Catalysts & Connections - Evan Tobias

On Tuesday August 7th at 7:00 PM, the Old Town School of Folk Music will be attempting to break the Guinness Book of World Record’s entry for the world’s largest music lesson by holding a massive guitar lesson. If you live in or around Chicago or are looking for something to do this summer consider […]

The grassroots campaign to save internet radio and audio streaming sites took an interesting turn the other day when many organizations that host these types of resources held a day of silence to draw focus to the change in royalties that may mean the end to these resources. This has interesting implications for music educators […]

A Chicago music teacher who revitalized a music program is facing deportation. According to news reports Anand Sukumaran was promised by the Chicago Public Schools that they would assist him in making sure his work visa was taken care of. Apparently this did not happen and they are now trying to remedy the situation. The […]

About a year ago I wrote about the possibility of robots appearing in school music ensembles. With The League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) still at it, a set of concerts are being performed by robots with music commissioned from composers ranging from Morton Subotnick to the group They Might Be Giants.
Is it possible […]

The Northwestern University School of Music will be eliminating its jazz studies major. An official public statement was made by School of Music Dean Toni-Marie Montgomery today, a day after the news was announced in the Daily Northwestern Newspaper , on the Northwestern News Network (you can still watch the actual news broadcast ) […]

This weekend I’m planning on watching “The Hip Hop Project” a new documentary on a community hip hop program for youth based in New York City. The movie has been getting mixed reviews ( positive) & (less positive), though it won 13 film festival awards. Recently the MPAA re-rated it from “R” to PG-13 despite […]

Both James Frankel and I have blogged about our concern over the potential loss of internet music streaming due to recent changes in royalty rates as determined by the copyright royalty board. The board recently denied webcasters a rehearing and the new rates and possible demise of internet streaming resources will happen 20 days from […]

My deepest sympathies go out to all of those at Virginia Tech for the tragedy that happened yesterday. Let’s hope for and work towards a day when violence no longer plagues  our society.

I don’t own a Wii and it is likely that the average music educator doesn’t either, however some of our students probably do. I have a feeling students would enjoy merging their video game finger dexterity with music mixing skills. Is this a look at a new possibility for integrating technology in the music classroom?

Yann […]

Do you or your students ever make use of internet “radio” streaming sites? Sites like Pandora or non commercial radio stations affiliated with NPR or Pacifica for example offer wonderful teaching resources, that is if they are able to afford the recent royalty rate changes for digital streaming.
While the issues of legality and […]