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Remixing the Barenaked Ladies

The Barenaked Ladies, a popular indie band, have joined the world of musicians allowing their music to be re-mixed. Encouraging people to “Do it yourself” they include several tracks from their latest album in multitrack WAV files. There is a major difference between this particular remix project and many of the others that have been taking place on sites such as CCMixter. In order to download the multi-tracks you have to pay a fee of $2.49. In addition they specifically… Read More »Remixing the Barenaked Ladies

Pitch Shifting Pop Songs….

Both digital and analog pitch shifting have been used for years by musicians to alter the sound of original musical material. Be it Ross Bagdasarian’s recordings of “The Chipmunks” , DJs using pitch shifting on a turntable to speed up or slow down a record in order to make it sync up with another record, or someone composing on a computer using digital pitch shifting software, the technique is widely used across musical genres. One recent application of pitch shifting… Read More »Pitch Shifting Pop Songs….

Reflections on using American Idol in the Music Classroom

As many readers know – ABC world news tonight broadcasted a story on the use of American Idol in the music Classroom recently that included me and many of my 5th-7th grade general music students. In this post I want to provide some background information on why I chose to use the show in my classroom, how I use it, why I participated in the news story and my reflections on the entire experience. I also just found out about… Read More »Reflections on using American Idol in the Music Classroom

ABC Weekend World News Interview – American Idol and the Music Classroom

This past week a crew from ABC weekend world news report visited my classroom to interview me and observe how I infuse the show American Idol in the classroom. It will probably air on ABC around May 21st or 22nd – I’ll post the details when I know them. I posted my response to the National Association of Music Education inquiry about the use of American Idol in the classroom a few months back. It was a great experience to… Read More »ABC Weekend World News Interview – American Idol and the Music Classroom

Popular Music and Music Education

The recent International Association for the Study of Popular Music conference gave me a lot to think about. I will discuss some specific issues that were addressed at the conference in the next few days. The overarching feeling I had leaving the conference was that our field really does need to make more connections with scholars in the various fields of music.Read More »Popular Music and Music Education