My guest this week is Robby Burns. He is a music educator, freelance percussionist, and technology specialist residing in Ellicott City, Maryland. He is the go-to guy when it comes to technology in music education

A little about Robby Burns…

Robby’s teaching experience ranges from elementary school through university ensembles. He is currently an employee of the Howard County Public School System where he teaches band and general music at Ellicott Mills Middle School and co-directs the HCPSS Middle School GT Honor Band. Outside of his daily music teaching responsibilities, Robby maintains an active private percussion teaching studio out of his home. Many of his students are now music majors in college, have been accepted into district and state honor ensembles, and have found success as freelance and touring musicians. Robby is regularly called upon as an adjudicator, arranger, ensemble coach, and clinician. 

Robby is the recipient of the 2025 Mike Kovins Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year award.

Robby has presented sessions at music education conferences all over the country on the subject of band and orchestra directing, music production software, cloud services, Apple products, and their connection to productivity and creativity in the music classroom. Robby’s first book, Digital Organization Tips for Music Teachers, published by Oxford University Press, is available now. He writes and speaks about music, education, and technology on his blog and podcast, Music Ed Tech Talk.

As a freelance percussionist, Robby is comfortable with all styles, specifically including orchestral, musical theater, opera, chamber, rock, and jazz. He has performed with the Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Opera Camerata of Washington, D.C., and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under such conductors as Marin Aslop and Lorin Maazel. Robby has also worked with a variety of local music projects including rock cello quartet, Primitivity, and nine-piece funk band, The Superland Stage Band.

Robby holds a Bachelor of Music Education and Masters of Music from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he studied orchestral percussion with Tony Ames (NSO) and timpani with John Tafoya and Benjamin Ramierez (both former NSO). He has also benefited from the instruction of Steve Fidyk (Army Blues Band) and Janis Potter (solo marimba artist). During his time at UMCP he also devoted attention towards orchestration, theory, conducting, and jazz arranging.

Robby is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher. He is a member of the National Association for Music Education, the Percussive Arts Society and TI:ME, which is the national organization for Technology in Music Education.

Topics during this episode

Robby and I covered a number of topics during this session. They include the following:

• Technology setup within the classroom
• The tech Robby has in front of him during class
• The ease with which he can play example recordings at any time
• The keyboard that’ always available
• Robby’s use of his iPad.
• Amplification during class
• Obsidian, Craft, and Notion
• “The mental overhead of learning new software”
• The sunsetting of Finale
• Dorico
• Robby’s “Daily Note”
• Forwarding an email to the task app
• AI: Robby’s thoughts and uses

For more about Robby Burns, visit his website: RobbyBurns.com.

Come over and enjoy the conversation Roobby and I had when I was a guest on his show:

Productivity Boot Camp (Part I): Notes and Tasks. Tasks are the “doing” parts of our lives. Notes give us the reference information when we want to access it. Often, a task provides the trigger to retrieve and use something in the notes at just the right time. We had a ball with this episode.

Productivity Boot Camp (Part 2): Email and Calendars. Our calendars make sure we show up at the right time. Email gives us one place for the communication in our lives.

Get Organized Digitally! We recorded this session just after the book’s publication. If you’ve read the book, the episode may cause you to revisit a topic or two you have forgotten about.

If you enjoyed this content, join the email list so you never miss a thing. You receive two gifts for joining. One gets your desk clean. The other puts everything you have to do in one digital place. It’s time to Get Organized! and make it look easy.