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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.

Hookpad is an interesting piece of software. While it does involve digital notation, it focuses more on notating chords and chord progressions and does so by providing the user options to use standard and non-standard notation. I love using Hookpad when my students are doing songwriting on the ukulele. It is easy for them to play the chords on the ukulele, then input them into Hookpad by selecting the chord symbols. They can then go in an add melodies as well.

Sometimes all people need is a word of encouragement to keep doing well. As teachers, it is difficult to find ways to keep our students engaged and motivated. We can become so absorbed with getting our students to do well that we may forget to actually tell them when they do well. It may seem small, but simply acknowledging when a student does what is asked of them can keep them motivated to keep doing it.

Sometimes all people need is a word of encouragement to keep doing well. As teachers, it is difficult to find ways to keep our students engaged and motivated. We can become so absorbed with getting our students to do well that we may forget to actually tell them when they do well. It may seem small, but simply acknowledging when a student does what is asked of them can keep them motivated to keep doing it.

This web page from Edutopia.com is a very interesting read about Project-based learning. The web site considers why PBL is important, what PBL is about, how does PBL work, and has many resources.

This is a blog by Marisa Wren who is an elementary music teacher in a small town in Illinois. She shares interesting articles and resources she has found in her teaching. She also does a Tech Tuesday post that focuses specifically on technology and music.

An interesting article about the pros and cons to using music technology to teach composition, including interesting angle the article covers that I hadn't considered is the importance of manuscript hand-writing.

Tied to the popular guitar workshops, this site provides practical tips for starting and maintaining a guitar curriculum. The forum is not very active, but does store some good conversations.

Eric Litwin is an author, musician and producer who specializes in children's music. He is one of my favorite artists for kids. He has many educational resources and a curriculum for preschool children. His books featuring Pete the Cat are awesome and appear regularly in my music room! Eric Litwin also does performances in schools and communities and has visited my school for his "Earth Shaking, CD Making" project where my students learned songs and recorded them to make their own CD.

All things clarinet!  This site has free music, midi files, recordings and videos!

All things clarinet!  This site has free music, midi files, recordings and videos!

This is a site that I use frequently. Not only does the site provide useful information regarding musical ensembles and private instructors for those who live within the institute's service region, but it also serves as a resource for videos and recordings of professional clarinet players students may use as models. Furthermore, the site contains a variety of sheet music for all band and orchestra instruments. Sheet music may be downloaded from the site, or entire libraries may be purchased on a CD containing pdf files. This site makes access to solo and other forms of music literature a breeze! 

This website is part of the School Band and Orchestra page. It contains links to concert band repertoire reviews. Reviews are posted by Frank Ticheli, however he does not necessarily write the reviews. This is a great resource when considering music for future concerts.

This site contains helpful teaching tips and strategies for low brass. The tips were authored by Richard Murrow who is the principal tubist with the East Texas Symphony. The purpose of the resource is to provide a step by step process for teaching embouchure and the first tones for low brass beginners. Other tips are offered as well such as posture, how to hold the instrument, and tips about responsible teaching. The site does not contain musical content, but rather provides information that will prepare students to begin studying musical exercises. 

Dr. William I. Bauer's webiste containing many technological resources. You can download handouts from previous presentations as well as find other information related to the Professor.

These resources were complied by Dr. William Bauer of the University of Florida. This page serves as a collection of various resources and handouts from various presentations. Among these resources are an excellent handout regarding practice and practice goals, information for pre-service and in-service teachers about music technology, and research regarding music technology in the classroom. The site does not contain actual musical content, but rather information for use by music teachers. 

This is a very interesting algorithmic composition project that is able to generate an "infinite' piece that does not repeat itself.

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.

Mrs. Miracle's Music Room has a wealth of information. Besides the usual blog with free lesson plans and a link to her www.teacherspayteachers.com store, she also has a link to her podcast and facebook group. She includes easy to use labels to sort the blogs as well as a link to highlight her classroom design and organization. Her blogs range in topics from specific lesson plans to teacher self-care and learning styles in the music classroom. She is a Kodaly trained teacher and her blog is geared towards K-6 general music.

The blog has a myriad of resources for the elementary music classroom. I have followed this blog for years and have pulled resources and ideas from it quite often. Examples of resources I have used recently are music centers and music technology/iPad apps.

Mrs. Miracle's blog incorporates a ton of resources for the elementary school teacher. She posts podcasts, lesson plans, and different activities that she does in her classroom. There is also the option to download freebies or purchase activities from her store (similar to Teachers Pay Teachers).The blog also discusses learning styles and best practices that Aileen incorporates in her daily teaching.

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.

With the popularity of the movie "Amadeus", there is a bit of misconception about the famous classical composer. This academic blogpost does a fair amount to parse fact from fiction, and can be a nice supplemental resource for music history syllabi.

This set of music books is completely free and in PDF format. In addition to that, there are videos that you can show in class or have your students view on their own at home. This is a great resource for a beginning band program that does not have a large budget. All resources are free to use, and it is based in solfege so it is easier to teach a whole room of beginners on different instruments.

Garritan is a virtual instrument provider often bundled with Finale Notation Software. The virtual instrument player is called Aria, and various sound collections are available for purchase. In my experience, the VST works well with Finale, however, does not work well by itself or with other DAWs. This may be due to the low memory and processing speed of my computer.

This site have a few app/programs that teachers can use to create a beat loop or have the students create their own. It does include Incrediox but it also recommends a few others.