MusTech.Net!

I’ve decided to go “high-tech” (like that’s a new one!) and put a number of the terms that I require my instrumental conducting students to know, by rote, on the super-cool site, Quizlet.  Quizlet is a free to use site that boasts: “The End of Flashcards”.  Quite candidly, it really is an amazing learning tool that more people need to become aware of and utilize.

Quizlet pokes fun at vocabulary learning by stating there are 5 ways to learn vocabulary:

1. Brain injection
2. Quizlet
3. Flashcards
4. Reading a list a gajillion times
5. Praying

Screenshot:
 

I’ve had a quizlet account since I became aware of it last year, but had not done anything “officially” with it until this morning after I promised my conducting class a new way to help them learn the enormity of vocabulary that I require of them.  Quizlet offers a number of great and fun ways to learn your “list”.  You can:

• View one sided (flip type) flashcards
• View two sided flash cards (term and answer)
• Take true/false tests
• Take rote tests
• Take matching tests
• Take multiple choice tests
• Play games
• Print the terms
• Print flashcards (kind of funny since they claim the “end”!)
• Create favorite lists
• Export the list so that you can use the terms in other applications

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I was browsing around and came across an interesting “stash” of free classical music in the Wikipedia Commons Sections…   Most of these are in the .ogg format.  Many players will play these without requiring any additional codecs.

Check it out here.

I’ve used these guides for a number of years in my classes and it’s amazing to me how hard they are to find using Google, unless you choose your keywords very specifically.  These guides are free from http://www.shure.com and they contain a wealth of useful and succinct audio related information for music educators or those running theater performances in their schools.

Granted, they hype their own mics in the literature, but can you blame them?  Shure has put out quality microphones for decades and the information in these PDFs is transferable to any audio solution that you might choose or own.

Grab these PDFs from MusTech.net at our ESnips file server:

Theater Performances PDF -Click It!

Music Educators Audio Guide PDF -Click It!

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These services are just way too cool, work well, and will save you money, so I have to tell you about them!   If you are on the road with cell in hand or anywhere that you have phone service,  you can dial Google 411 to have it lookup business numbers for you (sorry not residential yet!).   Rather than pay your cell companies outragageous 411 charge when looking for a business or certain types of information -try Google 411.  Dial 1-800-GOOG-411.

I find stuff like this amazing and ultimately better for all us, maybe it will help make up for the increase in gas prices (save $.99 on a 411 call go 10 miles further down the road with the money you saved)!  Microsoft also has a competing product, Live Search 411, and can be reached by dialing 1-800-CALL-411.

From Google:

Search for businesses by name or category. Can’t stand typing? GOOG-411 will understand your voice and find the business you’re looking for. Search by name (”Giovanni’s pizza”) or category (”Pizza”).

Connect to the business directly, free of charge. No need to write down a note or memorize long phone numbers. GOOG-411 connects you, free of charge.

Get more details by SMS — Simply say “text message” and GOOG-411 will send you a text message with more information and a link to a map of the business you’ve selected, free.

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