Archive for December, 2009
Here’s a quote from Tom Blodgett, via David Thomas over at The Buzzing Reed. The Buzzing Reed is one of the newest blogs on the Third-Stream blogroll, and we are quite happy that David is bringing us useful, actionable clarinet-specific information.
I personally think the big 3 makers – Buffet, Selmer, and Yamaha cater to different needs – Buffets have the best (sweetest) tone with the best key work (if you don’t get a lemon) and are more for solo work. Selmers are the darkest and heaviest, their key work is different than the Buffet, but in no way negative. They are good for large orchestras. Yamaha has the best consistency instrument – if you’ve played one, you’ve played them all. In my mind, these make the best military and band applications, where there is much more uniformity in tone and intonation.
While this is a generalization, it has valid points. I have used all three of these major brands in my bands, and I would tend to agree with Tom (in as much as it is a generalization). Just a couple of weeks ago I was extolling the consistency of Yamaha instruments to a colleague. And in clarinets, I really push my best students to invest in a personally-owned Buffet by the time they are going for honor band auditions. As an aside: Selmer, under the trademark Bach, also produces what I feel are some of the darkest-sounding beginning and intermediate-level brass instruments, while Yamaha again produces the most consistent instruments - coincidence, or corporate identity?
What clarinets do you purchase for your band? Do you agree with Tom’s conclusions as to the best applications for each maker’s sound?
December 22nd, 2009
Excellent post by Doug Butchy over at Confessions of a Band Director. Cruise on over and have a look…this is how third-stream music educators build personal, lifelong connections between students and their music. Congratulations, Doug, on a major victory!
December 17th, 2009
After the first day of the new student e-portfolio system, we have limited success.
The students reported no problem using Audacity. The laptops and their built-in mics worked. Most students set an appropriate gain level and made high-fidelity recordings (the performances recorded, however, seem to represent a wider range of quality!) Exporting to .mp3 format had the minor flaw of consistently causing Audacity to crash…but only after successfully completing the export (it is a known flaw in the Audacity 1.3 beta).
The major hiccup of the day was students’ ability to log in to our Sharepoint server. After several calls to our tech department, I think that is fixed. The major effect of this is that students were unable to upload their recordings and type in their self-critiques before the end of class.
The other half of my Advanced Band will run the gauntlet tomorrow. I’ll report back later this week.
December 9th, 2009
You might remember my struggles last school year to implement student online portfolios for all of my students, in the form of individual blogs. The short version: using Mac laptops, Garage Band audio software, iMovie video software and the school’s brand new Mac directory server, the system worked but was a royal pain in the neck. The recording and editing process was just as easy as you would expect on a Mac. However, the software included on the Mac directory server only does things one way; we had to use wikis instead of blogs, and we had to use Quicktime file types for the student videos. The result was that (1) the instructions for exporting the videos was three pages long and completely convoluted, and (2) file sizes were huge, causing upload and storage space issues. The school’s wireless access and internet reliability were also issues. When students could get their blogs finished the results were spectacular….but hit-and-miss learning tools are just no fun to use when your grade depends on the results. By the time I ceased requiring students to use the system in mid-April, cheers went up in every class. I was also relieved, and disappointed. The process was so draining that I elected to cease blogging about the experience until now.
Begin book two: new school, new technology in place. New pros and cons to navigate. The new school uses PC’s (boo) rather than Macs. We’ll use Audacity to record audio (hoping to add video later, but PC laptops are several years behind Macs in things like integrated webcams/mics), which I have used personally used on projects in the past (and which I have faith in, even though we’re using the 1.3 Beta). We’ll save the final cuts as “.mp3″ files rather than “.mov” using the LAME plugin (which is a lame acronym). We’ll use Microsoft’s Sharepoint server to run the online e-portfolios; the teachers here have been on Sharepoint for at least a year before I arrived in August, but the student Sharepoint server is brand-spanking new and my project will be the first on it. The school has slower and less reliable internet than my last, but seems to have a more reliable wireless access point network and a more reliable server.
The Technology Integration Specialist and I gave it a test run on a ProD day a couple of weeks ago. Worked like a charm. File sizes for one-minute mp3 files saved at full quality stereo are approximately 1.5 MB as would be expected (compared with 40-50 MB for similar .mov files last year). The only downside is that Sharepoint is not designed to hold imbedded media items (darn business-focused software), so audio and video files cannot play directly in the browser window (but I found a possible solution which I have forwarded to the tech department for consideration). Initial conclusions: I wish we were working with Mac laptops and with iMovie, but I am so glad to have a simpler and more reliable system for creating the online e-portfolios. The upside: reliability (hopefully). The downside: the e-portfolios look visually boring on the web page.
Monday and Tuesday this week I introduced my Advanced Band to the new system. Wednesday and Thursday will be our first recordings. I’ll report back next week with the results.
December 8th, 2009
We, the teachers, cannot curse in school. We may not swear at students. We cannot curse at the students despite our own frustrations. We may not curse, not even if a student’s poor performance deserves it. There are good reasons for this, including professional propriety, teacherly love and support, setting an example of positive coping strategies, and simple fear of repercussions. No matter what: we may not swear at either poor behavior or poor academic performance.
But what about the student at the other end of the spectrum? Have you ever been tempted to drop a naughty word into a congratulations speech for the purpose of making your students understand just how unnaturally pleased you are with their performance? Have you ever had a student be so extremely modest that a little shakeup might actually boost their self-esteem? Have your students ever earned the “hell yeah” or “damn fine job” or “so fucking proud of you” that didn’t slip past the filter of your professional code of conduct?
December 3rd, 2009