MusTech.Net!

Here is an article/post for all of the WordPress users that utilize the open-source software found at WordPress.org.  These particular plugins are directly related to music and particularly useful for musicians, whether players, composers, or educators.

The following is a list of current, useful, and hand-picked plugins that I’ve worked with at some point that allow for musicians to begin using their WordPress sites better, more efficiently, and more importantly- what they are looking for in a music specific WordPress Site (see my article about WordPress as a Music CMS):

Performers:

GigPress- A great plugin that allows musicians to let folks know about their upcoming concert schedules, playing venues, and even ticketing information.   I use this on my site, MusTech.netin the sidebar.  Gigpress is an easy way for bands to list and manage tour dates on their WordPress-powered website.

Gig Calender- This plugin is geared toward bands and musicians to manage and display a calendar of their gigs within WordPress. It’s meant to be as easy as possible for both the musician and the fan. It even manages venue data complete with mapping and ticket links.

Events Calendar- Events-Calendar is a diverse replacement for the original calendar included with WordPress adding many useful functions to keep track of your events. The plugin has an easy to use admin section that displays a big readable calendar and lets you add and delete events. The plugin is widget ready so you can easily add a small calendar to the main sidebar with the ability to roll over the highlighted event day to see a brief description of the event or click the day to get a full description of the event without ever leaving your current page. If you are not using a widget ready theme, you can still have the calendar on your sidebar. 

Organizing Music:

Discography- Musicians need a way to easily organize information about their music. This plugin exists to do just that. It lets you publish a list of albums and auto-generates a WordPress page for each song, so that fans can comment, save links to your songs and share them with friends.

Podcasting:

PodPress- PodPress adds tons of features designed to make WordPress the ideal platform for hosting a podcast.  This is what almost all users use to integrate Podcasting into WordPress sites.  A very useful alternative to PodPress is:

Podcasting-  Created for the Google Summer of Code 2007, Podcasting brings complete podcasting support to WordPress. Taking advantage of the latest and greatest in WordPress 2.5, WordPress podcasting has never been so easy.

Media Players:

Inline Mp3 Player- Inline mp3 player replacing any link directly to a mp3 file, such as ‘http://yoursite.com/musicfile.mp3′ into a special link. Clicking it will turn the link into a small media player with a html slider interface. It works simple, click the link the music starts playing.

Embedded Video- The plugin is made for easily embedding videos into a blog post. The videos can be integrated from external portals (like YouTube, Google Video and many many others) or they can be uploaded to the web server or a remote server and integrated as well. Additionally a corresponding link to the video on the particular video portal page or a download link to the local file can be generated automatically, if demanded.

Music Notation:

ScoreRenderer- A WordPress plugin that renders inline sheet music fragments inside posts and comments into images. It supports ABC, GUIDO, Lilypond and Mup music notations.

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Sorry I haven’t been posting lately… I’ve been overwhelmed with local responsibilities both educational and civic related (I’m a borough councilman).     Hopefully, the craziness will slow down soon!

Here are a couple of things to note:  If you haven’t signed up for the latest Blog Carnival, you are now down to mere hours…  The next edition will be posted by Nancy Flanagin tomorrow @ Teacher in a Strange Land.  The next blog carnival will be hosted by Travis J. Weller.  

Travis also has a great “circle post” posted about saving middle-school music… give it a try!http://tjweller.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/where-theres-smoke-theres-fireand-hey-is-that-my-middle-school-band-room/

Here is the link to the Music Education Carnival:
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_4443.html

Also, the New List ofME Bloggerswill be up tomorrow!  If you’re riding on the fence or haven’t gotten back to me….Now’s The Time!

In related music education/technology news… Here are a few of crazy, literally, establishment shaking announcements that are both hot and current:

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Just a quick note to promote our education project on SKYPE.   T.H.E. Journal has just published an article about our Music Education SKYPE concert as their featured post at their main website.   If you missed any of this at MusTech.Net! (and I’m not sure how you could!),  you need to check it out!   I am currently finishing the 3rd part of our series about the, now  famous, SKYPE concert and hope to publish it late next week.

Here are some links from mustech.net about the project:

• http://mustech.net/2008/08/27/the-fire-roars-our-skype-concert
• http://mustech.net/2008/08/22/bridging-the-gap-between-the-composer
• http://mustech.net/2008/08/10/out-of-the-box-connecting-the-audience

…and stay tuned for the 3rd part of the series next week!

Check out the T.H.E. Journal’s Article about our SKYPE Concert Here:
http://thejournal.com and
direct at http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23197

If you have not been following along here at MusTech.Net…it’s time to catch up!   Travis Weller and I, decided to test some of the educational “outer limits” of using SKYPE in the classroom at a performance in May of 2008.   What we accomplished was nothing short of “ground breaking” in the music education/performance and related arenas.  At Travis’ Spring Instrumental Concert we SKYPED three of the composers of pieces being performed that night, LIVE via VIDEO, into the concert to talk with the performers, conductor, and audience that were present that evening.  The composers SKYPED in were, Dr. Andrew Boysen, Dr. Scott Watson, and Mr. Brian Balmages.

Today, on the front page of Campus Technology, is an article by Linda L. Briggs, about our project entitled: Bringing Composers into Classrooms Through Skype.   Travis and I have been interviewing with a number of folks about our usage of SKYPE in the educational setting and this is one of the articles that has resulted from that collaboration with the SKYPE folks and others.

I have started a 4-part series about our SKYPE CONCERT and have finished the first two parts; you may find those articles here:

Part I, Out of the Box, Connecting the Audience, Performers, and Composers through Skype
Part II, Connecting the Audience, Performers, and Composers

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