WAV vs. MP3 Presentation

How do you explain a difficult concept to someone who doesn't have any background with that concept? Try comparing it to something they already know. This is called an analogy. In the Google Slide presentation that follows, I am trying to explain the difference between two different audio file formats, .wav and .mp3, to an imaginary 5th Grader.  Why to a 5th Grader? I want my explanation to be as simple as possible to understand.

Most people who listen to music these days probably don't even think of the difference between audio file formats–they just pop in their earbuds and start up their music on their phone.  The reason why Music Tech students need to know the difference between audio file formats is because there are different occasions when one might play a .wav file instead of an .mp3 file, or vice versa.

The two main differences between a .wav and an .mp3 file are the size and the quality of sound. When the Music Tech class exported a 38 second .wav file of their first Dance Project and imported it into iTunes, they could see the size of the file was around 6.6 MB (megabytes).  In iTunes, they converted the .wav file to an .mp3 file and the resulting size was around 768 KB (kilobytes).  In other words, the .wav file was about 8.5x larger than the .mp3 file (encoded in iTunes at high quality, 160 kbps).  So it is easy to see that a .wav file is much larger that an. mp3 file.



The audio quality is much harder to differentiate between the two file formats for one reason: most consumers of music today listen to music on either earbuds or headphones, not on large sound systems.  The audio information that was lost through compression of the .mp3 file is very hard to hear on small speakers like earbuds or even over-the-ear headphones unless you know what to listen for.

I used to think it was the bass "punch" that was lost in the compression of a .wav file to an .mp3 file, until two students stumbled across two different YouTube videos which tried to show the difference: Ryan Boelk and Kayla Holst.

Final MIDI Hymns - 1st Semester, 2014-2015

Alex Mortl - CW 284 How Precious is the Book Divine
Ben Dorst - CW 353 Praise the One Who Breaks the Darkness
Bryce Schuppe - CW 90 The People That in Darkness Sat
Colin Fiene - CW 344 At the Name of Jesus
Daniel Seo - CW 304 Jesus Sinners Does Receive
Gene Matz - CW 403 I Know My Faith is Founded
Jessica Schulz - CW 404 Faith is a Living Power from Heaven
Lincoln Schroeder - CW 201 A Mighty Fortress is Our God
Qifan Zhao - CW 471 Renew Me, O Eternal Light
Will Aird - CW 277 - God, We Praise You

Inputting MIDI notes into GarageBand '11 for MIDI Hymn Project

I hate preparing lessons for a substitute teacher.  Thankfully, the flipped classroom model redefines the work of a sub and allows a teacher to record themselves for their class even when they are gone.  The following video was recorded live in class, Thursday, Nov. 6, 2014 using QuickTime's screen recording feature to demonstrate how to enter MIDI notes into GarageBand '11 for the hymn Glory Be To Jesus. Students should watch this video and start making soprano, alto, tenor, and bass tracks their own project.  If you have questions, please comment to this blog article or to the YouTube video itself.

The 19 best DAW software apps in the world today

Apple Logic Pro X via AttackMagazine.com

What is a DAW?  Besides being my initials (that really confused me when I first starting seeing the abbreviation in electronic music magazines and websites) it's a Digital Audio Workstation.  Basically is a piece of software or an app that allows you to manipulate and create digital music.  We use three DAWs in Music Tech class: Audacity, GarageBand for Mac, and Abelton Live.  Which ones are in the top 19?

Read the full article at MusicRadar.

Dance Project 2 - Crossfading with Anchor Beats

The main goal of the second project of the year in Music Tech is to learn a new track joining technique: crossfading.  In the first Dance Project, we joined tracks by doing "hard cuts", going immediately from one edit to another edit without any overlapping, as shown in this screenshot:

Hard Cuts = The end of one track is the beginning of the next track

The advantage to doing hard cuts is that it is very easy to line up tracks–the end of one track is the beginning of the second track.  The problem with a hard cut is that unless the editor chose full beats (a.k.a Christmas trees) as they made their cuts and counted the eight-counts of the music, making sure the count kept going from one track into the next...

Track 1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Track 2: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...

...the problem could be a missed count or an incomplete beat, making the edit obvious instead of seamless.

This is why I teach the "Crossfading with Anchor Beat" technique. Crossfading is overlapping the end of one track with the beginning of another track.

Track 1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2
Track 2: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...

The benefit is that you can blend the two tracks together by fading in the 2nd track while fading out the first track, as shown below.

Crossfading from the Intro to the Chorus of "Eye of the Tiger"

The key to crossfading, in my opinion, is finding one beat ("1" of the red eight counts above and the yellow counts below) to line up with the same beat count in the second track.  It can be any beat, as long as it is the same position in the eight count.  This is especially helpful when the lyrics of a chorus or verse start before "1" of the first eight-count of that verse or chorus.

You can also use words as anchor point instead of counts, such as "Tiger" in the second transition below.  We found it became necessary to even get more precise and only line up the second syllable "-ger" because the lead singer of Survivor sang the first syllable "ti-" longer at one place in the song than in another place.  The "Outro" below starts at the last time "tiger" is sung in the piece.

Audacity: Eye of the Tiger (full project with annotations)

Dance Project One

Who is My Audience?

What should I write about in Dance Project One?  Keep in mind that there are three different audiences for your blog:

1. Yourself - write to remember what you did.
2. Your teacher - write to show what you learned.
3. Anyone else - write to explain how to do the project for someone who is interested.

What things need to be in my first blog article?

1. A Title - It should draw your reader in and be specific to the topic you are writing about.
2. A List of Steps how to do the project.  You don't have to be as technical and detailed as my instruction sheet was, but it should be specific enough that someone can recreate what you did.
3. Links to important information, such as words that need definition or ideas that can better be explained by reading more information on another website.
4. Annotated Screenshots - Add at least two, one full screen (Cmd-Shift-3) and one partial screenshot (Cmd-Shift-4).  Draw and write on them in Preview.

Read the article "What Makes a Good Blog?" I wrote for more ideas.

What about Commenting?

Most people who are internet citizens are used to commenting to each other online, be it with email, Facebook, or Twitter.  Commenting on a person's blog is a great way to learn more information, make a personal connection with someone whose work you admire, and possibly get someone to read your blog.

When commenting on someone else's blog, please follow these guidelines:

1. Introduce yourself in a way that helps them understand from what point of view you are writing: "I'm a student in a high school music technology class..."
2. Give a compliment before writing anything else. Most people don't hear enough compliments throughout their day: "I enjoyed reading your article about [xyz]. You helped me understand [abc]..."
3. Ask a question to engage them in a conversation so that they will reply to your comment: "Why did you...?"  

How to take a screenshot and write on it on a Mac

There are two simple keyboard combinations for taking a screenshot on a Mac:

• Command-Shift-3 (pressed all at the same time) takes a picture of the entire window. On older Macs, the Command Key was not labeled with "Command" but had two icons: a cloverleaf and an "Open Apple".
  
  

• Command-Shift-4 (pressed all at the same time) allows you to choose which part of the screen gets captured using your mouse

To annotate a screenshot, drag the .png screenshot file from your desktop onto the Preview icon in your dock to open it up. Click on the Annotate button on the top toolbar and look for the drawing icons on the bottom left corner of your screen.  There you can choose to make a circle, rectangle, text box, arrow, line and change colors of these items as you mark up your screenshot.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so why not annotate a screenshot rather than write a thousand words?

Update 9/11/15 To take screenshots on platforms other than Mac, go to http://www.take-a-screenshot.org/.