iPads

iPads are a fantastic tool in the music classroom. They are highly portable, multi-functional and there are a wealth of inexpensive creative apps available. This workshop will show you a range of easy, adaptable projects for students of all ages. There will be ideas for the one-iPad classroom as well as for 1:1 iPad programs and everything in between. During the day we’ll focus on the learning outcomes that students can achieve with iPads in the music classroom. We’ll start with a series of creative projects using GarageBand including arranging, composing and storytelling. We’ll then explore sound, composition and performance with MadPad and finish with an app-smashing program music activity which combines storytelling, images, narration, and mood music. We’ll also look at iPad extras and accessories such as equipment needed to plug in MIDI keyboards, microphones and guitars and have an open apps question-time.
Another series of creative ideas for using iPads in the music classroom. Imagine a classroom wall filled with photos of students performing: as you walk past, you scan one with your iPad or Smartphone and the students magically come to life, playing or singing just like the moving photos described in the Harry Potter books. In this workshop, discover how you can use FREE tech resources to create your very own Harry Potter pictures. We’ll also look at using QR codes to link recordings, text, website links and online maps with physical printed items like worksheets and signs around your school: create engaging treasure hunts, quizzes and reinvent student assignments. Discover the best notation apps for students and learn how to flip your music class with whiteboard or screencasting apps like Explain Everything.
GarageBand is a fantastic music app for the iPad that you can use in LOTS of different ways. This session will cover 10 lesson ideas – engaging, adaptable projects and activities that you can use with students of almost any age group. We’ll look at creating original soundtracks, transforming the blues, a choose-your-own-adventure remix, recording stories and radio shows, composing and making your own music games. We’ll also explore ways to record student voices and instruments, how to set up a project the right way and the best options for handling workflow.
Live looping is a fantastic way for a solo musician to build a complete arrangement on their own. Looping has been around for years, but in the past was only possible with the use of an expensive looping pedal. Now – with the purchase of an iPad app that’s less than $10 it’s accessible to everyone and has even featured on multiple episodes of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. In this session, we’ll cover the technical aspects of working with the Loopy HD app – from setting up that first crucial loop, layering subsequent loops, overdubbing on a single track, and muting or unmuting loops. Learn about the minimal extra gear required and how to set up for a live performance as well as how to be clever about your looping arrangement. We’ll look at ways you can use looping with different student age-groups, whether in the music classroom or performance ensemble.
Discover how you can use your iPad as a live performance tool. We’ll look at apps that have been designed specifically for the iPad’s touch surface, it’s responsiveness and the unique interface (and avoid the apps that attempt to emulate instruments that are best left to the real thing!). Learn how the iPad can act as a guitar amp and effects unit, a vocal effects processor, a live looper (which can replace your guitar loop pedal) and discover a range of performance-based apps that are being used by professional musicians. We’ll also look at the gear required to plug in guitars, microphones, MIDI keyboards, speakers and a few other essential iPad music “toys”.
Whether you run a teaching studio or a music ensemble (or both!), iPads can be a fantastic multipurpose tool. During this session we’ll look at the many ways you can use your iPad in the music studio and practice room including: ways to manage and digitise your sheet music library, how to use the iPad as a transcription helper, how to create interactive learning experiences, how to create instant backing tracks, how to record student practice sessions and performances, how to teach or reinforce ear-training or literacy concepts and make scales practice exciting (yes, really!). We’ll also explore all the optional “extras” that go with your iPad: microphones, MIDI keyboards, guitar interfaces, bluetooth pedals, adapters and more. There will be ideas for teachers with only one iPad (ie. yours!) and ideas for teachers who have access to multiple iPads.

21st Century Music Classroom

What is a flipped classroom, how does it work and why would I want it? By taking advantage of the shift in learning opportunities made available by technology, you can harness the “natural” communication methods of students – all while simultaneously catering for different learning styles and paces. Pause, rewind and fast forward the teacher! We’ll look at examples of real-life flipped music classrooms and teaching studios, how you can use this model to reinvent the boring stuff and get quickly to the good stuff. And you probably already have almost all the tools you need to do it!
During this workshop we’ll look at some of the ways music teachers can adopt easy-to-use technology to transform their music classroom. The workshop will cover two main areas: assisting student learning through a flipped classroom model and the creation of student digital portfolios using online music tools. We’ll discuss solutions for a range of school setups: BYOD schools, schools with mixture of platforms and devices, and schools just wanting to delve more into digital portfolio options.

Sibelius

Learn how to use Sibelius quickly and effectively, the right way. This course assumes no prior knowledge, so it’s perfect for new Sibelius users or for those that have some holes in their knowledge, including teachers who want to brush up their skills (and stay a couple of steps ahead of students!), composers and arrangers who want to get started with creating their own digital scores and backing tracks and senior or tertiary level students who need to notate compositions or complete music assignments. You’ll learn how to set up a score, input notes without using the mouse (using the computer keyboard, or a MIDI keyboard), how to select music quickly, best ways to copy and paste, how to enter lyrics and chords, adding dynamics, articulations and repeat signs, score-sharing techniques and lots of other time-saving tips.
Take your Sibelius skills to the next level with this workshop for advanced users. During this session you will learn tips for entering notes faster (stop using the mouse!), how to put your MIDI keyboard to work and achieve success with Flexitime input (live recording) and some speedy playback tips. Learn useful shortcuts and how to create your own to save time, find out what filtering is and why you will love it and explore time-saving plugins. Discover how to format your score and parts the right way (without dragging staves manually!), how to copy the formatting of one part to another and how create your own manuscript templates. Lastly, we’ll look at how create drum notation without tears: from drum notation conventions (what to write) to the technicalities of producing it in Sibelius (how to write it).
This workshop is all about learning tips and tricks for quickly arranging music with Sibelius by scanning music or opening PDF files, downloading and tweaking freely available MIDI files and using in-built Sibelius plugins and shortcuts. It’s ideal for music teachers that want to quickly create classroom arrangements for their students, studio instrumental teachers or ensemble leaders who need to re-arrange, transpose or simplify scores and parts and for composers. We’ll cover tips for successfully scanning printed music to make an editable score, how to make use of MIDI files to save you time (and how to clean up the notation once imported!) and we’ll discuss workflow tips.
Sibelius is an effective tool for publishing your own arrangements and compositions, but how can it be used by students? This workshop is for music teachers who would like some ideas for using Sibelius with students (of a wide age-range) in the classroom – whether for composition, arranging, music literacy or ear-training. Start simply by providing students with partially-made scores and discover ways to “accidentally” teach notation software skills: discover a series of adaptable activities that will suit Sibelius beginners of almost any age from Year 3 – Year 12 including easy ways to introduce compositional techniques, composing simple rhythmic accompaniments and re-writing lyrics to a well-known piece. Learn how to use the Ideas window effectively – one of Sibelius’s most under-utilised features – with your students and discover how to get started with film scoring.

Elementary/Primary School

Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) can be a great tool for making music literacy and performance fun and engaging. They are part-regular whiteboard, part-projector screen and part-multimedia tool all rolled into one. This workshop will explore ways in which you can enhance your delivery of music content to students by integrating audio, notation, video and animation. Learn how to adapt and rethink your current activities without having to re-write your curriculum. Discover why it’s not about finding a one-size-fits-all software program and why IWBs are not just for showing Youtube videos! We’ll look at ways you can use your IWB for teaching music literacy skills, delivering aural training exercises, creating bank of learning resources that can be used many times across multiple classes, and creating soundscapes, arrangements or compositions.
This session explores simple ideas for using technology in the primary/elementary classroom that you can use straight away to learn, create and perform music. Explore new ways of presenting familiar units of work and discover simple ideas to foster musical creativity in students.We’ll look at a range of music tech resources and how to use them meaningfully. Discover the new, updated version of Groovy Music, the ear-training and composition resources, and an online Garageband-style sequencing program that you can use to record, arrange and remix. Explore lots of fantastic free websites and the ways you can incorporate them into your current curriculum and activities. We’ll also discuss which software and hardware to choose when setting up a basic music technology “kit”.

Middle and Secondary School

Discover a series of creative GarageBand projects you can use with your middle school students. By the end of this workshop you will know how to incorporate GarageBand into your existing music curriculum through student projects that involve arranging and composing with loops, recording original material, making backing tracks, scoring films and digital storytelling. You will be walked through each project step-by-step so you can use it with your students straight away. Projects include Composing The Dub Step Blues, the Remix Project and Old-School Radio Shows. A range of skills will be covered, including using loops, composing original loops, recording audio, recording MIDI, creating fade-ins and fade-outs, panning, editing mistakes, copy/paste, layering, mixing and more.
Delve into the exciting world of movie soundtracks and explore composing, arranging, recording and editing music, whilst syncing sound to visuals. Using a step-by-step approach to teaching film composition, we’ll start by importing a short video into a project. We’ll learn how to plan the film score by attending a “spotting session” to list important visual events on a cue sheet. Discover how to add hit points to the project to emphasise the on-screen action and learn easy compositional techniques to create a suspenseful soundtrack. We’ll also explore the best places to find resources and what to do with them once you have found them! The content covered in this workshop is ideal for middle school students from grades 5-9 and is suitable for GarageBand (desktop version) or Mixcraft.
Discover a series of creative Mixcraft projects you can use with your middle school students. By the end of this workshop you will know how to incorporate GarageBand into your existing music curriculum through student projects that involve arranging and composing with loops, recording original material, making backing tracks, scoring films and digital storytelling. You will be walked through each project step-by-step so you can use it with your students straight away. Projects include Composing The Dub Step Blues, the Remix Project and Old-School Radio Shows. A range of skills will be covered, including using loops, composing original loops, recording audio, recording MIDI, creating fade-ins and fade-outs, panning, editing mistakes, copy/paste, layering, mixing and more.
Delve into the exciting world of movie soundtracks and explore composing, arranging, recording and editing music, whilst syncing sound to visuals. Using a step-by-step approach to teaching film composition, we’ll start by importing a short video into a project. We’ll learn how to plan the film score by attending a “spotting session” to list important visual events on a cue sheet. Discover how to add hit points to the project to emphasise the on-screen action and learn easy compositional techniques to create a suspenseful soundtrack. We’ll also explore the best places to find resources and what to do with them once you have found them! The content covered in this workshop is ideal for middle school students from grades 5-9 and is suitable for GarageBand (desktop version) or Mixcraft.
No experience necessary! Come along and discover some of the easy ways that free recording and editing software program Audacity can be utilised in the music classroom, band room or instrumental teaching studio. Learn how to edit MP3 files : remove the vocal part, change the tempo (with or without altering pitch), or change the key (without changing tempo), create fade-ins/outs, or alter the song form. We’ll cover the basics of recording student practice sessions and performances, and discuss the equipment options to build a simple low-cost recording kit which utilises things you may already have (iPad, smartphone, laptop) plus a few extras (USB microphones and/or handheld recording devices).
MuseScore is a free, open-source notation program that provides an ideal solution for teachers and students that may not be able to afford professional programs such as Sibelius or Finale. This course will introduce you to the basics: starting a score from scratch, all about the MuseScore screen and how to navigate around your score, the basics of note entry: with or without a MIDI keyboard, playback tips, triplets, transposition, articulation and dynamics, repeat bars and endings, basic layout and formatting and creating parts. We’ll also take a look at MuseScore’s dedicated score-sharing site and discover how to sync your score to a Youtube video.
An introduction to Noteflight – the online notation software solution that works on all platforms. During this session, you’ll learn how you can use Noteflight in the teaching studio and classroom. Discover how quick it is to set up a score, enter notes, copy and paste music and transpose. Learn some tips and tricks and explore lesson plans and activities that you can use with your students.
Learn the secrets of the Auralia and Musition administration features so that you need never correct another aural or theory test. In this session you will learn how these programs can improve student scores and make your teaching time more enjoyable and effective. By setting up the “back-end” correctly (once!), Auralia and Musition will do the all hard work for you. We’ll look at the range of administration features including record keeping, assessment, testing and syllabus customisation features. Learn the step-by-step process for enrolling students and creating custom-made digital worksheets and aural exercises in a flash. We’ll explore also the syllabus support for various state curricula, band programs and jazz education. Discover ways to customise Auralia and Musition to suit your students’ specific needs by setting up your own curriculum and tailoring assessment tasks.