Wow, it seems like it has been a year since I’ve written on MusTech.Net! In reality it has been just over a month, but this has been the longest I’ve gone without a post since I started MusTech.Net! The end of the year at the college hit me pretty hard and fast with all the obligations I have and had to attend to… Many of them involved administration aspects of my job as the Associate Chair and other things needed to be finished and “tidyed up” before I could actually get started with my summer. That being said, I’ve been busy and am re-tracking for the next school year already.
Here are some of the things that I’ve been working on and that I know many of you will be interested in:
1. The Washington D.C. plenary/clinic went very well and our good friend Jim Frankel has posted the entire discussion for you on the SoundTreewebsite for you to listen to and enjoy. The discussion featured me (Dr. Joseph Pisano), Dr. Brian Moore, Prof. Stefani Langol, and Dr. Jim Frankel. Find it by clicking here.
2. I’ve made the upfrade to WordPress 2.8 at MusTech.Net (Named after Chet Baker, just another reason why WordPress is too cool!). It features a number of adminstration updates and speed tweaks.
3. For a number of reasons we were not able to post the Music Education Blog Carnival this month. I am going to revamp this carnival and set forth a new schedule and plan for its continuation in August.
4. A have had probably 50+ requests for bloggers to be added to the Music Education Blogger list despite the fact that we officially closed entries in January of 2009 after the completion of the project. I’ve decided that I am going to continue this in a different way and open it up to any music education blogger provided they meet a basic set of criteria. I’m not sure if I’m going to make this a Wiki page or in some other format. If you are a dedicated blogger and would like to collaborate with me on this project please contact me.
5. I’ve found an amazing entry into the the list of stand-alone VST racks/plugin players. LiveProfessor is basically a VST plugin RACK with easy to use and powerful features. There are a tremendous amount of VST plugins that you can use to accomplish almost any type of audio function. A very large portion of these VST plugins are either free or ridiculously low in cost. Here is a snapshot of me using Live Professor as a framework for another seriously cool (and free) VST plugin by Blue cat called FreqAnalyst, a free spectrum analyzer:
6. I just ordered the Sibelius “Groovy” Triple pack for our Music Major lab at Grove City College. After discussing these software programs with Amy Burns and learning how she utilizes the programs (Shapes, Jungle, and City) with her elementary classroom(s) -it was a “no-brainer”. The products are amazing and if you are looking for product that will really stretch the creative musical boundaries of your child, you probably couldn’t do better. I am going to integrate these programs into the Computer-Aided-Instruction part of our Music Technology Course(s).
7. Darren and I have been talking and we are going to commit to posting one podcast per month during the upcoming school year. We haven’t decided on a monthly date yet but we are planning on working on a new podcast next week. In addition, I am in the process of making a number of CDs available (for free!), in the ISO format, of our MusTech.Net podcast. These will be available directly from MusTech.Net and will allow you to have them anywhere you go either as a CD or transportable via the mp3 format (you can get these currentlyfrom iTunes).
8. Andy Zweibel, Jim Frankel, and I successfully integrated the use of the Twitter Hash-tag system this year at the MENC conference. What’s this all about? Stay tuned as we begin to discuss the usefulness of this type of communication in future posts.
9. I’ve officially entered the world of “texting”. You would think that this is something that I would have been doing all the time, but I purposely have held off on it because of the intrusion that it can present into your (my) daily life. I recently purchased the new LG EnV phone with a keyboard and I’m sure my Twittering will go up rapidly now… ugh!!! …this is why when I go on vacation, I try to shut off all communications to reduce the amount of noise!
10. I’ve officially transitioned to “wide screen” monitors at my house now. It’s taking time to get used to all of the extra space… but it does make writing and video editing a whole lot better.
…and… that’s all folks. Let me know what you are all up to this summer and if you are working on any cool projects.
Joe, it was a pleasure getting to finally meet you in Washington! I am looking forward to working more with you once the school year begins!
By the way, you may be interested in knowing that any single-post URL’s on MusTech.net display in Mobile Browser mode, even on computers (at least for me). This may be a plugin issue, but I figured you’d like to know!
Thanks for the link–looking forward to more collaboration in the future!
It was a great time down in D.C. I’ll check on the small browser issue. Since I’ve upgraded to 2.8, there are a number of other plugins that need updating. Thanks.
Joe, can’t wait to check out the LiveProfessor program and hear the new podcasts. And I find it quite funny that you update us on your new found love of texting and wide screen monitors (very jealous of the latter by the way).