Group items tagged

"What is Jazz?" is a four-part lecture about jazz by Dr. Billy Taylor presented at the John F. Kennedy Center. Dr. Bill Taylor is a noted jazz pianist, historian, and educator. His four-part lecture dives into the history of jazz and the most important moments of jazz history. The first lecture centers around the origins of jazz in the African-American experience of slavery to the civil rights movement. This lecture explores the development of repertoire and techniques used in jazz performance. The second lecture discusses the techniques and traditions of jazz improvisation. The third lecture discusses the evolution of swing and rhythm/harmony with the inclusion of examples by a piano. The fourth lecture discusses the role of jazz in American culture and history, as well as the impact it has had on the world. 

This is a site where students can hear radio shows from the station of the same name as the site, hear instruments demonstrations, play musical games, and review terms from a musical dictionary. Teachers can also benefit from this site by taking advantage of its lesson plans and other teaching resources.

Great website for elementary music class. Easy to understand composer biographies, good music, fun games and a wonderful way to access classical music information.

Classics for Kids is a site that allows children to further learn about composers, music, play games that reinforce rhythms, note names, and improvisation.

This slow blues jam is a great resource for those teaching improvisation to beginners or demonstrating the skill to a class. The video is approximately 8 minutes in length allowing the listener/performer to repeat without having to start the video over once more.

Tim Price provides free lessons on jazz improvisation, theory, and technique.  These lessons can translate to any instrument and provides a variety of topics for the beginning and advanced jazz player to digest.  The music can be opened in pdf form and printed for personal use.  I have used these exercises when teaching jazz theory and technique and is a great resource for jazz students

This is an entertaining and educational video from Ted Talk. Famous singer and songwriter Bobby McFerrin uses the crowd to improvise a pentatonic scale. This is only a small clip from the event "Notes and Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus" from the World Science Festival.

The purpose of iReal Pro is to provide a simple yet high-quality practice resource for musicians. The application creates a customizable and realistic sounding accompanying tracks especially useful for practicing improvisation or jazz standards. Chord charts are used to create backing tracks in a variety of musical styles which can be transposed at the push of a button. The application is inexpensive and can be used on all mobile devices and on Mac OS. Currently it is not available for Windows (but can be used on android devices).

This is a documented series of articles primarily surrounding jazz music and improvisation. Other topics on this website and the articles therein include world music and music education.

Cool resource for Jazz Band students.

This is a clip with Bobby McFerrin, using the audience to sing. Bobby McFerrin improvises over the top as he creates the baseline for the audience to sing. He also mentions that the pentatonic scale is understood by all of his audiences no matter where he goes. This can be an interesting way to introduce a pentatonic scale to students, or improvising in a pentatonic scale. This is part of a larger TED talk entitled "Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus"

This TED Talk informs students about the natural connection humans have with music. Bobby McFerrin describes the nature of the pentatonic scale. This is a resource I like to introduce when first learning about the pentatonic scale. This shows students that music and nature are connected. I also use this for my students when I talk about the Fibonacci sequence with my math and music unit.

Earl MacDonald, professor of jazz at the Univ. of Connecticut, has create this treasure trove of resources for teaching jazz improvisation, jazz theory, and jazz piano. It contains what is essentially a complete curriculum for teaching jazz improvisation that can used with singers as well as instrumentalists.

Resources for grades K-5, involving age-appropriate lessons and ideas. Ideas center around pitch, form, dynamics, rhythms, meter, performing, singing, tempo, meter, etc.

Carnegie Hall has a great resource for music educators who teach K-5th grade general music. They list the activities by grade, and even tell you what you can use each resource for (i.e. teaching rhythm, meter, singing, etc.).

The Carnegie Hall Education page for Educators provides teaching resources to teachers. They provide lesson plans, meeting certain standards, for grades K-5. These lesson plans cover everything from the basics to composition to improvisation with Brazilian Sama

A great article showing how to take a well known tune and teach students how to compose their own melody. The article goes through the process of how to teach it. First you help students to write a base line, have them improvise a rhythm, then they can discover the notes of each chord, and write their own melody using chord tones.

This is the video "Modern Electric Bass" in which the famous bassist, Jaco Pastorius, explains his views to approaching not only the bass but music. He explains the importance of musicians approaching music in a melodic fashion and the importance of working hard to become proficient. He further explains the importance of developing both listening and reading skills, improvisation, and gives demonstrations of each concept.

This is a great resource for the kids in Jazz Honor's Band.  Dealing with improvising, and soloing.

This blog discuss ways teachers can help students understand material that they man not comprehend during a lesson. This is extremely helpful when your are not getting the necessary feedback from students.

An article that discusses finer points in the "Art" of teaching; when students don't grasp a concept. Is it always the teachers fault? Can the student be doing anything differently to help on their end? This article has possible solutions!

Introducing "Blues + YOU": play-along tracks available online--free of charge--so musicians can practice with mp3 downloads in a variety of configurations! Tailored to intermediate and advanced players, this unique product will become an invaluable resource for both college and high school jazz programs. The newest recording from The U.S. Army Blues, Something Old, Something New: Yours to Borrow From the Blues has tools to use and tunes to enjoy!

Another great website for teaching music. There are many interactive games, some great videos about composers in the time machine, and tools to help kids compose and improvise together.

Quaver's Marvelous World of Music is an interactive music education curriculum and program that integrates, what students love: technology and fun! The host of the video episodes, "Quaver" makes music learning fun and memorable. There are free parts of the program as well as extensive paid sections. If you teach in SC, this is a service paid for by the state. Contact Buz at Quaver Music for your log-in information.

We spend hours searching the Internet for great jazz videos so you don't have to. Jazz on the Tube provides three free services: (1)A searchable database of thousands of carefully hand picked and annotated jazz videos; (2) A free Video-of-the-Day service. Love jazz? We deliver a great jazz video to your mailbox every day; and (3) An up-to-date directory of jazz clubs, jazz festivals, and jazz organizations world-wide.

A youtube channel that focuses on providing short lessons on jazz history/tradition, instrumental technique, and the jazz language.

This YouTube channel is a great resources for jazz educators in both a private and ensemble setting. The videos cover the whole jazz orchestra, providing videos of technique as well as ways to develop students' improvisational skills.

Jazz Academy is a YouTube library with free lessons on jazz for educators and students. Lessons range from the instrument specific techniques, jazz history, master classes with professional musicians, and lessons on different styles of music. From these videos, students receive important information from professional jazz musicians. As a jazz educator, there are also videos that improve my understanding of specific techniques and styles.

This site gives students the ability to create satisfying compositions that explore texture using loops that are designed to fit in with each other. Perfectly suited for differentiation, students can create works that are simple or complex.

Music Improvisation Arranging Music

Incredibox is a web-based mixing tool, and its purpose is to create mixes with pre-set loops including, beats, effects, voices, and melodies. In each "dude", the user needs to select a "clothing piece" that contains a specific loops. The user begins creating their mixes, and can add and delete them as needed. Musically speaking, it is a teaching tool because the user learns how to mix loops ate certain points. It enhance several concepts such as rhtyhm and meter. It can be used by elementary and secondary-level students.