Marvel At These Marching Mace Masters

I thought it might be cool to find a video this week that focused on marching band technique and instruction, but in the process I happened across this video of Jason Paguio, a world champion drum major and bona fide expert at the use of the mace in marching bands.  The way he throws and twirls the mace is very impressive and totally fluid.  It doesn't even look like his is trying hard yet I know if I did anything similar I would spear myself with the thing.  I also found another video of a former U of Iowa grad assistant doing a similar show together with some of the Iowa marching band members.  I know the use of the mace seems to be a dying art in marching bands these days but it is still fun to watch these guys perform even if you think that the mace is outdated for modern marching band routines.

Read on to see the videos!

 

Mace Demo 2009 - Marc Decker from Smith Walbridge Clinics on Vimeo.

The Value of Music Education -Video

There is never a bad time to think about music advocacy, especially in today's financial and political climate here in the United States.  Today's featured music education video comes from Australia and a presentation at TEDxSydney by Richard Gill:

Music educator Richard Gill argues the case for igniting the imagination through music and for making our own music. In this talk, he leads the TEDxSydney audience through some surprising illustrations of the relationship between music and our imagination.

SonicFit Online Music Theory Site Review

Here is another useful music theory online resource for music teachers to use this fall.  Named SonicFit and the brainchild of music educator Dr. Jeff Morton, SonicFit is a music theory site that provides instruction in topics that go beyond what many other sites are currently providing.  Things like melodic dictation, scale identification, beat division, bassline solfege and many more are all included on the site in an easy to use graphical interface.  For a low annual subscription cost (sometimes as low as $1 per student) teachers can set up classes, and then assign their students specific work to do on the site, see their scores when they are done, and even export their grades to be included in other gradebook programs.

 

Read more: SonicFit Online Music Theory Site Review

Corchin Releases Two New Children's Books

I first learned of DJ Corchin several years ago when he released the hardcover of his Band Nerds- Poetry From The Thirteenth Chair Trombone Player book and since that time he has released three other books, all available via the iTunes book store and also on Barnes and Noble.com.  His new books are not about music, but are fun, intelligent children’s books that definitely deserve a look if you have children of the appropriate age.  

Read more: Corchin Releases Two New Children's Books

Welcome To Our New Writer, Ariel Alexander

Let's give a big welcome to our newest writer here at MusicEdMagic, Ariel Alexander! 

Take Me Out To The Ball Game Updated Free Sheet Music

The sheet music files for Take Me Out To The Ball Game have been updated to include harmony parts as well as Finale, Sibelius, SmartMusic, and MP3 file formats as well.  You can now download the music for the song for all concert band instruments and mix and match the harmony parts as needed.  If you find you don't like my harmonizing (trust me, I'm not the greatest at it), then you can use the Finale or Sibelius music notation files to edit it as you see fit.  The 1st parts are all melody while the 2nd parts are the harmony. 

The MP3 file has the full concert band arrangement in it, and the SmartMusic file can be used in class or at home to practice and assess a student's performance of it.

It is my hope to slowly do the rest of the free sheet music in the collection in this same way.  I am converting files from Sibelius over to Finale and hope to post them as they come available.

Of course, there is also a large quantity of free sheet music already available here at MusicEdMagic, in fact I have published dozens of public domain pieces in many different categories, all arranged to be playable even by first year beginners.  If an instrument is not available try one of the others and you will likely find that one of them falls into the playable range for your instrument.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Eric Whitacre Does New Virtual Performance of Sleep

I got goose bumps the first time I saw the virtual choir performance that Eric Whitacre put together of his Lux Aurumque last year.  That video went viral in a big way and as a result of that success Whitacre has been working on another project, this time with his incredibly popular work, Sleep.  Sleep has always been my favorite of all of his works so far, and in my opinion translates just as well as a wind band piece as it does vocally so I couldn't think of a better piece to use for this Virtual Choir 2.0 project of his.

I found out about the new piece through a TED talk that just came out a day or two ago.  It is a fifteen minute video of Eric on stage at TED talking about how the first one was put together and how inspiring the project was not only to him but also to the people he performed it with thanks to YouTube.  At the end of the talk you are treated to a short sample of the new Sleep video showing the faces of thousands of performers from all over the world who gave their voices to the project.  The full version of Sleep is due to be released on YouTube on April 7th.

When you think about the technical challenges that this project presented it really is a sight to behold and a feast to listen to.

Why The Google Books Court Ruling Is Good (and Bad) For Schools

Back in 2002 Google began to undertake a secret book digitization project of mammoth proportions.  They partnered with some of the most prestigious universities in the world and began to digitize the tens of thousands of books that the held that were out of print and out of copyright.  It was a lofty goal, aside from the technical hurdles that had to be overcome just to get through all of the books, but also to make them easily accessible for research and study over the Internet.  They then went on to expand their digitization efforts to include even more books, and entered into agreements with publishers to make use of “orphan works,” books who are still in copyright but that are out of print and whose copyright owners are unable to be found.  Basically Google wanted to make these orphan works available as well, and most people would probably say that this was a good thing at least on principal.  For schools and educational institutions this would be huge, opening up vast amounts of hard to find knowledge and doing it in a way that would probably be very low cost or free.  Not everyone liked the idea though, and maybe there are some good reasons why.

Read more: Why The Google Books Court Ruling Is Good (and Bad) For Schools