MusTech.Net!

This is the second post in a series about an “Out of the Box” experiment by myself and Travis Weller about using SKYPE as a bridge to connect the audience, performers, and composers, together, during a concert.   This post will contain a flash video of the highlights of that concert.  The video is over 20 minutes long and will allow you to see the process which we used to make this hybrid concert a reality.

The video was created using Pinnacle Studio 10. and an incredible freeware flash converter that makes embedding video, like this, into a website with playback controls a breeze, Free Video to Flash Converter.  This  video is hosted here at mustech.net; please let me know if you would like a copy of it to use for educational purposes. 

The Bridging the Gap Between the Composers and Audience Video in Brief:

1. 0:00 Color Bars
2. 0:10 Title Sequence
3. 0:20 Brief Introduction and description
4. 0:46 Part I, Concert Introduction
5. 3:22 Part II, Composer, Mr. Brian Balmages
6. 8:04 Part III, Composer, Dr. Andrew Boysen
7. 15:06 Part IV, Composer, Dr. Scott Watson
8. 19:40 Part V, Ending Text, Wrap up
9. 20:24 END

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This is the first part of an unknown number of posts about a first of a kind instrumental concert that, literally, connected the composers of the music being performed with the audience, conductor, and ensemble. The concert/event took place on May 6th, 2008 at Mercer High School in PA.

Travis J. Weller (noted composer and ME Blogger), and I decided that we wanted to do something, spectacular, out of the box, and -to our knowledge, never been done before that integrated technology, a live performance, and connected with the students in very meaningful way. The now famous SKYPE CONCERT concert band performance at Mercer High School was the result of our brainstorming.

After considerable leg work, we were able to, graciously, have Dr. Andrew Boysen, Dr. Scott Watson, and Mr. Brian Balmages agree to appear, LIVE, at the concert via SKYPE. This idea stemmed from prior work that I have written about and done. Last December I posted about how easy it was for any music teacher to use SKYPE to have a number of experts appear in their classroom. This time, Travis and I decided to see if we could, on a much grander scale, SKYPE experts into a concert setting. We succeeded.

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Today was a ground breaking day at Mercer High School in Mercer, PA.  Today electronic technology met traditional teaching methods in Travis Weller’s 8th grade General Music Education Class.  Specifically, his class met song producer, writer, and music industry licensing expert Jason Davis, in his class through Skype. 

Travis and I have been working on this cross-discipline/field project for a number of weeks prior to today.  It was a brain storm of mine, brought in part, due to a similar project I witnessed at Kent University at a lecture/demonstration by Dr. Jay Dorfman, a cutting edge technologist. 

This project was/is cutting edge and brought together an expert in the field, Jason Davis, face-to-face with a classroom of bright, interested, 8th graders to talk about topics like copyright, the PAL parental Advisory label, trends in music, and the future of the music industry.

The session lasted about 45 minutes and went off without any problems.  The students we’re engaged and local school administrators, Classrooms for the Future  (CFF) representatives, as well as local newspaper reporters were there to see how this event would transpire.  

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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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