Winner of the Unofficial MusicEdMagic Cool Music Gadget of the Day Award:

What do you get when you find a guy with way too much time on his hands, an innate propensity for hitting things (A.K.A. a typical drummer), and a little techno-knowledge?  You get a gadget that is strange yet cool, and if it ever went to market I could see it being pretty popular.

Tales From The Podium

Each year I look forward to the television broadcast of the DCI Championships.  Over the years the length of the broadcast has dwindled, with fewer performances and more documentary materials being added.  I always enjoy watching the show and encourage my students to watch it at home with their families, but I still long for the days when we could see all of the top twelve corps without commercials on PBS.  Things are getting too commercial in my opinion, but sadly I guess that is the way things are going to continue to move.  Read on to find out more about the date and time of this year's broadcast of the DCI World Championships on ESPN2.

Tales From The Podium

Sibelius 5 is used by thousands of music educators and professional musicians world wide, and it's rise in popularity in the United States over the years can be traced directly to the hard work the Sibelius design teams have put in to improving the interface, adding requested features, and expanding their pull on savvy computer users as a whole with the introduction of the Sibelius Scorch plug in which allows music created in Sibelius to be viewed on web sites, complete with the ability to transpose, play, print, and save all without the need for a license for the full Sibelius product. One note of warning, files created for Scorch using Sibelius 5 will require the viewer to download and install the newest version of the Scorch browser plug-in before they will be able to view it. You can avoid this issue by saving your files as Sibelius 4 Scorch files using a plug-in inside Sibelius if needed.

Tales From The Podium

While searching through my weekly stack of stuff I came across a very intriguing new gadget that music educators are going to love getting a look at.  Named the TuneStudio and made by Belkin, it is now possible to record directly to your ipod while using the expensive, high quality microphones and other equipment that you already own.  Instead of recording to a CD or other media, the audio is dumped directly to your ipod's hard drive for you to take with you. 

I can see some great applications for music educators with this new tool, imagine being able to record your rehearsals or concerts in high quality during class, then taking the ipod straight from the mixer dock and playing it in your car on the way home.  Or dump the audio straight onto your computer from the ipod to do some additional editing before sending it off to Disney or elsewhere for an audition.  There are already dozens of plug in microphones for your ipod, but this is the first I have seen that allows you to use your own equipment and microphones to make the mix.  Plus the thing looks totally cool too.  I am hoping to get in a review unit in the near future to give it a test drive.  I'll keep you up to date and let you know what the final verdict it on the new TuneStudio (F8Z109) from Belikin Electronics. 

Tales From The Podium