Music and education

Hi all, my first post so please be gentle :joy:
1, when my dad retired he got himself a portable keyboard, a Yamaha PSR something and then went on to various other more involved keyboards. This got me on the road to trying to create some sort of tonal listening. As much as I thought that I was playing along ok, unfortunately my timing was all over the place and I’ve never really mastered it.l did take piano lessons and managed Grade 1 and that was as far as I got with formal training. I do wish I had stuck with it.

2 I still try to use to use a keyboard for input but I still have problems with timing so a lot of editing in Daw required :rofl:

3 Scaler would be great for education, I couldn’t grasp music notation when I was younger, trying to sight read and play the right notes at the same time is a multitasking thing, me as a male struggles with that​:rofl::rofl:

Finally this is a great group and I’m learning a lot more now at the age of 66 than I ever did when I was younger.

3 Likes

great!!Thank you for sharing your story

@bernd makes a good point about other performance devices than the ‘conventional’ ones, and it was remiss of me. The increasing sophistication of combination of other controllers plus software and the emergence of MPE is changing what ‘performance’ means.
If you have never watched her, check out these two

which feature various controllers, but including Push and the Roli. I guess many with a more classical idea of music might poo poo controllers as not requiring any skill, but Neon Vines blows this idea up.

@Ed1 highlighted some of the issues in winning more penetration in schools. On the staff notation point I agree, but software always faces a challenge as whether to do everything in a mediocre way or do some things very well and interface with other things that do their bit very well **. Scaler already has the interfacing / integration piece , e.g. you can drag and drop into Sibelius for notation, which just about every UK school will use, for example. Planned development lists for software products always exceed the amount of time/money to do them by a factor of 10.

I’ll sure you might get volunteers to do the translation for Scaler, but that would be helped if have applied a ‘no text’ rule in the code and put all external dialogues in message catalogues.
Ed also make a really good point on guitar learning. I have 9, yes nine, DVD’s on theory and application of ‘modes’ https://www.licklibrary.com/ (A whole DVD on the Locrian mode :face_with_head_bandage: ) It just seems to me that they make it too hard work and approach the assimilation of what is needed to be known in the wrong way; I devised my own ideas for visualising the neck and getting on top of scales - but that’s another story.

PS: ** I took this route with my own software development and stuck rigidly to a ‘vertical’ application approach, instead seeking to forge alliances with other vertical vendors in adjacent functions, to try and avoid the “mile wide and an inch deep” trap of not doing anything well.

2 Likes

BTW @Ed1 , I hadn’t realised but the entry level of Sibelius is free Music Notation Software - Sibelius - Avid

This girl is wonderful. I want to, but it’s hard… Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

1 Like

Great, another humorist!
You are welcome @swingmix in the Band Of Humorists, the new Scaler collaborative project created here and further developed here a few days ago
:rofl:

I forgot to mention that all family members of my mother was able to play instruments, and in those times all pupils where taught music, solfeggio included, in the middleschool

great-grandfather: clarinet in the railwayman’s band
My mother and her 4 brothers and sisters: accordion
My uncle: started playing the vibraphone in the Fred Buscaglione’s orchestra and other jazz bands, then gone to player-piano, electric pianos, and other kinds of keyboards, playing on cruise liners and elsewhere

I also had a band, playing just for friends, and I attended a blues guitar course in the eighties, but unfortunately I was always unwilling to exercise scales all day long ( :crazy_face:) that is essential to learn to play blues solos, so I gave up quickly

1 Like

URGH!
Looking at my electric guitar, I feel the monkey on my back whispering
:rofl:

It’s better I go back to work

1 Like

What a happy family. Music, love, fun, perfect. Thank you for sharing! It’s wonderful

1 Like

Yes, I can say the meetings with my mother’s family (my father’s family was boring, disturbing, ugly :crazy_face:) were always a lot of food & fun, notably when my uncle was just came back from an adventure in some part of the world bringing exotic gifts for everybody

I remember for example a full-scale fluffy Koala from Australia, Red Indian moccasin from the USA, a wreath from Fiji Islands, etc.

1 Like

The face of satisfaction of my children when I returned from playing a few months in Germany forced me to go to the shopping centers to buy toys and children’s clothes (even diapers, which in Spain then could only be bought in pharmacies).
I started studying music in my town, at the band school. The music band from my town was in Paris, invited to the great universal exhibition, shortly before the beginning of the 20th century. There they bought 2 Buffet Champron bassoons. And, in 1970 I started to play one of those instruments
I have noticed all the bad pedagogy that musical teaching has had (I suffered it in my own flesh). However, I will always be grateful that I had the opportunity to be there. I always try to teach my students in a different way, in the way my dearest teachers taught me: my uncle Pepe was the principal clarinet of the Madrid Municipal Band for more than 30 years, and Igor Markevich’s woodwind advisor. at the founding of RTVE, but he never boasted of anything. When he came to town on vacation, he would look for me … he would tell me that he really wanted to play with me (right now I’m crying to remember it). I played with him and learned. After playing with him (after receiving the most wonderful master class), my grandmother’s cousin called his wife: María !, is the chocolate and the churros ready? Juanito and I are hungry after playing so well! "
Apart from finishing my bassoon studies, and being a professor of music since 1981 (who will catch the 21 years I was then), I will tell you that when I was 15 years old I played the Mozart concerto for bassoon and orchestra as a soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of the Mozarteum, in Salzburg. Today after my surgery for cancer of the mouth and lymph nodes, I am just a poor imitation of myself. It is old age, too. Now I am working to compose. My life was always with music, and so it must continue
I always give the best of myself to the students (as my uncle Pepe did with me), but I will tell you that there are many times when I think that many of them are not interested. Nowadays, the study of the harmony, the counterpoint, the composition, the analysis of the works to direct them is much easier with the resources, Scaler included, of course. I am very happy to use it. Also to be in this forum in which people say what we would like the program to have more. It’s fine for me like this. Being able to experience chord changes in a progression, build the progression, hear the effect that it produces immediately is something very great for someone who studied piano on the train, on the way to the Conservatory, with a cardboard on which I had drawn the keys, because not there was money at home to buy a piano. More or less, like writing music in Sibelius or Musecore when I always remember that I started with a pen and inkwell.
Everything will get better, but we always have to do something of our own. Don’t expect the show to do it for us. That would be a mistake.
Thanks for always being here

3 Likes

YUK!
Thinking to my uncle’s clarinet I googled the technique and found I always put the reed on top instead of below :woozy_face:

Maybe this is why I’ve never be able to use it
I must try again with the reed correctly positioned

@jjfagot you’ll have flunked me for that
:rofl:

1 Like

What a wonderful experience that must have been, and in such a memorable venue.

Your background shows what a divers set of this sample of Scaler users are; music is a common language whose effect largely ignores country boundaries, or at least in the Western paradigm based on harmony.

I found Salzburg interesting, but very crowded on all 3 times I was there. On one trip I visited the “Hanger 7” Red Bull museum, which was quite empty, which I found surprising - I thought there would be more motorsport fans there.

1 Like

Yes, the experience was incredible. Or so my brain says. You know that we have a great ally with the brain, which is capable of preferably keeping the good, or the best. It’s like an A.I. prepared for that. And, thank goodness …
In order not to lose the thread, I would like to say that the subject of music and education has a lot to do with that. With the interest that arises in our Non-Artificial Intelligence, which is based on what we instinctively want to do and what our loved ones tell us we should do.
I have had students to whom, finally, I have asked: what do you like about music? “Nothing” is the terrible reply I received.
So if this is not a required education, why do you come here? Who likes music in your house? “To my father”. Well, let your father come to class, I replied.
Music is not mandatory for anyone, although it is scientifically proven that it is good for carbon units. There is scientifically proven data that say that Egyptians used music to cure insomnia and reduce pain. Pythagoras used it to control anger and to develop intelligence. Mozart’s music is still used so that plants and animals produce more without feeling bad about it, and etc … Music manages to balance us in our lives.
The role of music teachers should be to encourage and develop skills, but something has to come from one’s own home. If you don’t want it, make room for someone else who does.
And, also if:
Music has no borders. In Scaler users, as you well say, there are many ways of seeing, understanding or approaching music. Sure we are not all thinking about music in the same way or style, but they are all positive. Surely it is because Scaler is a useful tool for any style of music, as long as you want to learn

2 Likes

Being an “older” user as well, I definitely relate to your post and often think about the same things. I grew up during a time where all of these AMAZING music technology marvels were non-existent. To really be able to create quality music, you would have had to have some semblance of music knowledge and training. Otherwise, you were just tinkering around with your synth or midi sequencer. What we have now is ridiculously fantastic. Things like Scaler are game-changers! Not only does it inspire seeking music theory, but it also sparks creativity for people that have the knowledge and know how to use it to their advantage… but I digress. :slight_smile:

  1. As a kid, I attempted “musical” training via learning on the guitar. I recall it being a horrible experience, and frankly, I wanted to learn chords and not notation. I wanted to make the music I was hearing, and not go by the book… in any case, that really dissuaded me.

  2. Fast forward to our current era, where learning music theory is abundantly simpler and more accesible via YouTube, Scaler, and other auto-theory affordances in DAWs. People can harness that knowledge via clicks of the mouse and create gorgeous music. What a wondrous age.

I strongly believe tools like Scaler, not only facilitate the creation of music, but for people like myself, it becomes a fantastic educational tool towards building on my music theory super powers. No more tinkering around. :slight_smile:

1 Like

In theory, I had 2 years of music in primary school but our teacher was very well connected and was only claiming salary (work being optional) - the only “instrument” I remember playing was football :rofl:. Back then I didn’t care; right now I regret it a lot.
As a teenager, I did learn how to play guitar but it was my friends that tought me (chords of corse - no theory whatsoever). Good times… :rofl:
Started to play piano 2 years ago - no formal training, no youtube, no nothing - just looking for good sounding keys and getting wild with it :rofl:.
I guess I reached the point where intuitive playing ends and started looking for a primer in music theory.
And this is how I met Scaler :rofl:.

Pressing keys all the time. With a mouse, I mostly draw drums and, of corse, quantization and corrections on recorded midi. Sometimes a quick bass.

My parents tried to ram guitar and violin down my throat but as a petulant child I steadfastly refused so missed that pathway. Got into DJ’ing as a young teenager and became a successful DJ. Met some friends who had a recording studio, made some tunes and that took off. Moved to the UK started a label, worked with many producers and then joined a composition house where I had no theory and was regularly yelled at for writing in a minor key even though I was convinced I was in major. Studied music theory in my thirties. Have really picked it up in the last ten years by composing. Scaler has embedded the ‘sound’ of theory and my history is the reason why I always dreamed of such a tool.

4 Likes

hahaha, very funny and very patient colleagues anyway
:rofl:

That evolution and the vision arising from it shines through. We used to have a saying about our software product’s users that there was ‘no nit too small to pick’ . It’s easy to miss the underlying concepts and scope of Scaler for transforming peoples musical journey by seamlessly integrating theory with hearing it and experimenting with just a click.

All software has bugs and the Scaler authors are pretty responsive IMHO, so don’t lets miss the bigger picture of what Davide and team have done.

I’m unaligned and not a shareholder, I hasten to say :relaxed:

1 Like

Whew, so glad to hear I am not the only one who believes that minor key sounds better than major, this whole “sad”/“happy” BS…

1 Like