Spencer’s Lessons: Teacher or Technology?

I’ve spent the better part of 20 years talking about technology-enhanced music making and talked up the value of technology as a tool for music making and music education.  There is a huge tendency in the tech world to believe that every learning activity can be reduced to a technology solution – a notion I still reject.

Stats from the music products industry (NAMM)  have shown that about 22% of the population will attempt to self-teach.  This market is shared by DVDs, software, web sites, TV shows and various method books.  All of these CAN be used by a dedicated self-learner to achieve proficiency.  For a 7 year old – these techniques in their current state have about as much chance of delivering a potent experience as nothing but TV to teach language (it might help, but is not sufficient).  Thus, any ideas of plopping my (or most any kid), in front of the most well-constructed program yet devised, are not likely to deliver on the promise of a fulfilling music-making life.

So, if not computer technology, then what?  How about real people!  Yes, them – the forgotten organic technology capable of incredible diversity and flexibility – well, usually. Then, we add technology as appropriate – and voila – a great recipe for helping a 7 year old to achieve music literacy.

ASIO curious? Found great write-up…

ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) is the dominant standard that fancy audio applications and soundcards use to make musical things happen in realtime in Windows.  This article does a fantastic job of explaining how and why it works – probably because it’s written by a programmer with a sense of humor. He even gives the tools and steps for all you .net programmers to build your own app.

Probably too much info towards the bottom, since it’s written as an intro to an open-source code project, but the rest if pure understanding gold.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/Asio_Net.aspx

Amazon Cloud Drive is the Real Deal

As noted elsewhere in the tech community – the Amazon Cloud Drive is a game changer.  I’m already uploading my music collection to it – and will get our entire CD collection there over the next few weeks. 5 gigs for free – with more storage added as you purchase Mp3s from Amazon.

I’m listening using their Android app – and the quality (even streaming) is great.

Garageband and MIDI – 4 things you should know

Garageband is an absurdly capable program for the price (free). It’s virtue as a basic recording and notation tool is intact. However, when it comes to working with MIDI files – it comes up short – and you’ll need to consider Apple’s Logic series is the natural upgrade to Garageband and makes sense if you want to make use of MIDI and your Garageband files.

Logic Express:  http://www.apple.com/logicexpress/

Logic Studio:  http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/

Thanks to George Litterst from  Timewarp Tech for initial source of these facts/notes.

1. MIDI Input to GB

GB records ALL of the MIDI input. Interestingly, there is no MIDI Setup window. It just looks at the available MIDI Input devices and if MIDI data comes in while you are recording, it records it.

2. MIDI Output from GB

GB plays back all MIDI data using internal voices and there is NO built in MIDI out option/choice.

However, a 3rd party company has a plugin called midiO that is supposed to provide true MIDI Output:

http://download.cnet.com/midiO/3000-2170_4-49258.html

3. MIDI File Export from GB

You cannot natively save or export MIDI files from GB. And, there appears to be no true 3rd party solution.

You can purchase Apple’s Logic program and import GB files or use midiO (see below) to output and then rerecord to a sequencer in real time.

This site gives a pathway that sounds “do-able” but not simple approach – you be the judge…

http://macaudioguy.com/midi-and-garageband/

4. MIDI Import to GB

As of Garageband 2 –  you can simply drag a MIDI file into the main Garageband window to import it!

Still hungry for more info?

While putting the finishing touches on this post – I found another – more in-depth post along the same lines at: http://www.macjams.com/article.php?story=20040128064923856