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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.

This website presents a colorful presentation of music theory basics including notation, rhythm, key signatures, intervals, minor scales, part writing, seventh chords, and augmented chords. Each page can be printed.

Music Theory is a topic that can often be confusing when beginning to learn.  This website does a great job of breaking down the elements of music theory for anyone who is trying to gain deeper understanding of Music Theory.

This website is great for quick music theory handouts for students. It contains PDF worksheets to print and share with students. Excellent free resource!

A blog I love dedicated to thoughts on the performing musician. Great resource with approaches to use as an individual performer and information to present to students.

Dr. Noa Kageyama is a sport and performance psychologist with a music background.  He provides very interesting and introspective articles to help people improve themselves as people and performers, and offers a course to teach you how to overcome performance anxiety.  Great resource for people who struggle with performing.

How To Overcome Stage Fright & Performance Anxiety

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.

Many people avoid the LoC like it is the black plague.  However, even though it seems like it would be boring and stiff, they have many amazing resources and their digital catalogue is growing by leaps and bounds every day!  Additionally, if you cannot find something fully digitized and you believe the the LoC has it somewhere, just ask a librarian and they will be more than happy to help!

This website is a tool to advocate music education and technology to a widespread group of people, and allow readers to write feedback on the website. As well as the feedback, this site is for the general musician audience to search for resources that will help with teaching in schools and responding to young musicians. This website includes articles about music technology and its benefits and uses, posts about music education, the advocacy of music and its importance to all students, and general posts about things such as copyright laws, orchestra and its instruments, apps for music, and planning education tools for teachers.

This website is a source of information for the Alexander Techinique, which has to do with body positioning and the habits people fall into. There are resources specifially for musicians on this site. I am interested in learning more so that I can apply some of these techniques in my choral and general music classrooms.

This is absolutely ridiculous. If your instrument has elephant ivory, even the tiniest bit, and it was made after the 1976 agreement regarding import of elephant ivory, it is considered contraband - and the government can take it from you - when you travel. The silliest part is that many people are misinformed about the use of ivory in musical instruments. Piano keys - "those ivories" - those are made from seal ivory, not elephant ivory. I wonder how much ivory used in other instruments is elephant ivory.

Thanks for sharing this! I have to figure out how to travel to Bolivia in a couple weeks with my baroque bow, which has an ivory frog.

Be Part of the Band is actually the recruitment tool that we use, along with a public performance and Jazz Band Tour. This website shows you real live musician that perform on their specific instruments as well as talk about their personal involvement with Music. 

Beapartoftheband.com is an awesome resource for beginning band teachers. Recruitment is such a huge part of the beginning of the school year and Scott Lang's resources are great! This website provides free resources for both recruitment and organization for bands. Individuals are able to make donations to the program, but no payment is required. Beapartoftheband.com not only provides demonstration videos for each instrument, the site also provides eighteen documents to assist with the recruitment process.

Band recruitment is the biggest event in the life of a band director.  This site features high quality tools to help make our lives easier. It also features famous people that have been band members.  Students need to relate to the bigger picture sometimes.  They need to see that big athletic stars can be in the band as well.  I am always looking for new perspective to recruitment.  

This is a great site for people of all ages who want to learn about and practice music theory.

Great website for puzzles, quizzes, composition activities, instrument families and a great introduction to the NY Philharmonic.  This would be excellent to use before attending a NY Philharmonic concert. 

This is a great website for students to review concepts learned in class. "Instrument Frenzy" is a high speed game that can be used to review instruments and categorize them by family. 

A great website for students to learn about the instruments, and people of the orchestra. They also learn about composers and compositions, and are able to make their own instrument, mingles, and minuets. A great website to use for elementary students who are learning about the orchestra.

La Nueva Cancion is an entry on the Smithsonian Folkways website. It introduces the reader to the New Song movements in Latin America. It includes a couple of videos on people who has continued that trend in the United States as a consequence of political exile from their home countries.

This website provides a collection of operatic midi files and/or scores on Aria collections of Berlioz, Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, and Wagner, as well as partial collections of over 50 other composers, for a total of 1,288 Arias.

The Aria Database has: 1288 Arias ,177 Operas , 65 Composers, 389 Translations,1027 Aria Texts and 223 MIDIs. The search features on this site are impressive. You can search using the name of the aria, opera, or the role. You can also search by voice part or vocal range. While the website is not adding new material, most vocalists will be able to find what they are looking for with the depth of material already entered.

The Aria Database is a free website to find useful material for music educators, students, and performers. It has a huge library of Aria and Opera roles that are easy to search. It comes with very useful information such as range, translations, setting, synopsis, and recordings. Searching is easy and can vary in degree simple search, Aria search, Opera search, Role search, or browse the many selections. People can contact or contribute to this website. I do not see any scores, but there are links that do provide them.

This is an ear training game using a "matching card" format. It looks simple and almost boring, however, once a person starts playing the game it becomes very interesting, This is well suited for middle school as it does not appear to "babyish".

Note pair is an online music game designed to help children read music notes easily and quickly. This game helps children learn to read music notes step by step, at their own pace. A child listens to a note, and tries to match it to a similar note. This ear training computer game lets you learn music notes and their pitches. Students and pupils who play a musical instrument as a child have a better verbal memory than those with no music training. Aural listening skills enhance brain development and students who listen more to music are calm, critical thinkers, and confident. Introducing such a game as a lesson starter even for classes that are not learning music fosters concentration and interest of the learners. Their brain becomes alert and ready to take in any information.

Music Learning Community is a site for music educators and music students that includes a great deal of information on computer-based learning. Included are games and activities that teach theory and build aural skills. There is a free trial but the site requires a membership fee.

This website offers hundreds of interactive games to teach students music theory, rhythms, ear-training, sight-reading, and notation analysis. Designed to make learning musical concepts and take-home assignments more fun and engaging, these games are broken down into various levels for students. Lower levels can be effective for early elementary students, and higher levels can be effective for students in high school. Games are colorful and entertaining, and they list certain scores that students should strive to achieve. Most games have a lesson version, a practice version, and a quiz version. Teachers can track scores and data of individual students to see strengths and weaknesses.

This website has many games that can be used to learn various musical concepts. Some games are free, but there are more games with the paid subscription. You can pay monthly or yearly and it can be used for 5 to 50 people.

I am grateful to people who share their work without selfishness and not for money. Fair use and Creative Commons have made the life of us music educators easy.There are lots of resources for Creative Commons and Other Copyright friendly media available to use in class.

Allows you to watch performances from different angles in order to see the conductor and different instrumentalists. Allows for a unique view of an orchestra where you can be up close to the people playing in a way that the full view of an orchestra doesn't allow. The interactive nature of being able to change camera angles is also engaging, and would get students interested in seeing the different facets of a whole symphonic performance.

DonorsChoose is a great place to start looking for additional aid for your classroom. You can pose a project that you need funding for, if its more instruments, books, materials, and/or other resources that you may need, but can't get your district to obtain. It is very easy to use and you create a project where people can find or search and donate their own money to fund. You can have several people donate and you can share your proposal on various forms of social media to help spread the word. The choral teacher and I did a few projects and we were able to get Orff Instruments, Drums, and even Ipods for the kids. You have to follow up with DonorsChoose and send photos and thank you letters from the students to show how you are using the materials in the classroom. It is a perfect way to receive that additional funding for your program.

DonorsChoose is a miracle for programs with little to no budget. You can create an account as an educator and create projects that go towards your classroom. You can ask for anything from Chromebooks to instruments and sheet music. Donors from all over the world can donate and support your classroom. This is the resource that helped me build my band program.

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.