Step 2: Take a picture of it with your cell phone camera and post it online to ImageShack:

http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1ix9.jpg

Step 3: Post a link to that photo on Reddit for others to see and discuss:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7bqjc/music_found_in_the_toilet/

Step 4: Transcribe melody into Noteflight and create a custom arrangement of “Toilet Melody”:

click on Noteflight logo to launch score at Noteflight.com

Step 5: Repost Noteflight arrangement back on Reddit for others to discuss:

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7bqjc/music_found_in_the_toilet/

Credits:
Photo = TrippingChilly
Music Arrangement = Skynare

If this is how young people are using technology in their lives, how can we draw on this in the classes we teach?

Bonus points for identifying the origin of the tune in “Toilet Melody.”

What interests me about Noteflight is not the notation component. Instead, it is in the social tools that surround the notation engine. When you sign up at Noteflight.com (currently free) you create personal profile, just like you would at a social networking site like Facebook, MySpace or custom sites created at Ning.com. Once signed in, you can create a new score, view existing scores, or scores created by other users.

Built in to the web application is the ability to share your scores with other users. These scores can be easily embedded just like a YouTube video in a class website. The embedded score can be played back by clicking on the play button and additional interactive functions are being planned which could be helpful in guided listening activities. Coming from a constructivist perspective, this functionality enables teachers to give students the opportunity to share their musical understanding in interactive ways within and beyond class time. For example, a band director could post a Noteflight score without added articulation. Students could then be assigned to add their own articulations to the score. During the next class, the students and director could choose a few scores to play through. This approach gives students the opportunity to make creative articulation decisions as composers, rather than traditionally learning it through listening and performing.

A variation on this assignment could be to post an audio file of a musical line performed with different articulations. Below the audio file, a director could post the notation for that performance, but again without articulation added. As an assessment, students could then open the score and add articulations that in their mind matched the recorded performance.

Right now, there are some limitations to accomplishing this, but I’ve been assured by Joe Berkovitz, CEO of Noteflight, that these functions are currently in development.

This screenshot shows the “version” function for Noteflight. As you work on a score in Noteflight, it periodically saves a snapshot of your piece and gives you access to it as a different “Version.” If you open your score up to be added to by others, their versions show up in this box as well. At any point you can go back (revert) to a prior version. This is a cool function, not only because you can go back, but as a window into your students’ compositional processes. Though not a full account of their process, these snapshots can provide an opportunity to have discussions with your students about the changes they made in their composition and are great starting points for assessment.

Here’s a short piece I notated in Noteflight:

Right now, the interactivity is limited to simple whole piece playback and playback within measures (click above the measure). Soon, functions will be added that will enable the composer to add additional interactivity through scripting. Very cool.

My students and Noteflight

My college students have been using Noteflight with beginning piano students at Lowell High School (LHS) for the past few weeks. Students in my class created incomplete duets to be co-composed and performed with their partner students at LHS. The music teacher at LHS has for the most part have been using Alfred’s Adult Beginner Piano book to structure the curriculum. My college students wanted to add a composing/creativity aspect to the lessons. To do this, they created simple piano scores with either a chord progression in the bass clef or a melody in the treble clef (or some combination of the two) as a compositional frame to help scaffold the LHS students. Because the scores are online and viewable by the LHS students and my college students, both can practice alone and make edits to their duet scores. Tomorrow, they will meet again in person for a final run through and performance for the class. I’ll post some of the pieces and performances here soon.

Because Noteflight is an online application, the potential for collaborative work and learning with other students is high. I’m in the middle of planning a distance composing project with another school later in the term through Noteflight. Facilitated by a custom Ning.com social network, students at LHS will notate compositions in Noteflight and share them with other students at a distance site. Ning will enable them to post their files and provide peer comment and critique. This use is inspired in part by the work at the Vermont MIDI Project, but instead centers on the students as providers of compositional critique and feedback, rather than professional composers.

I’m very excited to see how this technology develops. If you are interested in collaborative projects using Noteflight with your students, drop me an email.

Today, I read an article posted on Ars Technica written by Timothy Lee detailing a recent “fair use” Copyright decision by Judge Sidney Stein of the U.S. District Court – Southern District of New York.

From the article:

Judge Stein’s task wasn’t to critique the dubious logic of this segment, but to evaluate the narrower question of whether the film’s use of “Imagine” is fair under copyright law. He noted that the film was focused on a subject of public interest, and that the film was commenting on Lennon’s anti-religious message. The excerpting of copyrighted works for purpose of “comment and criticism” is explicitly protected by the Copyright Act, and Judge Stein ruled that this provision applied in this case.

The decision quotes extensively from Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley, a 2006 decision that allowed the reprinting of reduced-size versions of several historical posters used in a coffee-table book about the Grateful Dead. In that case, as in this one, the alleged infringers had used the works in a commercial product, but the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that “courts are more willing to find a secondary use fair when it produces a value that benefits the broader public interest.” Whatever the merits of its argument, Expelled is clearly commentary on an issue of public concern, and the use of “Imagine” was central to its argument. Those facts weighed heavily in favor of a finding of fair use.

Stein and company were defended by lawyers from Stanford’s Fair Use Project. In a blog post announcing their decision to take the case, executive director Anthony Falzone wrote that “The right to quote from copyrighted works in order to criticize them and discuss the views they represent lies at the heart of the fair use doctrine,” and argued that Ono’s actions threaten free speech.

This decision and the 2006 decision referenced above cause me to ask a few questions regarding the implications for music education:

In the 2006 decision, the use of reduced sized Grateful Dead posters was upheld as “fair use” within a commercial product because “courts are more willing to find a secondary use fair when it produces a value that benefits the broader public interest.”

In the Sidney Stein decision, the use of an excerpt from John Lennon’s Imagine used in a commercial film for the purpose of criticizing and commenting on issues that “benefit the broader public interest.”

So, what are the implications of using copyrighted samples or excerpts of commercial music or videos as part of our students’ educational pursuits? Is careful musical and educational use of commercial music and video in school projects of “benefit to the broader public interest?” If our students are utilizing these materials (including YouTube videos) for the purpose of artistic, musical “comment and criticism,” would that not also be considered “fair use” in light of these decisions?

What is particularly interesting to me is that both of the approved uses described above – using a copyrighted image in reduced resolution and using an excerpt of a copyrighted and performance-righted musical recording – were found to be “fair use” in two commerical settings. Also, both uses of copyrighted material seem to have been interpreted b the Judges as a “transformative” use (see Wikipedia entry on Fair Use). It would seem to me (again I am NO lawyer) that similar uses and creation of original multimedia using music and popular commercial and non-commercial video for “comment and criticism” of “benefit to the broader public interest” where the work has been “transformed” and not wholly-duplicated within an non-profit educational setting of a school would now be permissible as documented by the above case law.

Let’s take a look at the “fair use” section of the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections § 106 and § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
4. and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Since the above uses were found to be “fair use” within commercial settings, factor #1 in the Copyright Act of 1976 would seem to provide students and teachers working in an educational context even more protection under “fair use.” I find the Sidney Stein ruling of particular importance to music educators because it provides case law that extends the “fair use” of images to copyrighted and performance-righted musical recordings.

In light of the cases described here, I feel more comfortable letting my students use copyrighted images and musical excerpts in the creative and educational work they do in my K-College music and music ed courses, with the following caveats:

1. The use of the works is in part, and not in whole (e.g., reduced resolution or size)
2. The use of the works for the purpose of “criticism and commentary”
3. The use and creation of the works results in a “value that benefits the public interest”
4. The use of the works is “transformative” such as in a parody or for “criticism and commentary”
5. The use of the works do not devalue or negatively impact the market of the original copyrighted works

And, I might even be inclined to allow them to put together a compilation CD or DVD and sell them as a fundraiser….

What do you think?

Beginning September 1, I will join the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. I am so excited to join my good friend and colleague, Dr. Gena Greher, at UMass Lowell. Over the past 6 years, she has helped to build a phenomenal music teacher preparation program. One of the most impressive aspects of the program is the depth and breadth of the partnerships among the music department and local schools. In each music education course, students have extensive experiences in the local schools applying what they learn on campus to real-life situations with real students. During one of my campus visits, I was impressed by the number of local K-12 students on campus after school. Almost every night of the week there are local students participating in after school honor ensembles, creative sound play classes and the UML String Project. Many schools have similar programs, but none that I know of are infused so extensively in the local community. And, very few music education programs truly integrate hands-on field experiences as extensively as UML.

Also of note are the innovative general education courses that bring together the arts, sciences and local community. Students can take interdisciplinary courses like Performamatics, ArtBotics, and Radical Design. Each of these courses have major service learning components interfacing UML students with the local community. One project I hope to become involved with is their Assistive Technology Program. It would be great to work with the engineering students on developing music specific assistive technologies for special needs students. I wish I had these kinds of courses in my undergrad!

UML Music Education and GUI Programming students working together to create
original graphic notation software in the Spring 2008 Performamatics course.

This Fall I will be teaching courses in music education research and technology in music education. I get a little bit of relief in my teaching load so that I can spend some time in the local schools getting to know the program and area. My Technology in Music Education students will be working closely with music technology classes at Lowell High School exploring innovative ways of using technology in their own teaching through working with real students and teachers in real classrooms. I’ll be updating this blog much more regularly as a part of that course in particular.

Dr. Greher and I are already starting to brainstorm new professional development and Masters-level courses in composing and technology for Summer 2009. Dr. Greher brings extensive experience in technology and creative musicianship as a former music producer for the advertising industry and from her work with the Teachers College Creative Arts Lab in New York City. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months!

With the change in job comes a change in contact information. My new email address is Alex_Ruthmann @ uml.edu. I will continue to check my ISU email through the end of the summer, however.

See you online!

This site was launched as part of a pilot project using the Ning social networking platform to bring together music educators in advance of the 2008 ISME World Conference this July in Bologna, Italy. Even if you can’t attend the conference in Italy, please stop by and join.

To start, we have a number of projects integrated into the website:

1. Research Mentoring – This group is for you to post questions and abstracts and to discuss anything related to your research or research in general. As the conference approaches, we will post the exact times and presentation schedule for our research sessions.
2. Social Lounge – Use this space to talk about anything and to get to know each other. Post your itineraries, places to stay in Bologna, and anything else you’d like.
3. Sharing Practice – This project will be formally launched in a month or so. We are looking to gather stories and examples of what music learning and teaching are like across the World from the perspective of ISME young professionals.

Stop by http://ismeypfg.ning.com/ to meet other music educators from around the World!

Ning has been a great platform for setting up private social networks for my college classes. I use it as the online presence for all the classes I teach, rather than courseware tools like Moodle or Blackboard, because of its ease of use, clean design and integrated audio and video players and storage. What before took a lot of third party tools and time to code and program a website is simplified with Ning. My students and I log in to one site and set up our own personalized profiles to share, discuss, collaborate, and reflect on our compositions, teaching, or readings for class. Anecdotally, my students spend more time on class material responding to posts, sharing their music and providing feedback to each other on their peer teaching videos… most of it outside of class time.

I recently shared how I have been using these social networking technologies with faculty and students at Shenandoah Conservatory and at the University of Illinois. When speaking with music education majors and local teachers, many saw the potential of sites like Ning to support learning in K-12 schools, but rightly expressed reservations about the advertising and some of the design features of Ning. (Thanks to Steve Hargadon at http://education.ning.com/ for sharing that Ning now will eliminate the ads for K-12 Ning sites!!!) These concerns may now be set aside with a new private social network platform designed specifically for K-12 at http://www.imbee.com/.

Imbee has many of the same features of Ning, including blogs with integrated audio and video players/storage, but without advertising. Imbee also has intriguing and extensive parental and teacher controls. Each student account is connected to a “parent sponsor” who has ultimate administrative control over the content for his or her student or child. The design of the site is also kid friendly with bright colors and a clean layout. Take a spin over to Imbee.com and take their tour!

For a while now, I have been looking for a Web 2.0 tool that would enable my students, after reading a post or article on one of my course blogs, to be able to easily post their own questions and/or comments to be shared with the whole class. The architecture of blogs inherently supports readers adding comments to posts. However, when you have a lot of posts to read from a large number of students in a course, it takes a long time for the instructor to read and synthesize the themes and issues that emerge in students’ responses. As a teacher, I often base my class discussions on the topics raised by students in their blog post responses. Since I began facilitating my classes through blogs and social networks, I’ve wanted an easy tool where students could centrally post their questions and comments and vote the most important questions/comments (to them) higher and lower (similar to Digg.com). Amazon’s UnSpun now gives me that functionality.

Check out an embedded UnSpun list in this blog post:

Now, UnSpun looks to be quite nice for what I’d like it to do. However, as with many third-party social networking and Web 2.0 tools, there are pros and cons:

Pros: Readers can easily add their own questions and comments, these are placed in a central box which can easily be placed anywhere on a blog through the widget/embed code functions, readers can vote questions and comments they view to be more relevant to them higher on the list. Voting up or down an existing comment or question does not require signing in.

Cons: Readers have to have an Amazon.com account, they have to sign in to that account when adding a question.

Middle Ground: If you click to add another question or comment, you are taken to your list on Amazon’s UnSpun website. Once on this site, you can edit your questions, merge duplicates (a good function for the teacher), and add comments. It might get a little complicated and confusing if students decide to add comments on this page… there seems to be no indication on the embeddable widget that comments exist on the UnSpun website.

So, UnSpun looks to be a promising tool at least worth trying with my students this coming semester. If anyone knows of other Web 2.0 tools with similar functionality, please let me know.