Yesterday I gave my MUS 108 classes their final assignment: write a blog.  I know that some teachers will ask for “a blog” as part of a class, when that teacher doesn’t keep a blog themselves.  I also know that many of my students will do just what it takes for an A, and walk away having learned nothing.  But I want to open the door, if only for one student, on the joys of writing, and the power of social media.

I started trying to blog in about 2000, when I moved to Cincinnati and became a web programmer.  I graduated from CMU in the spring, moved to Cinci in early summer and started trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life.  I decided that the .com boom was where I needed to be, but in order to do it, I needed to know one of the “hot” programming languages.  I chose ASP, gave my self an assignment, and applied for at least one job each day.

That was the daily regimen and it got old fast.  But I’m nothing if not stubborn.  Over the course of my “assignments” in ASP, I developed what was essentially a blog.  I made it public on the internet, and tried to fill it up with things that were interesting.  And that’s where I choked.  I had designed the database, come up with an ugly but elegant interface, worked out all the javascript, all the code…  and then I had nothing to say.

Before that I had put together my first website in about 1995 on Geocities.com.  It didn’t say much, other than “hello world.”  I had posted a resume, some photos, some scrolling text and flashing gifs, but not a lot of actual writing.  So even though I had taken a huge leap in my programming abilities, my problem in Cincinnati remained the same as it had always been.  I just had better tools with which to do it wrong.

I eventually got a job, life moved on, but because I was a web guy I always had a website, I was always tinkering with the mechanics of online publishing.  I don’t really remember when I started writing, but I do remember staring into my empty website from the early days and thinking that I wanted to write.  Needed to write.  Needed to say something.  And so one day I started.  It was a mess, and I made mistakes.  But good learning is like that.  My mission shifted from the medium to the message.

My MUS 108 class had a final assignment last semester (back in the good old days of MUS 107) of writing a website.  That assignment was a technical assignment.  But the blog assignment is a content assignment.  And for some of them, it’s going to be tough.  They get to see and read (or ignore) content all the time, but now that they are forced to take part in its production, they will have to think about it differently.  As part of the assignment they must comment on other classmates’ blogs, review/revise/support/rebut based on comments to their own blogs, and make sure to keep me in the loop.  It’s an experiment, but even if it flops I think I’m on the right path.  Especially in asking them to make their thoughts public and follow up on comments.  They can’t write a piece of fluff and then drop it like a hot rock.  They have to share it, and acknowledge others’ opinions.  They have to own what they write.

I have had two job interviews in the last two weeks, and both committees asked me about my skills in social media.  I gave examples and talked confidently, but I got the impression that they were making the same mistake that I made in the first days of my own website.  They seemed very interested in the mechanism of social media, but not the connections, not the content.  But they understood that there is this thing happening, and they need to get on board.  I hope someday they, like my students, understand that facebook is easy, a web page is easy, but content is hard.  That’s why it’s important.

Like many college students, I was told when I was young that conferences were a great place to network, to learn what is going on in my field, and to stay abreast of the newest, coolest things coming out.  Away from school, away from our professional environment and peers, we jokingly said that conferences were really just an excuse to get out of town and go drinking with old friends.  But still I went.

Over the following years I have performed, judged, competed, attended, and crashed conferences.  I’d like to think that I have an open and inquisitive mind, but so many of those conferences only had one or two presentations I wanted to see.  Not that I didn’t want to learn new things, but so many of the presentations looked like fluff, or had nothing to do with me.  Recently, I have found myself disappointed in the offerings, and not attending any of the presentations.  I go, shake hands, see a performance (if it’s a music conference), and explore the town.

I did my undergraduate degree in music; I initially wanted to be a high school band director, but somewhere along the way decided I’d rather not do that, but couldn’t bear the idea of not making music.  I switched to a degree in performance, and hit the practice room, mentally set to win an audition.  I was all about professionalism, all about getting prepared for the “real world,” and all about running on the tread mill faster than anyone around me.

One of the things I see happening in the conference world has me concerned. It’s the same thing I see in academia; we (the teachers) are selling a world (to the students) that doesn’t exist.  So many conference talks are about how to “get a job.”  The definition of “job” is orchestra, military band, or college teaching.  And the “get” means to win by audition.   The message sold at so many conferences is summarized thus: you will win by practicing harder than anyone else.

Did anyone notice there was only one full time college tuba-teaching job in the country this year?  Where was that info at the conference?  My friend Andy has transitioned from grad school in music to employment in the music industry, so he was asked to sit on a panel at a conference; a panel about jobs.  He mentioned to me later that the other three panel members seemed to be missing the point that there just aren’t any jobs only playing the tuba.

I recently read an article by Tom Loughlin where he decried the same flaw in the academic conference world of theatre.  One of my favorite lines is:

[The] emphasis is 97% on “how to succeed in the theatre business by trying a little harder.” It’s self-perpetuating, narcissistic, and almost cult-like.

I’ve marveled at this cult before.  In part because I am not a member, and in part because they seem to be missing the point. Most conferences seem to espouse an idea: the more you specialize, the more employable you will be.

The point is, education isn’t about getting a job; it’s about learning something you can apply to your life.  It might help you get a job, but colleges are not vocational training institutions.  And more than that, the things you learn in college aren’t just about music, or just about biology.  Another article I read addressed this idea very well: students have a lot going for them beyond the one little box of their degree title.  Basically, specialization doesn’t equal employment, and specialization doesn’t equal happiness.

I recently interviewed a very well-respected and successful arts leader here in town and the topic of conferences came up.  She admitted that she doesn’t go to any conferences anymore and explained why: after a few years of hitting all the major conferences she kept hearing the same things over and over.  She wasn’t getting much out of it, but she also noticed a pattern.  The people who were there were all trying to climb the ladder, not really trying to learn anything.  She liked the rung she was on, so she stopped going eventually.  I asked her about books and professional development, and again she sighed.  Her response was that at the end of a day she was happy with her work, but she wanted to go home to see her husband.  I smiled at that.  She explained further that she kept up with news and opportunities, but she was more than her job.

I know that conferences are limited to their own subject matter, but we as teachers and conference-goers should be careful not to buy into the idea that increasing specialization is the only path to employment.  And we need to drop the idea that gaining employment as a specialist is the only path to happiness and fulfillment.

When I was in high school I took a class called AP Computers.  Yeah, imagine that.  ME.  In an advanced placement class about computers.  I’m not a nerd or anything.

But as one of three people in this class, I was given the opportunity to help out a student who did not have the use of his limbs.  He could speak, and he could think well, he just couldn’t write, walk, or do a lot of the things most of us take for granted.  The school accommodated him by hiring an assistant to help him do his coursework, but they also took advantage of something new: voice recognition software.

My friend Patrick and I got to help setup and learn the software for this student, and then help him learn his way through it once we had figured it out.  At the time I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen, and it was cool to help out.  But the software was pretty slow (Any of you remember what a 486 was?  It used every ounce of power that poor machine had), and made some really interesting errors.  It didn’t tolerate any imperfection in pronunciation, and it had no context for words.  You couldn’t expect it to understand a phrase, just words.  Slowly.  One. At. A. Time.

Fast forward to now.  I have a cell phone.  Everyone has a cell phone.  Google has taken over the Earth too.  But there are some great things we do with technology that we just take for granted.  For me, one of those things is Google Voice.

Google Voice basically connects my phone to Google services, including voicemail, a local phone number, email notifications of missed calls, and text transcriptions of any messages.  It’s this last one that gets them in trouble.  Not because their technology isn’t amazing.  It is.  But because their technology listens like a computer.

Just like it did when I was in high school.

And now it sends me text messages: mangled, train-wreck English.  On my phone.  I’ve gotten pretty good at reading between the lines and figuring out what people are trying to tell me, despite the poor word choices, and wacky grammar.  But I always have to check the message myself.

For starters, it calls Anne Meade “Stanley.”  If I start dating someone named Stanley, it might take a blog post or two to explain what’s going on in my life.  But that I can understand; names are tough.  A few weeks into our relationship Google Voice even texted me to say that she was breaking up with me.  When I listened to the message, it was something like, “I need a break, um, when you get time, call me.”  Panic averted.

I got a call last night from a friend.  She left a message about a coffee shop called Francesca’s.  The text message reads in part, “I think you said intestines, which I have got totally.”

What a coincidence.  I’ve totally got intestines too.

Unlike the speech recognition software in high school though, at least Google tries to make sentences that are actually sentences, even if they end up being hilarious.  People recently have been awed by IBM’s “Watson” computer that seems to be capable of interacting like a human.  But we’ve been marveling at thinking machines for decades now, and a computer is still just a thing, and it’s “thoughts” are a mashup of words and bits that we might take to mean something.

Until we get the thinking machines to listen like people do, everything will still just be a mashup.

I’m a techie sort of guy. I used to be a programmer, web designer, etc. I’ve integrated computers into everyday life, like so many other Americans. But, I give regular thought to canceling my facebook account and unplugging everything. I’ve considered being a lumberjack. It has its perks. Like plenty of sawdust and flannel shirts.

This past week in my music technology class, I introduced a lesson on video editing. One of the students- an older student- does all her work on her own computer, keeps up, asks questions, and gets everything done on time. She wasn’t born to technology like all the younger students in the room, but she is old enough to know how to get things done, regardless of the medium. So, despite her lack of technical skills, she does good work.

However, because she does everything on her own computer, there is a new layer of complication added to the mix. She uses Windows, and the lab computers are Mac.

I’m operating system agnostic; if you want my opinion I’ll tell you why they both suck. And this is a story illustrating my point, now that I think about it. But it shouldn’t be a story illustrating why they suck. I thought they had this crap figured out years ago.

Operating system manufacturers: the moral of the story is PLAY NICE.

Mac/Quicktime/iMovie won’t export a movie format that can be read by Windows/Media Center/Movie Maker. Any codecs that facilitated such cross-platform interoperability are no longer supported. We’ve managed to crash her computer a few times just trying to make it do what my computer at home does. Which is to say, do what you expect.

But I’m not sure why my computer at home opens those files. According to the Intarwebz, Media Player and Quicktime used to play along nicer than they do now. And that makes me think that these problems are on purpose. Someone somewhere actually decided that not playing nice is ok.

I’m going to have to re-make all my resources for the project now that I know you cannot use a windows machine to do the assignment as it is written. Keep in mind I’m not changing my materials just for the student, but on principle as well. The class I teach is an entry-level technology class, and there are so many good tools to help the students be productive. Why should I force them to use one they don’t have when they could just as easily (in theory) use one they do?

But that gets me back to my hatred of computers. Computers are dumb. I mean that in the nicest possible way. They do exactly what we tell them to do. I stopped helping people out with their computers years ago not because I don’t enjoy the challenge of figuring out the puzzle, but because most often the user did it to themselves, and by fixing the computer I’m not really fixing the problem. The problem is that computer operating manufacturers sell operating systems, not usability. We as a buying public have gotten used to modifying ourselves to meet our computers’ needs. So how much are we willing to change for a dumb and inanimate object?

Extend that idea a little bit more, and you have to ask why someone would buy [brand X] word processor when [brand Y] word processor does everything they need and seems to play nice. The answer is that things change and the tools we have sometimes just don’t play nice with the changed world. So we have to change to make the tool work. Why do we spend and change to accommodate technology? We shouldn’t, but we do.

So, to wrap up my rant, I have to ask a semi-rhetorical question; how many of you felt after purchasing the latest wonder-gizmo that it had changed your life? How many asked the follow-up; how?

I’m selling my Cerveny CFB 653 F tuba.  It has 5 valves (4+1), and is on the small side for an F tuba.  It plays with a full resonant sound, even in the basement, which is surprising for a horn of its size.  The horn has no dents, but a little wear and tear from regular use.

I played this horn on a doctoral recital and regularly as my “practice” tuba at home.  It’s small enough to travel well, and big enough to be heard when you want to.  It has generally good intonation, with the normal quirks one expects on an F tuba.  The horn is mouthpiece sensitive; I found that the stainless steel Baer F mouthpiece makes this horn light up.

It includes a custom Glenn Cronkhite bag in blue and black.  Those of you not familiar with his bags; it’s very sturdy and comfortable, with high density padding and wide straps.  The bag will save you from a good deal of careless bumps that might go through a different bag, and you can sling it on your back and walk like a normal human being.  It’s well-designed and constructed.

I’m selling because I don’t need it (I have a few other horns I use more) anymore and am moving in a month.

I’m teaching music technology at UNCG, so I decided to have a little fun with my class for this next unit.

GarageBand is a MIDI sequencing program and audio editor.  Basically, it allows you to “compose” music by layering and arranging recorded and digital sounds.  For class, I performed a demonstration of the software by inviting everyone in class up over my shoulder as I constructed this, my magnum opus:

My-Song3

I created this live in front of my class.  I set up a loop with some bass and drums, talked about various aspects of the software and and recorded chunks of my monologue. I also grabbed a MIDI file off the desktop (Thank you Mozart!) and dropped it in real-time to show how flexible the software is. I applied some effects, built a groovy background and did some splicing, and BOOM. There we are.

It’s not art, but it’s a sign of how powerful music technology has become. It used to take a room full of very expensive equipment and many hours to do anything like this. Now the threshold has been lowered. Some people do this for a living.  I do it so my students think I’m a nerd.