It Just Got Cooler in Australia!

I don't mean the temperature! Today's JamSkolan was filled with an exciting agenda! We started the day out with a Skype communication with Professor Bert Bongers who is setting up a new lab for research and design of interactived environments at the Faculty of Design, Architecture, and Building, University of Technology, Sydney. Professor Bongers showed us his current research using gestural wireless devices that pick up on body movements and thus control the Jam2Jam program without using a mouse and keyboard. A music therapists that was with us at the Symposium noted how this is a particularly impressive idea for those who are disabled and can only make little movements with the hands and arms.

Later in the day we tested out the latest Jam2Jam controllers. You can watch the video below which shows myself and other conference members testing out the controls!

After this we had a frank discussion about the user interface for Jam2Jam. It seems as though most of the teachers and even the Australian Sibelius representative all agreed on some issues which will be worked out. Part of the beta testing is understanding everyones views and making decisions that are balanced and work best for the program and its usage. It is really exciting to hear us teachers make comments and for the developers of the software to say that they are listening and going to make some changes based off of our feedback. This is a true collaboration which I think is reflective of business in the real world. Real life lessons here!

Comments

Band Room: A New Design

Just in case we ever get a new or renovated high school (I might be dreaming), I wanted to be prepared for helping input the best design possible for a new band and chorus room. I ended up attending a clinic by the Wenger group. Wenger is the company that made the acoustic shells on our high school auditorium stage along with the two "soundproof" practice rooms that were installed back in the 1960's. The company is now the standard company used in the United States for music room design. I learned many things at this clinic. Firstly, I learned that most bands and choruses have their own rehearsal rooms, practice rooms, and offices. We spent a long time focusing on where sound goes after it leaves the instrument. Our music room has a ceiling that needs to be at least four feet higher. Additionally all the equipment in the room cuts down on reverberation. It is suggested that any closets or storage areas in a band room have open grilled doors so that air and sound c...

Learning Theory through Pop Music by Matthew F. Finnegan

Did you know that most pop music has a four beat pattern where the snare drum usually accents beats two and four? Example: "Get a Grip" by Aerosmith! At 8:00 am I attended what I consider my favorite clinic thus far at the MENC All-Eastern Music Educators Conference. Titled "From Simple to Complex: Leading the Listener to Learning," clinician Mathew F. Finnegan gave great examples of how popular music can be used in the classroom to teach music theory. The idea is this: teaching music theory through the old school fashion of notes on a page and through classical music does not work in today's classroom. In order to create the motivation for students to want to learn theory, we need to reach out and use the music which relates to them the most and connect it with the content we want to teach them. I found this clinic to be very inspiring. Here we just focused on the beat, but this clinician has already established how to incorporate pop music with the teach...

Mr. B's Blog

Search This Blog