Sound On

Trent Reznor, leader of the pop music ensemble Nine Inch Nails, has been releasing free music on his website. But it’s not a stereo mix like you would hear on a cd; it’s the actual source files, meaning you can chop them up and remix them using Apple’s Garage Band software!

What’s In It For Students

Mixing professionally produced music tracks helps students understand music production (NY State Standard 1: Creating, Performing, and Participating in the Arts), and use current music technology to manipulate sound (NY State Standard 2: Knowing and Using Arts Materials and Resources). While there is definitely room for this kind of activity within the National Standards for Music Education, they are, appropriately, geared more towards the development of musical thinking. Still, picking apart a multi-track session could be a big step in helping some students understand what they’re hearing.

What You Get

On April 15, 2005, Trent updated the Nine Inch Nails website to include the song The Hand That Feeds in the form of a multi-track Garageband file. Every part of the recording (vocals, backup vocals, drums, etc.) is on a separate channel which can be muted, panned, or otherwise mangled using the program Garageband, which is only available for Apple Macintosh computers. The release was a huge success, costing many people many hours of their time as they remixed the song at home.

But I Don’t Have A Mac

No problem – Trent went on to release another tune, Only, in not only Garageband format, but also Ableton Live, DigiDesign Pro Tools, and Sony Acid. If you don’t have any of these programs, Sony Acid Express can be downloaded for free.

What To Do

Visit the Nine Inch Nails website. If you have Garageband on your computer, download The Hand That Feeds, or if you have one of the other programs, download Only. Open up the file, and play it back. Try muting and un-muting the tracks, and hear how the sound changes. Try panning some of the tracks left and right. Chop up some of the existing tracks and add in some loops. Once you have something you like, quickly jot down some lesson plan ideas for your students, and then…

Share Your Work

When you are ready to share your work, or you would like to hear what other people have done, head over to NINRemixes.com, where people post, rate, and organize remixes.

Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails

Trent Reznor is the founder and primary creative force behind the band Nine Inch Nails. Nine Inch Nails spans various genres and techniques, has been nominated for ten Grammy awards (2 wins), and has six RIAA certifications from Gold to Quadruple Platinum.

Just south of Valencia, on the east coast of Spain, Catalan is spoken. The small municipality of Algemesí boasts an interesting religious tradition: in honor of the Virgin of Health, at the town festival each September, acrobatic dancers dance and create towers in the street, and musicians play.

The Muixeranga Tune

Musicians traditionally play a drum (the tabalet), and a small double reed instrument, the dulzaina. They always play the same catchy tune whose composer is unknown. From the videos below, it would seem that modern band instruments have taken the place of, or at least supplemented the tabalet and dulzaina.

Muixeranga In Concert

This video features the Muixeranga arranged for band with tabalet and dulzaina performed in concert, though the video also includes footage of the dancers mixed in.

Muixeranga On The Street

Here the Muixeranga is performed by band instruments in the street while some castellers are busy.

More Muixeranga

You can find out more about the Muixeranga (pronounced “mooh-eeh-sheh-rang-gah”) on Wikipedia! Videos courtesy of YouTube.

This book was recommended to me by my high school band director, Matthew Cool, when I was a collegiate student in music education. I finally got around to reading it. It’s designed to start the reader on a personal path towards greater achievement in music.

Kenosis

James Jordan makes reference to the Greek theological term kenosis, which literally means emptiness; the reader should empty themselves of love to all the people around them. Most appropriately for music, this should happen by an ensemble conductor to the performers. Like many themes in the book, it’s not only a great approach to musicianship, but to life.

Mimetic Envy

In a musician’s brain there is a “perfect sound.” When a performing ensemble inevitably fails to achieve this, the musician can either turn to anger and envy of the perfect sound, or they can choose to accept and love the reality of the sound the ensemble is creating.

Stillness

The case for spending quiet time alone is made because this peace is a source of joy in music. How can we love others if we do not love ourselves? How can we love ourselves if we do not know ourselves?

Metaphysical

While the book references deity and is generally composed through a lens of Christianity, this element should not detract from the value of the material. I would encourage any musician, and especially directors of performing ensembles to read this. Though the ideas presented here are simple in nature – to know yourself, to love yourself and others, to choose love over idolatry and envy – to practice them is another challenge entirely.

James Jordan

Dr. James Jordan is a writer, conductor, and professor at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey. The Musician’s Soul and many other works are available through GIA Publications, Inc.

This blog would do a great disservice to educators if I failed to highlight Kathy Sierra’s outstanding resource of a blog, Creating Passionate Users.

What Kathy Does

Kathy is the co-creator of the bestselling Head First books (the brain-friendly series from O’Reilly) which helps people develop skills and expertise in computer programming.

What does this have to do with education? Consider: [the readers of Kathy’s blog are] all passionate about the brain and metacognition, most especially–how the brain works and how to exploit it for better learning and memory. Doesn’t this sound like our goals as education professionals?

Kathy teaches people how to program through books. But in order to do this, she draws from the same pool of knowledge on brain learning that we education professionals use when designing lessons and instruction.

Crash Course In Learning Theory

One of my favorite entries on Kathy’s site is Crash Course In Learning Theory. While all educators studied learning theory in college, it never hurts to have a brush-up reminder on the principals of how the brain works.

In this article, Kathy emphasizes appealing to attention, constructivism, necessity, using visuals, redundancy, variety, conversational language, mistakes, showing more than telling, chunking, relaxation, charm, levels, knowing what to include, context, emotion, fun, stories, pacing, and “walks the walk” by employing the very principals she describes in order to help you understand how people learn.

Lastly, Kathy reminds us that it’s never about you. It’s about how the learner feels about him[or her]self as a result of the learning experience.

Marketing Should Be Education, Education Should Be Marketing

In her article Marketing Should Be Education, Education Should Be Marketing, Kathy points out that The tragedy is this: the amount of money spent in the US each year on marketing research is orders of magnitude more than the amount spent on learning theory research. Big business probably spends more in a week on brain research than the US Department of Education spends in a year. Thus Kathy encourages us education professionals to pay attention to marketing tactics and trends, and incorporate them into our educational practice.

Following an address on the state of affairs is a discussion of what marketers could do for teachers and what teachers could do for marketers.

User Participation

Every story ends in user-posted comments. Kathy is always very active in the ensuing discussion. You can begin to participate now – by reading Kathy’s Blog and posting in the comments. See you there!

Letter names, numbers, fixed do, moveable do, do based minor, la based minor – which solmization can help music students the most?

Letter Names

Note letter names (“cee-sharp” for the note C#) are a poor choice for students because students must know music theory before they can use them, and pitch alterations require extra syllables. Music is not about notation symbols (an element of music theory), it is about sound, so the value of tying solfege to notation is debatable, especially for younger students who need to learn musical sounds before they learn music theory.

Numbers

Numbers (“one” for the resting tone, “seven” for the leading tone) are something most music students already know how to say, however again “seven” requires an extra syllable, the same number pattern (e.g., 5 3 1) is sung with different pitches in different tonalities, and there is a cognitive dissonance when the pitch goes down but the numbers go up (e.g., when 1 is preceded by 7).

Fixed Do

Fixed do syllables are strongly tied to notation. Do is always the note C, mi is always the note E, etc. If the keyality of the tune changes, so must the solfege. While fixed do is thought to promote perfect pitch, the effectiveness and value of this is again debatable, as it is not pitches, but rather tonal patterns in the context of tonality that give rise to musical meaning and understanding. Fixed do is used in France with children from a young age.

Moveable Do – Do Based Minor

Moveable do with a do based minor is not so tied to keyality as fixed do and can thus better serve students’ musical needs, since they can learn tonal syllables in the Ionian (major) mode before they learn music theory. In moveable do with a do based minor, do is always the resting tone no matter the keyality or tonality of the tune.

The downside to a do based minor system, which means all modes are also do based, is not only the connection to music theory, but the number of syllable alterations required to sing in modes such as Phrygian or Locrian. This adds to the confusion of the system. This system is used mostly in North American Universities where it is expected that the students already know music theory, how to audiate, and are capable of the mental gymnastics demanded by extensive syllable alterations in distant modes.

Moveable Do – La Based Minor

Moveable do with a la based minor has no ties to music notation or music theory, so young students can use the syllables in any mode or tonality before they learn music theory and notation. Do is the resting tone in major, re in dorian, so in mixolydian, etc., so very few syllable alterations are required. Each tone requires only one syllable. Most importantly, moveable do with a la based minor preserves a fundamental element of musical understanding: tonal patterns, which hold true in any tonality or keyality.

Because moveable do with a la based minor can be used easily by students in any mode before they learn music theory and preserves tonal patterns, it is the best system of solmization.

“Notes” On Tonal Syllables

Tonal syllables should always be used on tonal patterns in isolation; never on an entire tune or with rhythm, when neutral syllables like “bum” or “doo” are more appropriate. Tonal syllables should first be learned for familiar patterns (not intervals) the students already know by ear, after a repertoire of tunes has been acquired, but before music theory. Solfege should be always sung, never written or spoken.

Once internalized, tonal syllables will be unconsciously audiated by the student, and only brought into conscious use when facing an unfamiliar or challenging passage. By helping students organize what they hear, tonal syllables, especially moveable do with a la based minor, facilitate the retention and use of a greater number of tonal patterns, thus serving the process of musical thought, which is called audiation.

Disclaimer

Everything I know about tonal syllables I learned from Dr. Edwin Gordon by reading his book Learning Sequences in Music and studying his band method Jump Right In: the instrumental series, which he created in conjunction with Dr. Christopher Azzara and Dr. Richard Grunow. If you want to learn more about rhythm syllables, last week I wrote Battle of the Rhythm Syllables.