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Showing posts from February, 2012

Be brave & kind!

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Music & education often cross paths. But they are rarely linked as in today's event: Lady Gaga's presence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education to launch the Born This Way Foundation , which goal includes inspiring bravery and kindness in young people and stopping bullying. Alyssa Rodemeyer, "youth empowered", talking with Lady Gaga in Sanders Theater. Of course, we want to believe their messages: Lady Gaga: You are all born superstars! Alyssa Rodemeyer: If one kid can set an example, then the rest will follow. The live event just ended: it might be time to watch Lady Gaga's recent video Marry the night :

For a better teaching

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Harvard recently kicked off a new initiative for better teaching . As a music educator, I feel very much concerned by the quality of teaching, and I feel very lucky to have been working with great mentors at Harvard. In Professor Heller's Physics of Music & Sound course, the teaching staff were working hard to make the class engaging and efficient. For instance, we were using methods with great records of success, such as peer-instruction and live student response systems ("clickers"). Since I was recruited in the Conservatoire du Pays de Montbeliard, I've been working on improving the art & science connections around. I've been impressed to see so many talents in the area: in universities, high schools, public and private organizations; but a lack of communication between people prevents the emergence of real creative breakthroughs. After recent invigorating talks, I'm confident great multimedia projects are going to crystalize in the next months.

Master in multimedia, option music & sound

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I have been teaching for a year in the Music & Sound part of the master multimedia products & services offered by the Franche-Comté university - yes, in this post, most of the links point to French sites! This cursus is organized in partnership with Pays de Montbéliard Agglomération and the composition & creation section of the conservatory. The cursus is based on the integration of an artistic approach with technical and scientific knowledge. I taught subjects like interactive music with Max & Jitter, as well as theoretical and practical notions on digital sound. Next year, I hope an introduction to microprocessors & physical computing will be added to the course plan - surely based on the Arduino platform. I'll let you know. I have been in charge in 2011 of coordinating the conception of a web site presenting this cursus. You will know more when visiting the web site: master multimedia, specialty music & sound . Congrats to Romain, web designer, who

Carlos Caires: Irin & microsound

Composer Carlos Caires has been a friend of mine for several years, and even more since Fall 2009, when we taught together at Shanghai Conservatory . Carlos is a professor at the Escola Superior de Música in Lisboa. One of his long term projects has been the development of a micromontage software tool : Irin . He conceived this tool for his own use, in order to compose the music he had in his mind. It is a great reason to develop a new tool, and it is a very traditional approach in music making. Johann Sebastian Bach was acting alike when he was working on new refinements in organs, for instance: he was working on tools to make the music closer to what he had in mind. Spectral slicing in Irin Carlos made me the honor of using a spectrally-based slicing tool of mine inside the most recent version of Irin : I encourage you to check out Carlos Caires's music, for instance his Duetto for piano & live electronics, recently recorded by pianist Ana Telles .