. I promised myself that I would share that information with more students.  If you're making mistakes, you are actually in the process of learning.

Lastly, almost every folder said it was the process of making or doing that is important.  It reminded me of musicologist Christopher Small's philosophy of musicking - that music is a verb, it is the act of doing and making music that is important. 

So if you're ready for a visual feast and a ream of inspiration - make it a point to see this film.  I promise you will not be disappointed! Check out the trailer below.
 

Isaac Asimov Saw the Future of (Music) Education

Portrait by Wil Rohan

Could it be that Isaac Asimov was a prophet as well as being a biochemist, science fiction writer, and oh by the way, longtime Vice President of Mensa International?  The video below is part of an interview conducted by Bill Moyers back in 1988. 

The men talked about many subjects including overpopulation, economics, and science.  But in one particularly interesting segment Asimov began musing about the coming technological explosion of connectivity and learning. He surmised that computers would "transform education" and indeed personalize it away from the “industrial model” where everyone learns the same thing at the same time from the same model, to a more personalized experience. 

There will be a time in the future when computers will be hooked up to "enormous libraries where anyone can ask any question and be given answers, be given reference material."  He continues, "From an early age, however silly it may seem to someone else, that's what you're interested in . And you ask, and you can find out and you can follow it up. And you can do it in your own home, at your own speed, in your own direction, on your own time.  And everyone will enjoy learning." 

This idea is one of the main reasons why we created MusickEd.com and discoverlearnandplay.com.  We knew that the internet was an ideal way to access and relay information and musical concepts were no exception.  We simply needed to package and deliver our brand of music education smartly so that people of all ages, in all locations, and at all levels of ability could gain access and start learning!

"Our brand" of music education is simply that which we have been providing here at DSM for the past 20 years. Through thousands of one on one sessions with our students, we've learned to organize and present quality music education information in plain language using no gimmicks.

Here's hoping Isaac would approve and that he is looking down and smiling!

Watch the segment below or access the entire interview at Bill Moyers Journal. 

Unplugged at MusickEd.com

Kirk Baker "Unplugged"

Our Lesson Support video production continues on campus at DSM/MusickEd.com.  The process is running smoothly and we are confident that the results are in keeping with the overall style and philosophy of our curriculum. We present terrific information and content with little if any 'fluff'.

Here's the process we use with all performers:

The studio looks a bit like the set of 'unplugged'.  The backdrop and lighting, volume, and acoustics have been set to be consistent from video to video. The performer hears the actual play along through ear-buds so only the purest sound of each instrument is recorded into the Rode Podcaster microphone. A relatively simple Logitech webcam captures the entire process.

Next, the video is imported into Camtasia Studio (by TechSmith) and synced up with the actual mp3 play-along. This process keeps all the nuances of each performance in tact (dynamics, articulations, breathing, phrasing etc.) while creating a clear separation for the final product. 

Emphasis is placed both on capturing the musical concepts that are presented in each song as well as instrument specific characteristics such as embouchure, fingering, bowing, hand position etc. Careful attention is placed on framing each performance so that the end user gets a clear sense of these techniques used relative to their chosen instrument.

Click here for a sample video from the Kore Series - Lesson 3, A New Twist 2, - cello.

It's Not Often We're Wowed...

It's not often we read or hear something about music education that makes us stand on our chairs and fist pump.  But our friend David Price (pictured) sent us a link that caused quite a stir on campus at MusickEd.com this morning.  

The quote is from a transcript of the proceedings at the Tunis Symposium on Advocacy in Music Education back in 2009 and comes from Wayne Bowman.

Mr. Bowman is a professor of music education at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada and has written extensively about philosophical perspectives in music and music education.  We look forward to learning more about him and reading more of his work. But for now, let us allow his quote to wash over us...

"And all too often advocacy claims sound like last gasp efforts to defend instructional practices that have simply failed to keep pace with social and musical change."

If you are a music maker or music teacher at any level, read the full transcript here, it will be well worth your time.  And hopefully you'll be as gassed as we were to hear such insight. 

It's time music educators re-vamped their approach, be more inclusive, professional, and by all means, modernize materials and practices to catch up to what is expected by today's students. Not doing so risks extinction. 

Lesson Support - Where Traditional Method Books Fall Short

The mantra at discoverlearnandplay is..."there are no magic bullets!"  Our learning process requires a bit of work, some reading and light study, a sprinkling of memorization and a side order of stick-to-it-iveness....just like most things that are worth tackling. But we've packaged it in a no-nonsense format and painstakingly edited the entire content so that it is orderly and sequential.  There's just not a lot of 'fluff' involved. 

One aspect that separates our product from traditional "method books" is support, which includes (among others), Live Help, Instrument Support and Lesson Support.  Having this information online allows us to make quick and easy changes in real time.  There's no re-printing, no re-shipping required and users always have the most recent version(s) of support right at their fingertips. It's simply too costly for traditional publishers of method books to re-tool and in fact, some books (you know who you are) have included the same mistakes for years and years. It's time for innovation!


The comments below are from Lesson Support for guitar. They are an overview of the 'in-house' experiences our teachers have made during the many years of teaching this (Lesson 1) material.

General Comments 
Whole notes and whole rests are prominently featured in this song. Be sure to hold each whole note for four full beats. Also be sure to count four beats (of silence) for each of the whole rests.

The basic pattern of the melody in this song is to step up through the five notes and then step back down again. However, the pattern changes with the whole note in measure 11. Don’t let this catch you by surprise!

Be ready for the only measure of quarter notes in this song – measure 10. Make sure that these quarter notes move exactly twice as fast as the half notes in the previous measure. 

Every song, for every instrument in each of the 20 lessons of the Kore Series (that's over 7,000 songs!) includes instrument specific information.  The staff has essentially prepared a lesson plan (known on campus as Individual Instruction Documentation) for our users to read as part of their learning process.  The notes below are for Bits and Pieces #1 in Lesson 1 for guitar:

Guitar Info 
For now, use the 1st finger in the 1st fret for the note C, 2nd finger in the 2nd fret for the note A and 3rd finger in the 3rd fret for the note D. G and B will both be played on the open strings.

Be sure to let all notes ring for their full value. That means keeping the fingers of the fretting hand in place or allowing the open strings to vibrate uninterrupted as you count the full duration of each note.

Be sure to stop the strings from vibrating at all rests.

We recommend using a pick but you might also use your thumb to more comfortably find the notes and strings at these beginning stages.

Be sure to stay on the tips of the fretting fingers to create the clearest sound. 

Lastly, each of the first 5 Lessons include pointers to help you set a solid practice routine for future learning:   

Practice Pointers 
Check to make sure that you know how to perform each of the 5 notes required for this song. Practice each of the exercises to help prepare for the patterns of notes and rhythms we're using.

Try just saying the letter names of the notes all the way through the song before playing.

Practice first just moving from one note to the next smoothly and comfortably in each song.

Now add in the rhythm – checking yourself with the melody track can help keep you steady. When you can play through the songs consistently with all of the correct notes and rhythms, try playing with the background tracks - first with the help of the melody and then without.

All of this information comes from just one area of support for the Kore Series.  There's also a killer Glossary, Live Help, Tech Support and Custom Support and the iMusickEd that inlcudes access to our educational Webinars, Forums,  Blog, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages.  

Traditional method books or online services?  Seems like a no-brainer!

How Not to Capture Learning

We try to keep our fingers on the pulse of music education news, blogs and even tweets from around the world.  Unfortunately, it's a rare day when someone writes something that has the staff of Musicked fist-pumping in the halls.  However, a piece titled "How Not to Capture Learning" came as a breath of fresh (and cool!) air for us on this dog day of August with its106 degree Texas heat. 

The author penned this piece while listening to a debate about El Sistema on British Television.  He lists... and then beautifully debunks the following 'myths' about music and music education - and we think he's spot on:

 

Myth: a symphony orchestra is a fantastic vehicle for learning. No, it's not –  it's one of the most didactic, even dictatorial, modes of learning, where you have lots and lots of nothing to do, but become bore. 

Myth: young people are 'missing out' on classical music, and classical music will be dead unless we get them to concerts. No, it won't. Concert halls have always been full of older people, it's something that some of us grow to love, like gardening. And they're not missing out on anything – they've heard it, they just don't like it (at the moment). 

Myth: if you get your Dad to take you, when you're a kid, you'll be hooked for life – it's just like football. No, it's not. If your Dad takes you to the football, you can pretty much do what you like. If you applaud in between movements at a classical concert, you'll be made to feel like an uneducated oik (trust me, I was that uneducated oik). 

Myth: if music education in school introduced kids to classical music early enough, we'd create younger audiences for the future. No, you won't. Orchestras have been doing outreach work for decades, and the demographic mix at concerts remains the same as it always was.

That's jolly good stuff and we couldn't have said it better ourselves. Music - the supposed language of the world - is far too often an exclusive club.  And rather than thinking creatively to reach and retain more enthusiasts, educators are often slow to adopt new teaching methods and too quickly rely on studies about the importance of music and its 'cognitive' benefits to justify their programs.   

How about creating a solid community of enthusiasts online, teaching concepts rather than 'pieces of music', and making certain that music is a treated as a verb rather than a noun?  As Chris Small says in his book called Musicking, "music should be viewed as an act instead of a thing.  Music is something you do, something you share", and it is valid at every level.

Read the full post here.

The Other 80%

This is my response to a long and winding thread on Dr. James Frankel's blog Music Technology in Education. The original post was titled 'The Other 80%: An Industry Perspective' about how important technology is to the profession of music education and addressing the fact that academia seemingly ignores 80% of interested music makers by focusing on the K-12 demographic.

Fantastic discussion! As a music educator, software developer, and entrepreneur...(I know, your heads are exploding... but hang in there) I am delighted by and happy to address, design for, and 'sell' to the 'other 80%'. My colleagues and I have consciously tried to reach this group and find it baffling that the profession of 'music education' almost complete ignores such a large, enthusiastic, and frankly, financially sound demographic - especially at a time when 'band, choir, and orchestra' programs are being cut right and left.

We started the Dallas School of Music as a 'for profit' business, a place where people of all ages could access professional music education in a vibrant, modern, and state of the art facility. The school has been serving families in the DFW area for almost 20 years. When we first began, people (mostly family members and well wishing friends outside of music) told us to 'contact the schools' to let them know what we could provide. Their logic seemed sound, 'of course they would want to send their interested students to study privately at your facility?'. Academia could have cared less, but it became a blessing in disguise.

It didn't take long to learn that a bigger pool of interested, passionate music makers lie outside of the K-12 demographic. Of course, DSM does have classes for young children and we have many school aged kids in lessons each week. But we also have doctors, lawyers, businessmen, and average Joe's learning music for the first time (don't get me started on why many schools do not have guitar or piano classes!). The formula seemed to work and when the internet began to take hold we realized it was the perfect vehicle to take our approach to an even wider audience, so we began MusickEd.com.

Today, enthusiasts all over the world use our software and teachers have adopted our Discovery Series as part of their own curriculum. In May we will be launching a subscription service and a new 'Kore Series' followed by a Jazz Series (later this summer).

I hope that our success will pave the way for future educators to be innovative in their thinking, innovative in their teaching, and innovative in helping the profession seek more opportunities outside of the traditional classroom. Technology indeed has never been more important to music education, but if we strive only to reach that 20% - we will have sold ourselves very, very, short....again.

Dream a Little Dream...

Tara Parker-Pope writes in the NY Times about a team of researchers who ponder the question - why do we dream? Some new research may have unlocked a little of this mystery and it leads to some interesting conclusions about how and why we learn. Dreaming may actually result from the brain’s effort to keep learning... even as we sleep!

In a study released by Current Biology, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, volunteers trained visualized their way through a complicated, three-dimensional puzzle. Half the volunteers were allowed to sleep for 90 minutes while the other half stayed awake, reading or relaxing. During their resting period, they were awakened and asked to describe their thoughts or dreams.

After the resting period, the volunteers were asked to again tackle the maze and were graded. Those who napped but didn’t report any 'maze-related' dreams did better but showed only marginal improvement over the non-nappers.

However, a few of the nappers reported dreaming about the maze and showed a startling improvement in their task, cutting completion time in half. The difference in scores before and after sleeping was 10 times higher for the maze dreamers than those who hadn’t dreamed about the task.

Even though the number of 'maze dreamers' was small, researchers noted that the gap in learning was so wide that the finding was statistically significant.

'Notably, the dreamers had all performed poorly on the test prior to dreaming about it. That suggests that struggling with a task might be the trigger that prompts the sleeping brain to focus on the subject and work on getting better', explained the lead author, Robert Stickgold.

'It’s almost as if your brain is rummaging through everything that happened today and deciding that you’re not done with it. The things that really grip you, the ones you decide at an emotional level are really important, those are the ones you dream about. The things you’re obsessed with are the ones that your brain forces you to continue to process.'

Dr. Stickgold continues, 'If you’re a student and you want to do better on the test, you might need to dream about it. The question is, ‘How do I get myself to dream about it?’ The answer is to get excited about it. That seems to be what you dream about.'

We'd love to hear your thoughts and comments about this study and in particular, dreams regarding music or learning music. Maybe this is why passionate music makers often show improvement from week to week with limited practice time?

Read Tara's complete article here.

As you know, we are huge fans of people using technology to advance a cause or to promote great products. Extra kudos go to anyone even remotely associated with music education. The D'Addario Company, suppliers of all sorts of musical accessories, is doing a really nice job of giving users some great web content and using all sorts of media outlets to reach (and maintain) their customers.

As a longtime user of LaVoz reeds, I appreciate the Rico e-mail newsletter with links to the MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and even the Rico Blog pages. There is a ton of content to peruse with a little something for all musicians and enthusiasts regardless of your chosen instrument or genre.

Check out the new reed cases and sax straps (where was this cool stuff when I was in junior high?). Anyway, we hope to lure these guys into advertising at MusickEd.com because we think their products rock and our users would enjoy their online presence...consider this a shameless plug to get the ball rolling!

Improvise Like a 7 Year Old?

If you are a musician about to embark on a solo, you might take the advice of psychologist Michael Robinson of North Dakota State University and 'play like a 7year old'. In a recent study (along with partner Darya Zabelina) the scientists assigned 2 groups of undergraduates with specific sets of creative tasks after being given the following instructions. Group 1:

"You are 7 years old. School is canceled, and you have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see?"

Group 2 was given the same instructions with the first sentence omitted:

"School is canceled, and you have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see?"

The results? Group 2 didn't imagine themselves as 7 year olds but instead came about the assignment from their 'adolescent present' point of view. Group 1 imagined themselves as little kids and scored far higher on the creative tasks. They came up with more ideas that were also more original. 'The effect was especially pronounced among "introverts," who exert more mental energy suppressing their "spontaneous associations".

As writer Jonah Lehrer (a frequent contributor to one of DLP's favorite magazines Wired) writes on his blog, 'One possibility is that we trade away the ingenuity of our youth for executive function. As the brain develops, the pre-frontal cortex expands in density and volume. As a result, we're able to exhibit impulse control and focused attention. The unfortunate side-effect of this cortical growth is an increased ability to repress errant thoughts. While many of these thoughts deserve to be suppressed, it turns out that we also censor the imagination.

We're so scared of saying the wrong thing that we end up saying nothing at all. One interesting line of evidence in support of this speculative theory is that jazz musicians engaged in improvisation selectively "de-activate" their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In other words, they inhibit their inhibitory brain areas, which allows them to create without worrying about what they're creating.'

The November 2006 FastCompany magazine features many great articles about how memories are stored and how technology may become more of a component to recalling them. I wrote the following letter and was published in the January 2007 issue - it reads in part:

As a jazz saxophonist, teacher, and music-learning software developer, I was particularly intrigued by Bradley Rhodes's "Remembrance Agent," Eric Horvitz's "Lifebrowser," and Devon Technologies' DEVONthink. What was left of my hair began to stand on end as I realized these applications come close to mimicking what my brain does as I play music, especially during the improvisation process. Bits and pieces of information (not always musical) fly by instantly and manifest themselves over, through, and around the pre-practiced patterns to create new and sometimes exciting ideas. Of course, the bits of info that are forgotten, along with those that I recall but can only feebly attempt to get out of my saxophone, are often what make each improvisation (hopefully) beautifully different from the others.

Easy Ear Training...is that possible??

By now you all know how much we love technology and anyone who uses it well (especially in our profession). Easy Ear Training is a place for people who are 'interested or involved in ear training' to get hints and tips, and learn ways to improve more rapidly. One of the coolest features of the site is an iPhone app called RelativePitch. It is devoted to interval training – from the basics right up to advanced skills.

We downloaded the free trial version for the iPhone (called RelativePitchLite) and loved it's ease of use, the tone choices, and the ability to both 'train' and 'test' intervals from a unison to an octave. You can select as many intervals as you like for the training and the tests. The full version has lots of extra features including a Custom Mode that allows you to train and test in specific areas.

I 'trained' using 4 different intervals. The pitches sound randomly and your are promptly coached the answers. I chose 7 intervals to test; unison, major third, minor third, perfect fifth, tritone, minor sixth and major sixth. Once I got past some of the nomenclature issues (tone=whole step for example) and a case of iThumb fumble, I scored 14 of 16 (one was a misread... I swear!).

The site also includes a drum kit quiz. Being a saxophonist, I basically choked on this one getting just 5 of 10, but it sure was fun! It really allows ear training to be practiced anywhere and in a short amount of time. So the answer is ...yes, easy ear training IS possible.

Thanks to Kelley Rodill for finding us and kudos to founder Chris Sutton and his team for this super use of technology. We commend their group for thinking outside the box and using technology to find their niche in music education. We are happy to let our users know about this site and look forward to future collaborations with Easy Ear Training in the coming months!

MusickEd Chooses Dewplayer for software mp3's

Musicked.com has chosen Dewplayer by Alsacreations for its ease of use and seamless integration into the new format of the software. The flash animation downloads and plays the mp3 file when the play button is pressed.

Apart from the standard play, pause and stop features, users can now drag and start the play-alongs at any point in the file which is perfect for practicing those tricky passages.

A bonus factor is the oddly coincidental color scheme. Dewplayer's green, orange and red hued buttons are almost a perfect match on our 'Play' pages!

Check out a demo of this great product here.

We'll Take It From Here!

The latest entry to blur the lines between 'real' and 'fantasy' guitar playing comes from game developer Seven45 Studios and their partnership with First Act guitars. Power Gig: Rise of the SixString uses a more realistic guitar controller and whatdya know....six real guitar strings!

'The game is adventure based, and part of the storyline includes teaching you how to tune yourself and change your own guitar strings'.

That's a good start as far as we at MusickEd.com can see, but even the makers like to point out that 'this is not an education game: it’s not designed to teach you how to play the guitar'. One reviewer who recently got a sneak peek says 'As interesting as the idea is, a lot can still go wrong. With any rhythm game, if the input isn't accurate 100 percent of the time, you'll quickly be left frustrated. And the more complex the controller becomes, the more things can potentially go wrong. Getting into a real instrument involves a lot more than just picking up a piece of plastic and strumming...'

Hey....First Act and Seven45 Studios, we want to let you know that MusickEd.com has an entire curriculum in place and we can take it from here! Thanks for moving an entire generation one step closer to pursuing true music education. We know they'll be looking for great content online and not some salty former long-hair to show them 'licks' in his trailer. Whatya say we partner up?? Rock on!

Read a full Power Gig review here.

Mozart Effect Take 2: Finally Some Clarity!

'If you want music to sharpen your senses, boost your ability to focus and perhaps even improve your memory, you need to be a participant, not just a listener.'

This is the opening line in an article by Melissa Healy regarding a follow study by Frances Rauscher in 1993. Her findings set off a commercial frenzy of products to make baby geniuses — all she says 'from an experiment that had college students, not babies, listen to Mozart — and were "grossly misapplied and over-exaggerated".'

The Los Angeles Times article titled 'Playing along with the Mozart effect' states 'for all its beauty, power and capacity to move, researchers have concluded that music is little more than ear candy for the brain if it is consumed only passively. If you want music to sharpen your senses, boost your ability to focus and perhaps even improve your memory, the latest word from science is you'll need more than hype and a loaded iPod.

You gotta get in there and play. Or sing, bang or pluck.

For those receiving musical instruction, "there is evidence that music changes the brain in positive and permanent ways," says Laurel Trainor, professor of psychology, neuroscience and behavior, and director of the auditory development lab of McMaster University in Toronto. Yet like a medication that powerfully treats an illness, but in mysterious ways, the means by which music might enhance cognitive powers has eluded scientists so far.

Click here to read the full article and get out there and play!

Convergence....

The gaming community (technology) and higher education (academia) meets music? These are the perfect storm of players in what may turn out to be a 'tipping point' for tech-savvy music enthusiasts and the people who want to reach them,... us (musicked.com)!

The gaming site Destructoid.com notes that '..in 2009, a year in which music games saw a 46% drop in sales from 2008, DJ Hero became the highest-grossing new IP across all genres. It's a game that was being called a failure in the weeks after its release, and some today even suggest that its sales have been modest. Yet for the companies that make music games, the cash continues to roll in.'

Even higher education has noticed the importance of a new generation of 'users' who demand interaction when it comes to music. Professor Howard-Spink of NYU has begun an initiative called the NYU Music Video Games Research Project.

"It is rapidly becoming the case that there aren’t really pure music “consumers” anymore' says Spink, "in the way that we were at some point all consumers of pieces of plastic embedded with a recording, or as radio listeners where we consumed music in exchange for our attention to be sold to advertisers. People who value music in 2010 are “users” much more than they are consumers. In fact a recent survey shows that American kids spend 7.5 hours a day multitasking with media, most of which integrates music of some kind."

So how long will it be until music educators and publishers take note? Don't count on it being any time soon. Some of their newest 'innovations' are adding CD's and DVD's to method books and putting music theory games on web-sites. Once again, the profession remains mired in the Romantic period or worse, thinking that music education is the same as a band or orchestra program. I hear a ticking metronome....or is that the ticking of a doomsday clock??

Read the full article here.

Groovin' to the Tunes

A new study demonstrates the power of music to alter our emotional perceptions of other people.

'In the experiment, 30 subjects were presented with a series of happy or sad musical excerpts. After listening to the snippets, the subjects were shown a photograph of a face. Some people were shown a happy face – the person was smiling - while others were exposed to a sad or neutral facial expression. The participants were then asked to rate the emotional content of the face on a 7-point scale, where 1 mean extremely sad and 7 extremely happy. '

'The researchers found that music powerfully influenced the emotional ratings of the faces. Happy music made happy faces seem even happier while sad music exaggerated the melancholy of a frown. A similar effect was also observed with neutral faces. The simple moral is that the emotions of music are “cross-modal,” and can easily spread from sensory system to another. Now I never sit down to my wife’s meals without first putting on a jolly Sousa march.'

Read the full article here.