Science, Technology and the Arts

In the book Consilience by Edward O. Wilson, two fundamental ways of knowing the world (i.e., creating knowledge) will emerge as the paradigms for the 21st Century: Science and the Arts. The Arts reveal truths about the human experience that can only be verified through such experience, but the arts also extend our vision of ourselves and expand the reality of what it is to be human.

Science produces knowledge, which can only be verified through external observation and internal verification through the exactness of mathematics. It is a knowledge that can be verified and reproduced by others, essentially establishing the reality of facts or the facts of reality.

Technology may be the magic elixir that enables these two great paradigms of knowledge making to intersect and exchange in ways we have not yet dreamed about. Technology is the enabler, extending our reach beyond the limits of imagination, empowering us in wondrous ways. But we should also note with caution that sometimes technique can overpower and replace content. Sometimes it is difficult to know the difference between technical achievement so dazzling we cannot see there is no substance.

In music, technique has been the grand interpreter of excellence. Acquiring technique has required incredible effort and achievement has been hard won and often long-suffering. What many object to in the new technology is that beginners are empowered with the expressive range almost the equivalent of masters. Such mastery comes too easily, and the outcome is still in question, at least inviting new inquiry and review.

But perhaps we need patience to understand that such replicas of achievement are not new emerging masterworks. They are really the relics and artifacts of the past in new clothing. The new technologies and processes are busily assimilating and digesting the content of the past, and we have yet to see the emergence of a true mastery of the new techniques, the new technologies. We are too easily led astray by the glib constructs of technical prowess. New master artists will emerge when completely new paradigms of understanding and expression are uncovered in new probings of the human condition.

Connectivity and the Domain of Making Music

Suddenly I realized that today a musician's computer is virtually useless unless it is connected to the Internet.

Several years ago, this was not the case. The CPU was almost the exclusive domain of activity, and being connected to the Internet was a convenience, an asset you appreciated, but your musical computing went on, regardless.

Now, musicians cannot function effectively as 21st Century creators without being connected to the Internet. For one thing, computer applications are updated with new features, functionality, and security almost daily. For another, musicians exchange music notation and sound files routinely as they compose and rehearse for performances. The Web can provide an important interactive planning space for performances and productions.

But I think that many of us are ready for a Google-like company in music that understands the concept of distributed computing, so that the computer would connect to a digital music world that erases the proprietary nature of music notation. Cross platform applications in recording and midi technology have made this concept one that can be achieved somewhat easily. But we really have a need for Logic, Cubase, Sibelius, Finale, Pro Tools, and others to become on-line processors where we can connect from anywhere in the world and work on our recordings or musical scores.

This would be the equivalent of a true musical blog, where the blogger creates musical content rather than words.

I realize that this runs counter to traditional models of capitalism, and yet, Google has been able to thrive in the world of distributed computing as a model business venture for the 21st Century. Part of the problem may be that companies that have designed music notation programs have approached these applications in a very conservative manner. These notation programs seem most useful for someone with an existing score to transfer to computer notation. These applications have achieved a phenomenal engraver-like quality and as such, are great for desk top music publishing. But such programs are so rigidly designed that they are quite frustrating for a composer. This approach to notation does not allow for intuitive sketching.

What we need is a musical sketchbook tool that exists like a blogger. It needs to accommodate the traditional notational practices while allowing for innovative interpolation of new notation to include new expressive needs for the 21st Century. More importantly, this sketching tool should reside on the server so that upgrades are maintained at the source and the person working is only concerned with the creative act of making music.

Digital Code & Yin and Yang

Digital technology has rapidly transformed the world as we know it. It has penetrated every aspect of our existence and will continue to make inroads. Although the Internet is a part of this transformation, all aspects of our lives: transportation, entertainment, cooking, communication, finance and economics, publishing, reading, writing, and on and on... digital code has transformative power.

Digital code is the sorcer's apprentice. It is the secret magical word, the abracadabra of modern life. It is no accident that it is dependent on electrical energy. The structure of humans is also dependent on electrical connections through nerve endings so impulses are transmitted back and forth to strategic locations. Electricity is the primary ethos, emulating the energy of the cosmos. The supreme energy is light, and nothing can compare with the speed of light. The speed of light is the structuring force of the universe. Light is the ultimate communication, defining existence, "Let there be light!"

Our discovery of the binary system is the discovery of ourselves. The essence of the binary system is the yin and yang, the negative and the positive, the state of on and off. From the simplicity of this fundamental truth comes all complex structures and events. Time itself is the manifestation of this simple structure.

This binary reality makes it possible for us to find fundamental pathways that link our processes and ideas and unify knowledge. This is an incredible age of discovery. Right now, we are dazzled by its novelty, but we are also rocketing to a new awareness of the possibilities of what we can become.

Checking the Roadmap

We have focused mainly on authoring techniques that have emerged during the past year amidst upheavals i the digital world. Macromedia, once a small and independent digital spirit, has been gobbled up by Adobe. For now Macromedia applications remain intact, but expect major changes in the coming months. There is a genuine opportunity for synergism that may flip applications of new technology into totally new conceptions.

In looking back at our emphasis in the experimental course, we have focused on tools that assist in creation of interactive experiences on the Internet. Have travelled all this distance it may be helpful to write down the directions of where we have been over the course of a semester. Here is what we attempted:

TOPICS

1. Blogging
2. Domain Search, Domain Registration, FTP
3. Media in Music and Music Education
4. Implications of Ed Tech 2.0 and Web 2.0
   
5. Music Creating and Teaching as Platform
6. Flash: Animation
7. Flash: Buttons and Behavior
8. Flash: Media Control (Video and Audio Playing & Behaviour)
9. RSS Syndication
10. Action Script Introduction, Syntax
11. Action Script Application to media (links, players, etc)
12. Introduction to Web Authoring : Frontpage (based on Word using Tables and Frames)
13. Introduction to Wikis and other web-based authoring and web sharing (such as Moodle)
14. Dreamweaver: Introduction, Text and Image.
15. Dreamweaver: Flash, Flash Elements: Flash Button, Flash Text, Flashpaper, Flashmovie, and Plugins (all other media such as mp3 mov. Wmv, avi, mpg)
16. Webdesign I: Frames, Tables, and Layout
17. Webdesign II: CSS, Layers, Timelines

Assignments were deliberately open-ended as we wanted to see what students came up with, and give them room to focus on whatever they wanted to pursue. There were some expctations that were ongoing. Students should:

• Obtain an outside domain to develop a website independent of NYU
• Begin and maintain Blog throughout (one to two entries per week)
• Start a RSS newsfeed (FeedDigest)
• Obtain working copies of Flash and Dreamweaver
• Make comments on Blogs of Colleagues
• Visit and Comment on Domains of Colleagues
• Obtain an FTP Program and practice connecting to new Domain
• Use Flash Demos as basis for Creating Animations and other Flash Documents (student's choice)
• Connect Dreamweaver to new domain and directory
• Install a sample page for website on new Domain
• Share work over the semester with the class (student connects computer to projector)

The objective has been to provide some advanced skills in the context of a wider understanding of practices and theories currently emerging, mostly under the guise of Educational Technology 2.0, and Web 2.0--- concepts, practices, and techniques that are somewhat unified in the notion that teaching/learning should be grounded in platforms of creating, making, and doing, as opposed to developing consumers of content. To the commonly used duo (teaching and learning) we have added a third element to create a trinity of praxis: teacning/learning/musicing. Our blogs served as a platform for uncovering our process and to think about how these new technologies might apply to music as well as our own specific interests in music and the arts.

Look Who's Talking, Now!

Here I was going on and on about how great Evoca is, and our colleague at Cybergogy has been using Odeo since January to send out sung parts to his chorus so they can learn by listening and imitating. Odeo is one of the front-runners in the web recording and file sharing. Others in the field include Springdoo, WaxMail and my latest personal favorite, YackPack, which is designed to bring groups together for yacking (what else?)

The idea of connecting with others by using your voice brings an asynchronous quality to the concept of live chat sessions, using the voice to communicate because of the additional layers of meaning that come with the spoken word. The concept is extremely easy. All you need is a microphone or your telephone, and you are in business. Sound files are kept on the server and you can e-mail the files immediately to one or more parties as well as designate whether they can be heard by the public or only by the group.

Some of the services are in it for the money (!!), but nearly all have some free version or a free introductory trial period. If you use your imagination, you can begin to dream how such a service may add to pedagogical tools, but also what features you might want to make it an more effective educational tool. Musicians are using it as a convenient way to transmit examples and maintaining files on a server instead of your computer hard drive.

New Music Wiki

A promising new interactive Wiki for composers and performers of new music is now available entitled S21 New Music Wiki. Anyone can join, provide a bio, pictures, sound files and contribute articles and ideas about new music. You can add your music blog, and play a role in how the Wiki develops as an on-line resource.

The creator of the Wiki extends the following invitation:

What we hope to do here is to build a reader-created community/encylopedia of new music composers, performers, history, schools, important works--you literally name it. Since first person sources are always the best place to start, I am hoping that all of you who are active in creating and playing new music will create entries for yourself and the groups you are associated with....

You are also welcome to post entries for favorite composers or performers who no longer have access to wikis because they are dead. Don't post about people or events or movements that happened before 1900 unless they are essential to something that has happened in new music since.

For biographic entries, I envision a format of something like: bio, photograph (it's easy to upload an image-click on the Upload file link in the left nav bar), list of works, recordings (with links to place to purchase), reviews, with links, and anything else. Take as much space as you need, but if your entry is longer than Bartok's than you are probably hogging space.

I found this Wiki when I was creating my new specialized search engine and created a search term "music wiki." This was the first item that came up on the search. The openness of the site is attractive. Who knows? This music wiki might be at the right time with the right structure. Maybe this will become the definitive music wiki for contemporaries.

Try it. You might like it!

Flashpoint: Integrating Multimedia Software

Dreamweaver 8 brings the concept of integrated software to Macromedia's (now Adobe) multimedia suite. The integration of Flash with Dreamweaver provides convenient ways of implementing Flash inside of Dreamweaver.

There is no question that the use of the table technology as a design element is making the need for frames somewhat obsolete. Frames join multiple pages in a single display, and are a bit of a nuisance with regard to navigation and updating, especially since there is a hidden source page creating the frames. Tables are easier to edit and to modify, and provide a greater range of design and display possibilities.

Still, for those of us in music, we are still looking for web support of notation and sound design that is not proprietory in nature. We need web browser helpers (plugins) to read and perform conventional and experimental music notation. Sound sharing and development can be a dynamic interactive group creative process. But we are still at a Web 1.0 level with regard to sound on the web where the prime motivation is to have consumers, not creators, of sound files, mostly mp3 based files for downloading.

It would be great to have a Wiki for working on theory or composing, but at the moment we have to resort to e-mail attachment of files for Finale, Sibelius, Overture, etc., that must be opened in the proprietary software. This simply extends the older pedagogical model of handing in homework. This practice prevents sharing examples. Shared homework enables students to learn from each other. The current music software makes it difficult to implement Educational Technology 2.0 where materials are created, responded to, and evaluated as a shared process.

Tired of Googling? Create Your Own Swicki

As you make your websites more interactive, you can now create a specialized Swicki hot search that uses the technology of Web 2.0 to embed the search in your website, designed and customized by you, a kind of modular search blog. Eurekster has created Swicki, a wiki that searches for particular things as defined by you, and that is set up to learn from you as you work with it. You create it and modify in an ongoing process.

The swicki adds value to your site. Swickis are communities that evolve a community intelligence as they learn the ideas you and your users project. You can make your site more relevant to your vsitors and participants, a place to go to find out focused information that is constantly changing. It operates much like a newsblog, but is more concise and compact. Swickis are the energy of the Internet waiting to be unleased by the power of a click.

Go to Eurekster and create an account. Follow these steps:

1. Customize your Swicki by giving it a name. The name would reflect a specific focus such as "downloading music."
2. Choose a layout that would work best on your website from the three options. Then enter the keywords and phrases that would exist like topics for your search, such as "music downloads, downloading techniques, soundfile sources, mp3, etc."
3. Choose a design (test it by looking at the many options. Chose maximum font sizes and relative font sizes.
4. Give your Swicki some hints about where to search. Identify the website that you want the search engine to be on and select categories that your search pertains to.
5. Copy the code you have generated by your choices and paste into the appropriate place in your website (if it is a blog, then paste it into the template into the sidebar or the body, depending on the layout you chose.)

You can continue to change any aspect of it after you have created it. Just the act of creating a Swicki helps you focus on the parameters of your idea or topic. Create a search engine for model Flash-created websites. You would be amazed at what you uncover by the click of a mouse!

MOODLE & EVOCA: Wiki Community Builders

Moodle is a wiki for building a community of teachers/learners. It is an open source alternative for Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Blackboard. Content will be created by the community of users and their involvement with the subject can extend beyond the traditional boundaries of course dates. Although it is relatively new, Moodle is already widely used internationally in a number of languages.

For my purposes, I am exploring Moodle as a a platform for WebMusicing or EMusic. As the idea evolves as to how we can extend our musical growth and experience through connecting with likeminded individuals and musicing on the web, I am trying out different strategies and premises for building community. Moodle may be a step in the right direction. I came upon the idea through a news source on the Musicing News and Views newsblog.

And somehow, my search for Moodle brought me to a intriguing site, Evoca, a community of individuals connected by sound. This site approaches creating soundscapes and soundbytes like bloggers approach creation of text-based sites. You might call it Audacity on Line, except that you can't yet edit sound files---but if you have a mic, you can record on the spot from anywhere on the Internet.

Evoca is emerging as an audio sharing community, an audio version of Flickr that is in its infancy, but representative of a new generation of applications for users who are interested in sharing work with each other. You can get a sense of this new perspective since often new versions of software provide a new option for saving or publishing called "share."

Specialized Newsblogs

The Internet has changed the nature of news. News is no longer what a group of editors at the newspaper or radio/television editors decide to report in their time/space for an ever-shrinking audience (they are all going to the 'Net).

News is happening all the time to all of us and it is altering our fields from moment to moment, since news is essentially the emergence of new information, events, techniques, concepts, and ideas. The main forum for this news is the WWW, but we can't possibly keep visiting all the websites we need to every hour or so. RSS aggregators scan the Internet according to our specifications and harvest the latest postings (most update every few hours).

Managing a newsblog for the web is not something you can set once and then forget it. It requires a degree of monitoring and tweaking as new sources for feeds are discovered and added, as keywords are refined to sharpen the focus, and other criteria are developed for how the information should be displayed.

If you have visited Musicing News and Views recently, you will notice it has changed considerably in the past few days. It still looks the same, but the content has changed drastically. There have been new sources added, and the newsblog searches for the most recent entries on the sources and reports them in the order of newest to oldest. For sources that are blogging as a source for the feeds, they may find they are not included if their blog entries have been few and far between. I find I am discovering new ideas as I visit the newsblog. As far as I know Musicing News and Views is the first newsblog of its kind, and several of my colleagues have created newsblogs to reflect their interests and/or needs.

Musicing is expanded to mean making music and music making and all the attendant factors that are a part of this human activity of creating, playing, listening, studying, teaching, learning, theraping, and technologizing that make up the lives of people musicing today. These activities all meld into process in which distinctions overlap and actions complement and stimulate one another.

Podcasts, Screencasts, and Wikis

Three "new" technologies seem to be capturing the imagination of the Web 2.0 generation:

1. Podcasts (audio and video files made available through RSS on a subscription basis),
2. Screencasts (usually tutorials and short "documentaries" which is taking screenshot of demos of software while the steps are being narrated), and
3. Wikis (a database that is expandable and editable by all participants).

Podcasts simply make use of digital audio and/or video software to generate a file. The usual techniques of editing apply. These range from highly scripted presentations such as the Bill Edddins series on Classical Connections Lives!!!!!, or collections of files for playing, such as a collection of jazz like The City at Night. Video adds a layer of production to the audio, including moving and still images as you can see in this promo on learning the guitar.

Screencasts use screen capture technology to demo new software such as the this short 90 second tutorial on how to use Linky, or mixing video and screen capture such as Jon Udell's account of a flood in Vermont.

Wiki may best be known for the Wikipedia. The public has been creating this on-line encyclopedia for years. It has become one of the largest shared creative projects on the Internet. Wiki coms from the Haiwian word wiki wiki which is used to describe something as quick or fast. This collaborative approach to creating knowledge has tremendous implications for the arts, but it is time that we understand art as not only expression but as a form of knowledge. Maybe then we can enter into collaborative creations with a sense of adventure and discovery.

These three technologies have helped to reshape the new age of digital technology, making the acronym CAI more and more obsolete in terms of teaching and learning, perhaps taking on a new meaning for CAI: Can't Attract Interest.

Stephen Downes Stepping Down

Stephen Downes has decided to withdraw from the scene for a time. This announcement is much like hearing that the Rock of Gibralter has crumbled and slipped away into the ocean. It is especially traumatic for those of us who discovered him and his ideas only recently. I discovered him through a blog in Singapore, and I found that my thoughts on music education technology are in sync with his principles and advocacy. What will we do without Ol'Daily? Downes kept us alert, informed, and aware. I guess now we have to do it for ourselves.

Here is Stephen's announcement on his website:

I have always tried to offer as much of myself as I could through this service and others in my work and in my own time. It has never been enough, which was made clear to me today, but I am tired and don't have anything more to give.

Accordingly, I am placing this newsletter and website on hiatus for an indefinite period. I will be back when I'm back.

Please know that I have always valued and held in the highest esteem the work that all of you are doing to try to make things better, especially for the young. My dedication toward your objectives, toward social justice and opportunity, toward a better life for all, is never wavering, will never waver.

It is time for a darkening of the light as I retreat and think about what I am going to do and how I am going to do it, but know that the light will never flicker and never fade. I wish you well in your endeavours, and I will be back to walk the long hard road alongside you.

This King is dead. Long live the King!

A Break in the Action

The Web never sleeps, but universities are fond of taking breaks as though there is some need for refuge in the midst of so much rigor and ardor!

Thus we went on spring break during the last gasps of winter and returned on the first day of spring, which was still wearing its disguise of winter.

Our final days before the break focused on Actionscript for Flash, a useful code or language that can add a layer of functionality to the Flash presentations that go beyond the traditional drag and drop orientation of object manipulation.

Now after our break in the action we venture into deeper levels of authoring, such as exploring CSS style code and web authoring tools such as Frontpage and Dreamweaver. We can begin to look at design, the use of tables to control space or style sheet templates to make web authoring more efficient aand uniform.

Unfortunately, there may be too much emphasis on unformity, or what might be regarded as official or traditional perspectives on how a cyberspace ought to be designed. Going through many blogs, I see a definite rebellion against the "official" looks promoted by stylesheets and the like...especially among younger webbites. There has been a grand tendancy to minimalist values, to game strategies, to tiny, tiny, tiny, tinier type.

Ultimately we are alone with our thoughts and our designs, but there is a public lurking out there...eaves dropping on our designs...maybe with designs on our designs. If the medium is the message, then design may say it all. What is the relationship of content to design? Is that important?

PianoGraphique: Technological Awe and Wonder

A wonderful website that weaves a daily tapestry of new and innovative presences on the web is Digital Thread. It has become my mentor, and in educational technology, the role of the mentor is to expose associates and peers to new pathways, and that is is certainly how Digital Thread has served to nourish me over the past few weeks. Every day are new pathways, new discoveries.

One such discovery is Pianographique, a wonder of digital design inspiring me with awe as I engage in the multifaceted, multi-layered concepts of design, creativity, and interactivity. It is a festival of images, sounds, and interactivity. I have a friend who studied cello, but gave it up after he heard Yo-Yo Ma, believing he would never be able to achieve that level of performance. I happen to think that was short-sighted since his knowledge and skill enabled him to understand and value Yo-Yo Ma in a deeply meaningful way. Pianographique is the Yo-Yo Ma of digital web design.

Even though it is finite, the design concepts and performative gestures seem inexhaustible. Ater a couple of hours of fooling around, I still haven't found my way through the entire site. I have yet to create my own "piano."

WARNING: DO NOT GO TO THIS WEBSITE. IT IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR SCHEDULE and WELL BEING. SURFERS HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO DISAPPEAR IN THE DIGITAL ABYSS OF NOW, LOSING ALL TOUCH WITH TIME AND REALITY.

Action Script/Poetry/Witchcraft

Chianan Yen remarked that writing action script reminded him of writing poetry: an economical use of words (every word is important and words have a metaphorical function of referring to an object or action) and similar structure. This is a wonderful metaphor in itself.

In the world of Performance Art, there is a technical term "performative" which refers to words or actions that cause something to happen, such asying "I do" at a marriage ceremony results in a couple being married. Performatives or performative utterances exist on all levels and can be transformative such as when a magician gestures dramatically and shouts "Abracadabra!" and something magically happens.

Action script with Flash operates as strings of performatives. What you write causes something to happen...but it is strict, which is often true of performative utterances. If you don't say it exactly as you should, the spell will not be created. Maybe our modern day cyberspells are a new form of witchcraft, and actionscipt is the secret language that admits you to the Coven of Digital Sorcery.

Describing Process

I am especially interested in how we might use our Blogs to describe our process of creating materials whether it be music, performing, or constructing movies, creating Flash "documents" or designing strategies. I certainly concur with some observations that suggest that reflection might devolve into "philosophizing" and become detached from meaningful discourse.

Bringing things into closer proximity with the Doing and Making is one way of remaining anchored in the reality of our art. Words are more meaningful when they are accountable in terms of actions and objects. This is certainly in the spirit of John Dewey's Art As Experience which remains one of the most import statements about teaching, learning, and making in all arts.

I don't suggest this to be an absolute statement or a prescription. Words are powerful entities when they create a context, and a poem that uses language abstractly can often open up new avenues of perception, awareness, and understanding.

PIE and LEAP

Our colleague, Chianan Yen, began his Blog with the idea of PIE (Platform as Instructional Environment). This is a very good idea. It catches the imagination, and I believed that I may have remarked to Chianan that I felt he was moving in the right direction.

But I am not sure about the word "instruction" since I think the term implies a direction for knowledge to flow...from the knower to those who don't know...from the content to the acquirer of content. But there is no question that the image of PIE can conjur up associations that are attractive and imaginative.

I thought of another acronym: LEAP (Learning Environment as Platform) and that also seemed attractive since the word leap suggests jumping rapidly to another level. It is interesting how such acronyms have emerged to add words with embedded meanings to our vocabulary.

I am interested in such ideas because they create concepts that seem to cluster around what I hope would be a deeper and more creative approach to developing knowledge through the creation of material and ideas that establish personal and global meanings. I am also seeking ideas that bring music and sound making into the concept, and so far these two examples (PIE & LEAP) apply to all of education. That is good in one sense, because teaching and learning music should be associated with the great domains and categories of Education. I thought of M-Audio, a corporation that is dominating music technology and modified LEAP to M-LEAP (Music Learning Environment As Platform), but I am still looking (and listening).

Cut Off At The Knees!

It had to happen. Once everyone has the power of free speech and the power to publish freely and at will, someone is bound to come along and put you in your place. As a colleague used to remark gleefully when he had exposed a weakness of a fellow colleague, "With that argument, I cut him off at the knees!" This was usually followed with a self-satisfied chuckle.

About ten days ago, I observed that I had been expecting a higher level of discourse from graduate students who are embarked upon their own personal journeys in music technology, music making, and music education. I got irate e-mail messages, face to face challenges, and comments to my posting that were at that time, an amazing leap into a higher level of inquiry and observation.

One student completely deconstructed my entry and demonstrated for all to see how terribly wrong I was, and how I had misrepresented (my word) the course when I said it could be whatever you wanted it to be. This student indicated that the course seemed to be about advanced blogging (Blogging 201?) Very effective. Involved. Intelligent. Passionate.

Another student made it clear that it wasn't the first time that the student had been asked to contribute to a group and that experiment failed, too (maybe just as this current project is also doomed?). Cut me off, right at the knees. Passionate. Informed. Courageously devastating.

So here I am, once again. Just another Blogger who is NOT blogging for the sake of blogging--- something I would not wish on any of my students or colleagues. What I am reading now, though, has more depth because it springs from the actual encounter of technology on a personal level which provides tremendous insight, and makes me wish I could do some of what is beginning to be described. Flautaphile provides an insightful and evocative entry in "trying to contribute." For someone who claims to be dispassionate about technology, the entry itself seems intense, accurate, and a stark reminder of the limits of technology.

For another thing, I really do not regard these "students" as my students. They are more like my teachers and mentors. I certainly appear to be learning more from them than they are from me, especially when I get cut off at the knees.

A New Era for Music Education Technology?

In responding to my initial Blog, Breugnon wrote:

I have set up my blogspot and am beginning to explore the world of blogging. I truly have no clue as to what it is yet, but I can recognize an amazing opportunity when I see it. As the quote so eloquently put it, the internet has created a new platform of education...not just music education, but education in general. The unlimited ability of the internet to access even the most remote geographic locations, connecting the isolated idea with the knowledge banks of this world is truly remarkable.

He points out that the new digital revolution extends beyond disciplines and conventional boundaries, challenging those of us in music to create a higher level of discourse. In setting up our news blog, I had hoped to find sites developing music education technology exploring ideas, issues, and techniques in ways that could be syndicated and reused in new and different settings, serving to inform our own encounters with implements of digital gear.

Two important sites that represent our "best efforts" are TI:ME (Technology Institute for Music Educators) and ATMI (Association for Technology in Music Instruction).

TI:ME is a not-for-profit corporation and requires you to become a member. There are some advantages to membership, including "certification" courses and workshops. It is supported by NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants, now named The International Music Products Association) and IAEKM (International Association of Electronic Keyboard Manufacturers). This marriage with the commercial arena of musical products may subtly shape TI:ME's agenda. TI:ME has articulated a mission of developing sophisticated users of such equipment who will be able to integrate this new technology into their teaching. Technology still exists as a product and a content that is to be delivered to the learner.

ATMI is more of an association of like minded practitioners who share a zest and interest in the use of technology for the instruction of music. Some parts of the website seem somewhat dated. The Squeak and Blat section has a copyright of 1996-2000. There is a strong search engine for articles, and you will find you can dig up interesting articles on CAI, which is just one among many categories dealing with music technology and music education. I couldn't help but think that so many of these articles would be timely, even now, if they were syndicated as Atom or RSS files. However, the site seems to stop growing un terms of new information just as the Internet was beginning to erupt with the creation of new content by countless individuals now empowered as web authors.

Bruegnon remarks on the miracle of "connection"---and I suspect that we are still in such a primitive stage in understanding how significant this connectivity is---for we still look to it as "ignorance" connecting with "knowledge". I suspect it will take a while to value the unique quality and contribution of each "connector." This requires a growing recognition of the unique qualities each of us can share. Wikipedia is an open source encyclopedia that be edited and contributed to by anyone. It is multilingual with more than 500,000 articles and growing. Many of the newer platforms like Flickr, Google, and Yahoo provide easy access and creation of new material, which can grow exponentially, archiving the created works as they grow over time. Each of these platforms explores connectivity in very original ways that may be helpful to understand in terms of music, musical growth, musical understanding, composition, improvisation, and performance.

Paradiddles and Paradigms

When I first started learning drumming, I was taught to play a paradiddle by breaking it down and playing it over and over and over and over. This was the procedure for most music learning at the time. Commit the piece to memory by playing it over and over and over, and over.

The only problem was that with such learning, we might "forget" the music and be so lost that we can only play the work by starting over from the beginning. Disaster.

I remember the breakthrough that occurred when a mentor helped me to "practice" away from the piano by conceptualizing the phrasing, the texture, and expressive destinations. I could actually "rehearse" the music in my mind, visualize my performance and hear within myself the music unfolding. Strategic elements of structure served to anchor this inner hearing and performance. This process involved me much more profoundly than playing passages over and over in almost robotic fashion.

In computer instruction, universities have been moving away from the practice of having people sit in front of computers to parrot steps through spoonfeeding. For one thing this practice slowed the pace of learning to the slowest learner and became a source of frustration for many in the class. For another, the focus was on small increments of a larger concept and the concept seldom emerged as the focus of learning. More importantly, such practice prevented the class from coming together as a community of learners, since the focus was shifted to each individual isolated in front of a computer screen.

Now there is more emphasis on the concept and the relationships of content. Applications have been designed with a certain aspect of game strategy where we can discover the next step of a procedure in several ways. There is always more than one path to completing most tasks in digital technology. We can probe menus intuitively, trying different applications, and we can also access tutorials that are clear and succinct, allowing students to move at their own pace.

Even "blogger.com" reflects this new paradigm. Notice that in setting up the account, you found your way through that process with sequential instructions that were simple and direct. Also notice that you could simply begin to blog. No special skills. Just fingers on the keyboard. Then hit "publish" and suddenly your authoring career has been launhed.

It wasn't until we needed to change the template that we had to bring our own previous html background into play. However, even if you did not have that background, blogger.com also contained a very clear tutorial on how to add links and how to change the template.

The goal is provide everything we need to accomplish a task, and to enhance and enlarge your capacity as you go along, thus enabling you to focus on the content and on the moment. The technology starts to recede as a transparent overlay. Try to imagine your creation of content as the focus of your learning. That is the new paradigm that continues to emerge as we engage this process.

Struggles Along the Way

So far, our Blogs have not gone very far (with one or two exceptions) in exploring the concepts of technology as applied to creating opportunities in making, teaching, and learning music. For one thing, as group we have no rhythm to our blogging, and there is virtually no evidence that we are reading each other's work. We are a small group, and it is relatively easy to visit all the blogs on a regular basis and to enter comments on each other's work. Of course, I would like to see this emerge as part of your own discovery process. For me, nothing is more deadly than requiring you to comment on at least three of your colleagues entries. All too often that is the value system that drives our activity: "Is this a requirement?"

So here I am, a participant with the rest of you in this blogging group. I have the same pressures on time, and the same doubts about what to blog about, and I find that few are really entering into the spirit of the process. Unless we are engaged as a group and as individuals, there is no chance that anything special will emerge from our quest.

If you think this is a class about Flash and Dreamweaver, then you are definitely missing the point. This is a class about process and engagement of ideas. Flash and Dreamweaver are implements of process, a means to an end. In a few years time, they will likely disappear and be replaced with new instruments of process, and if we have learned to see the changing technoscape, we will come to understand that it is not about "memorizing steps" as one of our colleagues has put it, but about discovering the concepts underlying a particular application.

It is somewhat similar to the idea of learning music by rote or by conceptualizing the content as phrase and musical ideas. Sitting with an instrument and playing the same thing over and over again has been shown to be counterproductive to developing musical understanding and expressive range. Musicians have a special opportunity to engage technology as creative expression. The processing of images and sound can draw upon our musical sensibilities of feelings and proportion. The authoring of websites can draw upon our musical sense of structure.

If you can imagine yourself doing something, you will be able to do it, because that is the process of bringing newness into the world. The exciting thing about music is that it is born out of the silence of the moment. As musicians we bring this music into being from the origins of its silence. The mind of imagination is the most potent force in the world. It is the source for creation of all that we experience.

The Changing Context of Our Inquiries

One of the most revealing experiences this week has been to discover the how blogs engaged in this exploration of technology as teaching and learning music appear in the context of the news group. I go to the newsgroup first now, and find our entries in the midst of extremely diverse and exciting observers at the intersection of technology and education. I've begun to notice that what surrounds each entry does shape the way I regard the entry and even plays a role in how I select something to pursue and explore.

The news feed has been set up to pull things in a focused randomness, but somewhat influenced by how recent the entries are and how many postings are available from a specific source. The more prolific the blogger, the more the algorithm seems to kick in to grab the ideas that are in constant state of continual disclosure. As time passes, certain items disappear from the new and new ones replace the older entries, so that the landscape gradually changes until it is again an entirely new episode.

One blogger noted that it seems important to establish a rhythm for blogging, which is probably true. At least that has been my experience. The rhythm generates ideas as the emptiness of the screen is waiting urgently for the text, for the images, for the music, for the ideas that will define our context. Our individual blogs also establish context. There we can begin to see certain themes and threads of connection with one's self and emerging ideas.

When these individual postings are "fed" to the news blog, suddenly the context provides a new meaning, making the original context even richer, while enabling one to read the work with new perspective. Not all content is equally "reusable." The image of feeding the news blog is apt, as news blogs are hungry, and news blogs feed on news blogs in a virtual feeding frenzy.

Noticing

Each of us is uniquely prepared to notice the world as no one else can. In our venture toward new parameters for blogging music and blogging musically, we need to notice our process as we move along our technological paths. One purpose of blogging is to draw our attention to what each of us notice and to comment on what our colleagues "notice". Noticing the world and how we make meaning in and of this world is a lifelong process. We are discovering that new technologies are emerging that help us share what we notice, and in the noticing we are transformed and we transform the world.

Some of that noticing will be in the focus of our blogs, and other noticings will be in the moment of musicing or teching or worlding our personal world. We are generating a platform for growth, development, and exchange.

Our noticing brings a new reality, a new content that exists in the world as you create the materials of expressive response to the moment. Education is ultimately a sensitive noticing, a bringing forth, and a sharing that inspires others to notice anew.

Discovering Really Simple Syndication

As I work with the implications of infiinite filaments connecting us in infinite ways, I am somewhat bewildered by the way digital technology melds the distinctions of text, images, videos, and sounds. Although my first efforts at syndication have focused on text, virtually anything can be syndicated (made available for reuse in a new setting) whether it be images, podcasts, or vodcasts.

So as we begin to follow the yellow brick road to the Digital Kingdom of Oz, I look for the tools that make such actions REALLY simple. Somehow, Google Reader, as nice and simple as it is, falls short of expectations. The best application I have found so far is FeedDigest, a straight forward web tool that helps you collect your site feeds and gives you simple code to paste in your template.

So now a weblog for scouring sources for news has been created. The paricipants of this music tech discovery experiment are the primary sources, and they may discover many new worlds before we are done. Web Musicing News and Views has been my first attempt at creating a page for syndicating our explorations and discoveries,

Making Music and Music Making

I remember hearing the word musicing (musicking, musiking) in the late 60s and 70s. At the time I thought of it as a Heideggarian twist, since Heidegger would transform nouns into verbs which often uncovered a more dynamic and deeper sense of the word. Thus world became "worlding" and how the world becomes is uncovered through this shift. Language can help us inquire into the essence of the worlds (worldings) around us, a tool for excavating our sense of reality and beingness.

Musicing becomes the essence of our process and my exploration of this was explored in two manuscripts. One was called Making Music, which I gave to a composer friend as a present. The other was titled Music Making, which I stopped writing when I was about 60% complete. Unfinished business, I suppose. Both were phenomenological explorations of process. Making Music was about the act (the action) of composing, and Music Making was about the act (action) of performing, bringing sound into being from the silence. Both intimately linked, and for me, musicing is the wholeness of that incredibly powerful process.

Perhaps one reason I never finished the second half was the manner in which the idea exploded and imploded all at once, and I found myself overwhelmed at the magnitude of the task, somewhat dwarfed by ambition to probe at the essence of my own working and understanding, and somewhat blinded (deafened?) by the perception that it seemed as though I were trying to count stars, to measure the immeasurable.

Yet, for me there is clearly an extraordinary difference between making music and music making, a difference that is continually expanding and defining itself from moment to moment. "Musicing" becomes a gift of reducing immensity to the simple presence of sound in time, the disclosure of eloquence because the music simply is---and this "is-ing" expresses our human activity of making the music become.

Where Would You Like To Go Today?

Perhaps one way to use the Internet and digital technology as a platform is to explore possibilities individually and Blog your expedition. That way you take us with you. By the way, it is all right to get lost. Often that is how you discover the most amazing things!

We have enough technology (horsepower under the hood), to launch ourselves. What are our tools for musicing? We have our instruments and our passions. We have our ears, eyes, and our intellect. These may be primary.

The tech tools are for tinkering. What are our tech tools? What are tools? Generally tools are for extending our reach and multiplying our power. Heidegger calls such things our equipment. We have all sorts of mechanical tools, and now digital technology is replacing the mechanical implements with code...code for making new worlds.

Some of our work will be creating. Some of our work will be problem solving. Is there a difference between solving a problem and creating? Much of the research literature seems to suggest that problem solving is creativity. What do you think?

So we have infinite possibilities at our disposal. We have imagination unleashed to the nth power. Where would you like to go today?

New Directions, All Directions

It is up to us as educators and musicians to raise serious questions about digital technology and the internet and their impact on musicing. From the earliest of historical times, music has always been on the leading edge of technology. The piano and most instruments of the orchestra benefitted from the machine edge and the industrial revolution. Even the orchestra itself is modelled after machine technology with the replaceable parts brought together and run by an operator. The conductor wields the baton before the 19th century's marvelous music-making machine. The orchstra may have been the most sophisticated machine to come out of the 19th century.

Even the first super computers emerged as an effort to crunch the huge numbers needed for creating and making music. The Illiac at the University of Illinois represented the first efforts to move music through super computers. Actually most of personal computers have faster processors and more memory than those early super computers.

The creation of the first synthesizer was an attempt by RCA to replace musicians with synthesis, but it failed and was donated to Princeton/Columbia (probably as a tax write-off), and the academy put it good use in making new music. But the computer music studio became an isolated operation that was difficult for most people to access.

In the 1970s-80s, small personal synthesizers exploded on the music scene, completely transforming the music business and bringing synthesizers and music computers into the heart of the music academy with programs in music technology.

The Internet brought yet another stage of development in which music became the driving force for the rapid, almost cataclysmic expansion of the Internet because mp3 files made it possible to download and upload music for everyone, including those who previously had no background in working with music technology or computers.

Now we stand at a crossroad for musicing and technology. Can we develop a musical blogging in which our creative efforts result in the development of new skills, knowledge, and understanding? Then music teaching/learning is created by the student as process of interaction and self-inquiry. Knowledge is produced by the engagement of the student. What happens now to the teacher?

Making Music as Blogging

In this miraculous world of blogging there is a a profound process that shapes perception and discloses a new beingness that is simultaneously intimate and distant.

In music I am committed to making music and music making in the context of a blogging process, an encounter with an expansion of conscious awareness. Thus my views are reflected in the questions raised by Stephen Downes:

What happens when online learning ceases to be like a medium, and becomes more like a platform? What happens when online learning software ceases to be a type of content-consumption tool, where learning is "delivered," and becomes more like a content-authoring tool, where learning is created? The model of e-learning as being a type of content, produced by publishers, organized and structured into courses, and consumed by students, is turned on its head. Insofar as there is content, it is used rather than read— and is, in any case, more likely to be produced by students than courseware authors. And insofar as there is structure, it is more likely to resemble a language or a conversation rather than a book or a manual.

The e-learning application, therefore, begins to look very much like a blogging tool.

from E-learning 2.0

So the point of our inquiry is to raise questions about our process as we engage music making. We need to notice the intimate details of how we grow and how we change as we become the embodiment of music either as listeners or performers.