Group items tagged

This website includes a variety of band literature and long descriptions of them. It has tags to organize the music for searching by year, grade, and more. It is to help band directors choose and study music for their ensembles.

Band World Magazine online is a magazine that encompasses everything Band. It has articles that relate to every thing Band directors deal with and encounter every day. There are areas that you can only look at if you are a subscriber, but there are also free options as well.

This is a discussion by New York Times columnist, David Brooks, and Kathy Fletcher, and the director of Turnaround Arts Initiative about the important work that Turnaround Arts does through the strategic use of the arts. The discussion talks about how music facilitates brain development, why certain things in music leave people fascinated, and what magic music brings to emotion. The discussion also unfolds how the arts, and music education in particular opens the student's mind to memorisation. David Brooks says "Students understand better when topics are introduced through music". I agree with that because most students become more alert when a topic is introduced through song and it fosters the interest of students. Therefore we need arts to succeed in education. A lot of artists came from struggling backgrounds so when they talk to children that would like to succeed in the music world but are frightened that they'll never make it, they tell them "I know what you are going through but you can make it". This encourages those children to push on and excel in the arts. Kathy Fletcher says music boosts critical thinking and confidence which is ideal for students and they end up excelling in all other fields. The arts connect us all through music in a way that music created is shared all around the world. Partnerships are created to perform music and people come together to listen to music. This makes us one.

I'm a Choir Director: With close to 25,000 members, this is the largest group that I am a member of on Facebook. I highly recommend joining this group, even if you strictly teach instrumental music as I do, for the great shared content (updates in the vocal world and additional resources).

IHSMA is the hub for music education in the state of Iowa. IHSMA runs state functioned events such as Large group festivals (marching band, concert band and choir, jazz band and choir, show choir), solo and ensemble contest, and the All-State Music Festival. IHSMA provides guidelines and rules directors should follow regarding all of these events. IHSMA also provides professional development for all music educators across the state, regardless of position.

IPA Source is an excellent resource for any choral director, especially if you include foreign language pieces in your repertoire. Not only does this site offer IPA translations and guides for your knowledge, but you can even use it as a resource to teach your students the International Phonetic Alphabet. This resource is not entirely free, but the subscriptions are relatively affordable for educational institutions.

Music Blog by Dale Duncan, a middle school choral director. Dale shares tips and resources on his blog regarding middle school choral pedagogy and also sells a sight singing method called S-Cubed that he has developed with his choral programs and has seen great success.

Wendy Higdon's website provides useful resources for the band classroom, including recruitment tactics, practice guides, and a blog with further guidance. This site is geared towards the elementary and secondary ensemble setting.

This website offers several different resources that any band director could find useful. The blogs section has a variety of posts detailing the experiences of other educators as well as the different techniques they employ in their classes. It also has a section for materials and different .pdf files that can be used as helpful resources for lesson plans.

ACDA website with links to choral journals, library archives, festival information and more.

This is the official ACDA website. You can find information about conferences, as well as access resources and connect with colleagues. If you teach choir, being a member of ACDA is a must.

The purpose of this resource is wide and varied. Not only does this resource provide choral music educators with a professional development community but also looks at a range of topic regarding singing both in the individual and choral setting. Membership in this organization does cost a fee but there are many benefits for music educators who teach choir.

This resource is a kind of jazz band syllabus posted on Midwest's website to help directors who are new to jazz or want to get better at teaching a jazz class. Includes suggested method books, warm-ups, repertoire, kinds of scales to teach, etc.

These podcasts discuss band problems and solutions to apply to everyday lessons. It covers a variety of band information including beginning band materials to support the curriculum and even ensemble seating.

This is a podcast designed to help band directors who are not clarinet players, or clarinet players looking for resources. It dives in the solving clarinet problems including tone, hand position, tonguing, and much, much more.

This page provides a list of repertoire that is suitable for young bands. Along with the titles, arrangers and publisher, it provides a brief description as well as length of piece. This is a great resource with young bands wanting to play higher level repertoire. 

This PDF list of standard repertoire for intermediate bands includes composer, title, difficulty level, and description about the primary thematic and musical concepts of each piece.

It is a good resource when choosing your middle school concert repertoire.

Choral Potpourri/Choral Ethics: Auditions is a blog article by Marie Grass Amenta about a man who began his career as a demanding and emotionless choir director. His interpersonal skills were non-existant with his choir. After self-reflection he soon discovers this is not really who he is. A young girl who auditioned for his choir was seen crying afterwards and he decided he can't pretend to be someone he isn't. That experience was a life-changing moment after which he left his current position and went to a community chorus and is now in a more relaxed, enjoyable environment for all.

Percussive Arts Society provides countless files, resources and recordings for your aspiring percussionists as well as percussion classes to provide quality instruction. The Percussive Arts Society is also a membership and subscription service as well as providing a annual conference across the country. 

The Percussive Arts Society is the largest organization for percussionists and drummers from all over the world. Becoming a member grants access to an extensive archive of videos, publications, and articles related to percussion pedagogy, performance, etc. PASIC, the international convention hosted by PAS, is a multi-day event featuring percussionists and lecturers as well as networking opportunities.

The Percussive Arts Society website provides several resources for music educators. There are magazine subscriptions available as well. This site can help not only percussionists, but non-percussionist educator who are looking to find help in teaching percussion.

This podcast has multiple band directors that discuss all things marching band. They cover BOA, DCI, and your normal high school marching band. They usually bring on guest that discussion a specific item.

This website offers an abundance of music you can order for your performing groups, soloists, mixed ensembles, etc. There a variety of way to search for specific types of music such as "Holiday", "Classical", "Sacred", etc. J.W. Pepper has a wide collection from well known publishers. This is my go to choice for when it comes to ordering music for my program. You also have the ability to narrow your search down by grade level which makes it very easy when planning your program.

J. W. Pepper is an excellent website/resource for sheet music, accompaniment tracks, and much more. Their customer service is excellent. Many of the songs have a play feature so you can listen easily. You can search by genre, voicing, holiday, and pretty much any other category to find exactly the right song for your students.

J.W. Pepper is an online retailer for sheet music. They sell all kinds of music, from solo parts to full band parts. Most of the music they sell also has a demo track so the music can heard before a purchase is made.

Created by the people of Jazz at Lincoln Center, this site is dedicated to spreading jazz education to every school in the country. Jazz Academy has a few different programs, some of which cost money. However, Essentially Ellington is free and member directors get access to a number of resources and free Duke Ellington charts, some of which are accessible at the middle school level.

Steve Weiss is my go-to when buying percussion equipment. This page in particular is a guide to help music directors purchase high-quality percussion instruments if you don't know much or anything about percussion. The list also is split between elementary, middle school, and high school to ensure that you get appropriate instruments for the playing level and budget.

The Innovative Percussion, Inc. website identifies stick and mallet purchase options for middle and high school band directors. The website additionally includes several websites on various percussion related topics, such as "Reading on Keyboard Percussion," "Brazilian Percussion," "Developing Your Technical Skills," and others.