MusTech.Net!

I guess, I thought it went without saying since I post all of the shows here, but Yes, MusTech.Net, Darren Morton and I are on iTunes!  Subscribe to our show today; it just may be the best music education and technology experience on the entire Internet! 

MusTech.net’s Technological Music & Musings Show!
Dr. Joseph M. Pisano

Direct Link:
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Genre: Educational Technology
© (c) 2008 Dr. Joseph M. Pisano and MusTech.net.

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The Music Education Blog Carnival has been a huge success on many levels.  It has crated a “buzz” about becoming a blogger among music educators; it provides a semi-peer reviewed venue for posting great and useful music related posts, and also provides this information to the world free of charge.  It’s a “win, win” for all parties involved.

Joel and I started the Music EducationCarnival with these intentions in mind.  Now that the carnival is currently in its 5th edition, we are getting some of the particulars figured out.  There is a “landing page”, as it were, for the Music Education Carnival that can be found in the tabs above at mustech.net or by going to this URL: http://mustech.net/muscarn .  It’s easy to remember.  Check out the cool graphic I made for the carnival too!

A number of dedicated music education experts are wanting to host the site (and have) and we are already “booked” until February of 2009!

November 1st will be hosted by Travis J. Weller at Composing Like Mad.
December 1st will be hosted by Eugene Cantera at Discover, Learn, Play.
January 1st will be hosted by Chris Foley at Colloborative Piano

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I’ve been an active proponent of Finale Notepad since its inception and “birth” into the computer world.  I was very disappointed by Finale’s self-reported “exciting news” about the product and their subsequent charge of $9.95-$19.95 US for their latest version of Finale Notepad 2009.    Although, there have been a couple of fair freeware music notation programs, most notably Musette a French software initiative for PCs and Rosegarten for Linux, until my latest discovery of MuseScore, I was not very happy with what would be available for people or schools, financially crippled, to use as a Finale Notepad Replacement, nor did I know of many good alternatives.

Presenting MuseScore:

MuseScore

I am thrilled to say that the folks at MuseScore have not only stepped up to the challenge, but I believe that this open-source music notation program, in time, will come close to the level of notation excellence achieved by both Sibelius and MakeMusic with their programs (Mark my words!).   This program could not have “emerged” at a better time as musicians and educators are clammering for a new alternative for their ”simple” music notation needs at no cost.  While I do legally own copies of Sibelius 5 and Finale 2008 as well as have both of these software programs in our Music Technology lab at the college, you can bet I will also now have copies of MuseScore on them as well, not unlike my copy of Audacity that resides with the amazing shareare Goldwave and payware Adobe Audition.

MuseScore in a nutshell via bullets:

1. Cross Platform (Linux and Windows) and GNU GPL
2. WYSIWYG editing
3. Wizard Setup funtions
4. UNLIMITED number of staves
5. 4 voices (or parts) per staff
6. Easy and fast note entry with mouse, keyboard or MIDI (Note: Windows users, I’ve talked to the people at MuseScore and the MIDI entry will be available very soon!)
7. Import and export Music XML
8. Automatic note head positioning
9. DRUM NOTATION INCLUDED!!!
10. Cross Staff beaming ability
11. Unlimited time and key changes
12. Pickup note measure supported
13. Slur editing
14. Unlimited Lyrics
15. Unlimited Chord names
16. Grace Notes
17. Part extraction
18. Plugins are supported!
19. Midi/XML/PNG Export
20. Mixer function
21. Soundfont capable
22. Partial interpretation of Expressions and repeats

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It’s called a carnival of blogs and Joel Wagner and I started one for Music Education 5 months ago!   This is a great way for you all to get more exposure to your work(s) meet new folks and spread the word about music, education, and/or technology!

I’ve started a home page for the carnival that can be found right here:
http://mustech.net/muscarn

Here is the basic info right from the source:

The Music Education Blog Carnival was created and is maintained by Dr. Joseph Pisano of MusTech.net and Joel of SoYouWantToTeach.comin order to promote the great works being done by Music Education Bloggers across the Internet.

The Music Education Blog Carnival is published on the 1st of every month and is a recognized member of the communities of blogs as indexed by BlogCarnival.com.  All writings submitted to the Music Education Blog Carnival are examined to ensure that they are valid, interesting, and related to our discussion topic(s).

If you would like to be considered as a host for an upcoming edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival please use the contact form and let us know.

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