Making rhythm tutorial videos

I’m continuing to crank out educational videos for Play With Your Music. Part of the process involves remaking old videos as both my chops and the facilities in NYU’s Blended Learning Lab improve. Here’s my series on the basics of rhythm:

We’ve made several improvements, some technical, some creative. The most immediately noticeable one is multiple camera angles. NYU’s Blended Learning Lab now has three cameras instead of just one. We can now cut back and forth between various angles, rather than showing a continuous talking head shot. It doesn’t seem like it would make such a big difference, but it does.

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User interface case study: Propellerheads Figure

As I contemplate my masters thesis, I’m looking for good examples of beginner-centric musical user interface design. Propellerhead’s new Figure app has been a source of inspiration for me. It’s mostly wonderful, and even its design flaws are instructive.

Figure drum programming interface

I have a long history with Propellerhead’s software, beginning with Rebirth in 1998. I’ve made a lot of good music with their stuff, but have also experienced a lot of frustration, mostly due to their insistence on slathering everything with unhelpfully “realistic” design.

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