And just like that, another year is gone! Here is a look at my posts for the year.
The blogging year started in March with my favourite book arriving, “Behind Bars”, which I preordered in 2010. It is definitely the most used book on my shelf! I then talked about two approaching projects:
October was the kick off of the Rugby World Cup here in New Zealand, I talked about my involvement in the opening ceremony and also made a post about what exactly I do when “preparing music” and why you would need someone like me to do it:
December means Christmas and I posted some Christmas carols that I prepared for my students. I also composed a new “holiday” piece for my Christmas post:
During this year’s New Zealand Music Month I wrote 31 musical microscores, and far out, what a month it was! I decided back in this post that I would do the project – each microscore would be from 30 to 60 seconds and I would do them in a maximum of one hour each day.
I was initially unsure how it would shape up musically – would they all be completely different, how would they relate to each other – but once underway it was clear that small sets of microscores was going to be the way to go.
Another thing I was unaware of was the difficulty of taking one hour out of an already extremely busy working day, especially for 31 in a row. I made it though, with a few catchup days here and there.
It was interesting to see the voice that came out through the compositions and how they relate to each other even when they are for very different instruments and based on a very different idea. Some I wrote for instruments I know well, others I wrote for instruments I have not worked with much.
Below are most of the microscores – have a listen. The rest are still on their way due to technical disasters.
Below is the full list of microscores:
FOR PIANO, a response to my piece for orchestra, “blimp”, which was premiered on May 1 at the Auckland Town Hall by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra.
May 1: “the pilot” Yes, it is about the pilot of the blimp.
May 2: “the view” Yes, it is about the view from the blimp.
May 3: “the flock” Yes, it is about the flock of birds that hit the blimp.
FOR PIANO, the development of my favourite idea from all microscores written in May. And I also happened to sit on a rather large swiss ball to write all 31 microscores.
Musician? Got your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad? Well, what are you going to put on it? As a musician, sharing my time between rehearsals, conducting, composing and teaching, I have fine tuned a collection of amazing apps for my iPhone that I find are absolutely essential and I hope will help you save you a lot of money and give you some great tools. Just a note, I’ve used all of these on an iPhone but they are all available (if not now, will be very soon) on the iPad.
Field Recorder – This is an outstanding digital recorder for the iPhone. One review of it says “Audiofile Engineering’s FiRe application is by far the most advanced stereo audio recording application we’ve seen for the iPhone and iPod Touch, going far beyond the limitations of previous go-to apps…”. It is a professional quality recorder and the list of features is huge so check out the link. It has a beautiful interface, the quality of recording is amazing, you can edit in the app and can export as WAVE, AIFF, CAF, AAC, Apple Lossless, AAC, Podcast, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. So handy for capturing a rehearsal or auditions, taking field recordings and pretty much endless possibilities.
Dr. Betotte TC – There are many metronomes but few powered up for the music professional. Dr. Betotte TC has all the normal features of a normal metronome such as playing any time signature, beat divisions, the ability to save your tempos and settings to a playlist, tap in a tempo – but it has got so much more. For a start all of the rhythmic divisions have their own volume sliders, one click halftime feel, options for swing tempo, you can import your own audio samples and the playlist can auto advance. Some nice other features (which are so easy to access) include an alarm timer that syncs with the metronome and customisable gradual up/down, step up/down and quiet count buttons. These step up/down buttons are so handy for students learning a passage, as it gradually gets faster over time (or however you set it up). What I do like about this metronome is its visual capabilities – it’s often really unhelpful just having a “beep, beep” metronome. For learning scores or for reference in rehearsals it is so handy to just have a ticking needle, or a huge “1, 2, 3, 4, …” being counted on screen. This is by far my metronome of choice.
Stay In Tune – There are a lot of tuners available, a lot of good ones and generally they all have the same features. It’s how they deliver the features which makes the difference. Stay In Tune is my favourite – it has a wonderful, clear interface, you can also easily produce tones, calibrate and select specific tunings for different instruments. It is also one of the most accurate and gorgeous I’ve found.
Backline Calc – It’s a musical calculator and perhaps the last app you would think about looking for, but once you have it you’ll realise how handy it is. There are six categories and some examples include: Length (sum times, compare tempos, song length, beats to tempo, time to samples), Pitch (MIDI note, frequency and wavelength conversion), Timecode (frames to timecode, convert timecode), Electric (power, voltages), Acoustics (distance to time, sound pressure level, panning) and Files (file size). These are only a few examples – a very handy little app.
Chordmaster by Planet Waves – The most advanced and intelligent guitar chord reference. You can make chords easily with sliders, you can strum them and the overall interface is beautiful. It’s also nice to see a popular and well known music accessory company delving into apps.
SoundHound – We all hear a song on TV and want to know what it is and there are several apps who help you out with this, the most popular being Shazam – but these don’t go much past the novelty factor of holding the device to a speaker and finding out the song. I like SoundHound as it provides a few more features such as effectively picking up you singing personally, or you can just type the title, album, artist or lyric. Also, in the results, it provides iTunes links, all the lyrics, YouTube videos and the ability to easily share.
Karajan® – Music & Ear Trainer – Karajan is by far the finest ear trainer. It is powerful and very customisable in each of the categories – intervals, chords, scales, pitch and tempo (bpm). It has detailed statistics so is great for students using in lessons or for your own interest. Personally, I use the tempo recognition all the time (great for conducting) and the pitch recognition is handy too. The pro version is entirely worth the money. (iPad screenshot below)
Oxford Dictionary of Music – Yes, your dream has come true. The entire Oxford Dictionary of Music is available on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It has a wonderful interface, easy search and is regarded as the most up-to-date music dictionary out there. Also good to note that no internet connection is required to use the app. These guys only do dictionary apps so they know what they’re doing. This is a must.
Circle Theory – Based around the Circle Of Fifths, this is a handy reference tool. I use it mainly with students using the more straight forward functions like seeing the relationships between notes, key relationships, key signatures, intervals and triads. But I’ve also used it myself for transposing between keys, checking notes of transposed instruments and as a reference for modes. A great little app.
Virtuoso Piano – Well we have to touch on some instrument apps. I’m sure the first app any musician gets is a piano but many are very basic. My favourite is Virtuoso Piano Pro as you can have multiple keyboards, easily flick between octaves, calibration and record/play features. Another really great app.
Guitar: Play and Share – Without question this is the finest acoustic guitar app. I’ve been playing around with it a lot lately and it is wonderful. Very clever, very easy to use and the sound quality is fantastic. Loads of features and ways to customise, different guitars – who needs a real one?
I won’t mention any more instruments as there are so many good ones (and far more that are rubbish). But if you’re interested in these, the video below is a great watch. It is from the Rend Collective Experiment featuring David Crowder and they produce the whole song from iPhone instruments. Awesome.
ProRemote – This is the only app I don’t own due to the whopping price tag (NZ$124.99, US$99.99), but it gets my attention and admiration. It is a remote control for ProTools, Ableton Live, Apple Logic or Soundtrack Pro. They say it “is like having four Mackie Control Universal Pro’s but better because it is wireless and much less expensive. You get almost $5000 of hardware for the price of ProRemote.” Very impressive. (iPad screenshot below)
Well it is an amazing series of products that I hope you will all enjoy checking out and using. I have found them all to be essential with my day to day work, saving so much time and hassle. Please let me know any other feedback, any great apps I have missed or your comments.
