Scott D. Lipscomb Music Education & Music Technology Tenure Dossier Electronic Dossier Instructions Includes instructions for: Timesketch Player BubbleMachine Flash Templates
TimeSketch Editor Pro The interactive listening guides below were created using a commercial product: TimeSketch Editor Pro (ECS Media). In order to play the examples below, you must install the TimeSketch Player. This is a very small subset of the listening guides I made for use in my class. In fact, when I was teaching a music appreciation course at UTSA, I created listening guides for every recording on the 6-CD set that came with Kerman's Listen textbook. To open one of the TimeSketch files, follow these steps: 1. click on the link for the file in the list below 2. when the dialogue window pops up, click on the "Open" button (not "Save") a. this will not work if you have not installed the TimeSketch Player 3. in the TimeSketch Player, click on "Index" at the bottom of the TimeSketch window 4. select "Chart Pages" from the index page 5. click on any song title in the Chart Page index 6. explore the composition, using any of the methods below a. click on the Play/Pause button b. click on any bubble to play the excerpt represented underneath the area of the bubble i. to play the entire composition, click on the bubble that extends from the beginning to the end of the composition ii. the bubbles are color-coded so that similar thematic sections are the same color, providing a visual representation of the musical form c. click-and-drag the triangle marker to move to a new location within the song
BubbleMachine QuickStart using the version embedded in the electronic dossier 1. In the area below, click on the ENTER button next to "Edit an existing file" 2. Type the following into the textbox: 1985.txt a. note that this information is case-sensitive, so make sure to use all lowercase characters 3. Click on the ENTER button (press the ENTER key on your computer keyboard will not work) and BubbleMachine will take you to the Tools page, where you can manipulate marker points, add more markers, or delete those present a. depending on the length of your musical example, it may take a few moments for the sound file and data to load into BubbleMachine. Please wait until you see a list of numbers appear in the "Marker List" on the right side of the Tools page 4. Without changing any of the information, click on the "Chart" button in the lower right hand corner of the Tools page 5. From the Chart page, you navigate through the song by clicking on the control buttons (play, pause, and stop), by dragging the button on the progress bar that represents the length of the song, or by clicking on any of the bubbles (causing playback to initiate directly from that location). 6. If you want to edit, delete, or add bubbles to the chart, on the Chart page, simply click on the "Tools" button to return to the page that allows you to perform these functions. You can toggle between the two pages, with the information updated immediatley, by clicking on the "Chart" and "Tools" buttons. a. if you do plan to experiment with the "Tools" page, you should definitely read the instructions provided Creating your own bubble graphs BubbleMachine - a brief tutorial Before attempting to use this program, please make sure that you are running the SWF file called BubbleMachine.swf as a standalone in the Flash Player, not through a web browser. You can download these programs free of charge from the web sites below: BubbleMachine.swf: http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/music/lipscomb/bubblemachine/ Macromedia Flash Player: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashplayer/ (you must be running the latest version of the Flash player at least version 6) Following are step-by-step instructions for creating a bubble chart, using the BubbleMachine. [Please note that currently only MP3 files can be used as sound files with BubbleMachine.]
1) The MP3 file must reside in the same folder as BubbleMachine.swf.
2) Double-click on the BubbleMachine.swf file to start the BubbleMachine program. To create a new bubble chart, when you see the welcome screen, simply click on the ENTER button next to "Start a new project".
3) Enter your information. Pay close attention to the mp3's file name. BubbleMachine is case sensitive here. However, the song title and artist name fields will appear exactly as you type them with mixed upper- & lower-case characters.
4) Depending on the speed of your computer, the load time can vary. When loading is complete, you should see something like this: 5) From this Tools page, you add your marker points by clicking on the + sign to the left of the Marker List panel. You can delete markers by clicking on the item in the list that you want to remove, then clicking on the - sign. You also have the option of editing markers by selecting the desired marker and clicking on Edit. very fine resolution (to the millisecond) edits of the markers can be made using the key combinations listed in the Time Cue area of the page as you make adjustments, you can listen to a predetermined amount of music leading up to ( pre ) or following ( post ) the marker point by clicking on the Play To or Play From buttons, respectively. The amount of time played before and after the marker is determined by selecting the desired number of seconds from the drop-down box to the right of the Play To button. 6) You can control playback of the sound file by using the familiar Play, Pause, and Stop buttons found in the lower middle portion of the Tools Window. You can also dragand-drop the progress bar on the Timeline in the area below the Time Cue and Pre/Post Roll panels. 7) When you want to view the resulting interactive bubble chart, simply click on the Chart button and play the sound file using the Play, Pause, & Stop buttons or clicking on the bubble that represents the section you wish to hear.
8) To save your chart data, return to the Tools page and click on the Save button. Carefully follow the instructions printed for you on the Save Your Bubble Graph page. Should you encounter any problem, please notify the creators of the program, so we can assist: Scott Lipscomb (lipscomb@northwestern.edu) or Marc Jacoby (mjacoby@vandercook.edu). We offer this useful tool free of charge in the hope that your students will benefit from such an interactive tour of musical compositions. We hope you enjoy using this program and that it serves to enhance the music learning in your music classroom. Please send us reports of its use and innovative ways that you have integrated this tool into your teaching. Also, we will be updating the software continuously and would appreciate any suggestions, comments, or critiques you might have about the BubbleMachine. Sincerely, Scott Lipscomb Northwestern University Marc Jacoby VanderCook College
Interactive Listening Guide Template Instructions (including the AABA, I-vi-IV-V, and 12-bar blues templates) Templates developed in Flash by Dr. Scott D. Lipscomb 2005 To create your own interactive listening guide, simply follow the steps below: start Flash and open the appropriate template file: o AABA: aaba_template.fla o I-vi-IV-V: I-vi-IV-V_template.fla o 12-bar blues: 12barBlues_template.fla immediately, save the file with a new name, so the template file always remains unchanged o I recommend adopting a simple naming convention such as: aaba_songtitle.fla or 12barblues_SongTitle.fla, replacing SongTitle with the name of the musical example you will use o as a general rule, you should avoid using spaces and/or special characters in file names that will be accessed via the internet select an MP3 file that exemplifies the appropriate song structure and import it into the movie s library o File Import Import to Library o then browse to the file, select it, and click on the Open button once the import process has completed o click on frame 1 of the music layer in the Timeline panel o open the movie s Library (Window Library), select the MP3 file listed in the Library window, then drag-and-drop it anywhere on the Stage you will know you have succeeded when you see a representation of the digital sound file in the music layer in order for the Listening Guide to work properly, the sound Sync mode must be set to Stream ; to check this open the Properties window (Window Properties) and check the setting; if you do not see the complete set of options in the image below, click on the downward pointing triangle in the lower right corner of the Properties window to expand the information area
Now you must increase the number of frames in your Flash movie so that it extends for the entire duration of your song. In order to calculate this value, we must determine the duration for the sound file and the frame rate of our movie sound file duration: o select the MP3 sound file in your movie s Library, then open the Library Panel options menu by clicking in the upper right corner of the panel o select Properties from the list of menu items o in the Sound Properties window, notice that the following information is provided for the sound file I imported: sample rate 44 khz channels stereo bit depth 16 bit duration 166.4 seconds file size 3328.0 kilobytes determine the frame rate of your movie: o click any empty area on the stage and look at the Properties window, where you will find information about your movie, including its size, background color, and frame rate; the default frame rate of 12 fps (frames per second) will work fine for the Listening Guide to calculate the number of frames needed, simply multiply the duration of your musical example (in seconds) by the frame rate o for my song this would be 166.4 x 12 = 1,996.8 (rounded up to 1,997)
in the music layer of the Timeline window, scroll to this frame number and right-click (Win) or Control-click (Mac) on that frame of the music layer, then select Insert Frame from the pop-up window that appears o you may have to do this several times, since you may be limited in the number of empty frames Flash will allow you to scroll [Hint: if you click on the Options menu in the upper right corner of the Timeline window, you can select Tiny, allowing you to see a greater number of frames at a single glance. You will probably want to change this setting back to Normal once you have inserted the appropriate number of frames.] for every layer except the actions layer, follow the directions above to insert a frame (not a keyframe) on this final frame of your movie o click on the final empty frame in the appropriate layer o press F5 or select Insert Timeline Frame on the actions layer, select the final keyframe (frame 50 for the AABA & I-vi- IV-V templates or frame 130 for the 12-bar blues template and release the mouse button. Once the frame is selected, click-and-drag it to the final frame calculated in the steps above, so that the actions layer is equal in length to all of the other layers. o alternatively, you can right-click (Win) or Control-click (Mac) on the final keyframe on the actions layer and select Cut Frames, then right-click (Win) or Control-click (Mac) the last frame of your movie on the actions layer and select Paste Frames Setting up the Keyframes You are now prepared to arrange the keyframes (the filled black circles) located on the letters layer of this Flash movie, so that they accurately represent the musical form of your selected musical example. This process is a bit time-consuming, but with practice will become second nature and will allow you to create additional Listening Guides at the rate of about one every 10-15 minutes well worth the time invested, when considered in terms of the potential enhancement of student learning and musical understanding. To familiarize yourself with the content of each of the keyframes contained on the letters layer, look at the content of the stage as you click on the keyframes located in frames 1, 10, 20, 30, & 40. As you can see, these frames are distinguished one from another in the following way: 1. AABA template o frame 1 no section is highlighted o frame 10 1 st A section is highlighted o frame 20 2 nd A section is highlighted o frame 30 B section is highlighted o frame 40 final A section is highlighted 2. I-vi-IV-V template o frame 1 no section is highlighted o frame 10 I-chord section is highlighted o frame 20 IV-chord section is highlighted
o frame 30 IV-chord section is highlighted o frame 40 V-chord section is highlighted 3. 12-bar blues template o frame 1 no section is highlighted o frame 10 measure 1 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 20 measure 2 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 30 measure 3 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 40 measure 4 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 50 measure 5 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 60 measure 6 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 70 measure 7 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 80 measure 8 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 90 measure 9 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 100 measure 10 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 110 measure 11 of 12-bar structure is highlighted o frame 120 measure 12 of 12-bar structure is highlighted The process of setting up keyframes consists of simply moving or copying the appropriate keyframe to the desired location within the Flash movie. [For this process, you may want to set the Timeline window to the Tiny setting, so you can see more frames concurrently; see instructions above.] To determine where a keyframe should be placed, you can use either of the two methods described below: 1. use the Controller toolbar like you would to control a CD player a. if you don t see this toolbar, select Window Toolbars Controller 2. click-and-drag the Playback marker and you will hear the sound file as you drag (the Sync mode of the sound file must be set to Stream )
For the first chorus of your musical selection, you will need to move each of the initial keyframes to its appropriate position in the first chorus of the song. The most efficient way to accomplish this task is to carefully follow the steps below: 1. using the control toolbar to play back the sound file, locate within your movie the exact frame number where the initial keyframe should be located (i.e., the beginning of the first chorus of your musical form) 2. select the keyframe on bar 10 of the template 3. while holding the SHIFT key down, click on the final keyframe to select all keyframes in between frame 10 and the final keyframe a. the first time you do this, the final keyframe will be found in measure 40 for the AABA and I-vi-IV-V templates and measure 120 for the 12-bar blues template 4. click anywhere in the range of highlighted cells and (without releasing the mouse button) drag the selected frames until the first keyframe is located in the frame representing the beginning of the first chorus, then release the mouse button; this moves all keyframes at the same time 5. next, click on the second keyframe of your musical form (highlighting the second A of the AABA form, the vi-chord of the I-vi-IV-V progression, or bar 2 of the 12-bar blues form), and return to step three above 6. repeat this process until you have located all four (for the AABA and I-vi-IV-V templates) or twelve (for the 12-bar blues template) keyframes to the appropriate position in the first chorus of your sound file You have now successfully completed the first chorus of your interactive musical listening guide and this is where the real time-saving technique comes in: 1. using the control toolbar to play back your sound file, determine the exact frame number for the beginning of the next chorus of your musical example 2. select all keyframes of the first chorus by clicking on the first keyframe, holding the SHIFT key while you select the final keyframe of the first chorus 3. copy these frames by right-clicking (Win) or Control-clicking (Mac) anywhere within the range of selected cells and, from the pop-up menu, select Copy Frames 4. highlight the cell identified in step #1 above and right-click (Win) or Controlclick (Mac) on it, then select Paste Frames from the pop-up menu that appears 5. listen carefully to the chorus using the control toolbox and move the keyframes (select, then click-and-drag) within this chorus, so that they are located exactly where you want them 6. return to step #1 above and repeat this process until you have reached the end of the song You will notice that each keyframe on the letters layer has a frame label attached as well. This is an important component, since the letters on the stage in addition to representing the musical form act as buttons to initiate playback from location of the appropriate label, e.g., for the AABA template, clicking on the first a will initiate playback from a1, clicking on the b will initiate playback from b, etc. Therefore, it
is imperative that these labels be attached to the keyframes to ensure the intended behavior is carried out. 1 Final Steps MOST IMPORTANT STEP: After you have completed the process of setting all of the keyframes for your interactive listening guide, make certain that the length of your letters layer is equal to the length of all other layers in your movie. Sometimes, when you copy-and-paste frames as you were instructed to do in the steps enumerated above, frames are added to that layer, causing the length of that particular layer to extend well beyond the end of the other layers. All you have to do to correct this is to scroll to the very end of the letters layer, hold the CONTROL key, and click-and-drag the final frame of the letters layer back to the same frame number as the final frame of all of the other layers. 2 Customizing the Displayed Information (the easiest part!) simply double-click on the two text labels ( Song Title and Artist ) and replace the text with the appropriate information for your selection. Finally, you can determine the amount of compression applied to the digital audio file when you publish your interactive listening guide. In these templates, I have chosen what I consider to be appropriate settings (64 kbps, stereo, best quality), but you can easily change these settings to create higher quality sound (results larger SWF file size) or lower quality sound (smaller SWF files). To change these settings, simply select File Publish Settings click on the Flash tab at the top of the window and click on the Set button next to audio stream near the bottom of the window change the values to your preferred settings: o Compression [I recommend MP3 ] o Preprocessing [I unchecked this box, so the sound file is stereo, but you can sometimes not always reduce your file size substantially, if you are willing to tolerate mono playback] o Bitrate [template default: 64 kbps ] this is a major way to reduce the size of your online listening guide, though there is a very obvious tradeoff between file size and audio quality the smaller the file size, the lower the quality. Use the following as a guide: less than 64 kbps low quality audio (the lower the bitrate, the lower the audio quality) 64 kbps FM radio quality 1 You will notice that each keyframe will have a label attached, so duplicate labels will appear in your movie (i.e., there will be an a1 label for each chorus of the composition). Pressing one of the buttons on stage will consistently initiate playback beginning at the initial appearance of the frame label associated with the desired musical subsection. 2 The importance of this step is difficult to overstate, since the value used to determine the appropriate location of the button on the scrollbar that moves during playback is determined by the total number of frames contained in the Flash movie.
128 kbps CD quality (in my opinion, this description is debatable) 192 kbps or higher transparent CD audio quality o Quality [template default: Best ] Publishing Your Listening Guide Once you have completed the steps outlined above, make sure to save the final version of your movie. Finally, create the web-ready SWF version by selecting File Publish This will allow you to access your new interactive Listening Guide using the stand-alone Flash player on a local computer or to upload the SWF file to a server, allowing access via the web using an Internet browser with the Flash plug-in. If you have problems or wish to make suggestions for a future version of this template, please contact Dr. Scott D. Lipscomb at: lipscomb@northwestern.edu.