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This is a music teacher's blog. It has links to simple animated games for practicing music skills and knowledge.

Noteflight is a free, online software for music composition using standard notation. Teachers can use it to input quick warm-ups or other music for practicing, then they can print it or send a link to their students, all for free!

This program allows students to create musical compositions and practice their theory skills learned. Great resource for allowing the students to be creative.

Free online based notation application

This is an interesting read that was linked on Dr. Bauer's resources discussing the connections of arts and common core standards.

This informative Edutopia article by blogger and professor Karin Nolan encourages educators about the simplicity about integrating their current teaching approach and curriculum structure with a standards-based curriculum. You do not have be a musician to satisfy the standards either.

This is a great article for the classroom teacher who is looking arts integrated lessons.

An amazing site for all instrumentalists that includes audio/video demonstrations of most woodwind, brass, string, percussion, and keyboard instruments. Examples of articulation, timbre in different registers, mutes, vibrato, special effects, and more are provided.

A great interactive way for students to learn the instruments of the orchestra, as well as fretted strings, without sitting through a lecture. What fun this would be as a scavenger hunt for the students with QR codes.

This site has amazing videos that demonstrate quality technique or a wide range of instruments.

This website is a game designed to introduce instruments to students (K-5) in a fun and interactive way.  Benjamin Britten's composition "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra" is used as the basis for this adventure.

This is a fun, interactive website that helps students get to know the instruments, the set up of a professional ensemble, different genres, and musical roles.

This website is a game developed by Carnegie Hall that helps younger students learn the instruments of the orchestra. The game uses Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. This interactive game helps students understand the layout of an orchestra, the ranges of the individual instruments, and how they sound individually and together in an ensemble. This is an excellent tool for elementary music!

Benefits of music education for children. 

PBS discusses the importance and benefits of music education. PBS explains that music facilitates learning in other subjects. Learning music taps into multiple skills sets. PBS explains the various categories that music helps benefit.

Language development, IQ, test scores, being musical

This website has just about everything a band director would ever need. From resources about administration and fundraising, to sight-reading, theory, and ensemble skills, this is a tremendously beneficial resource for all band directors.

This blog contains many posts that would be helpful for novice and experienced band directors alike. Of particular interest are the posts about improving the sound of particular instruments or exercises to help develop a stronger swing feeling in a jazz band.

Band Directors Talk Shop is a website devoted to helping band directors become better teachers. Posts on the site are from current and former band directors, as well as private lesson instructors. The website allows band directors to share suggestions and ideas on how to improve instruction so that students will have a better learning experience.

This page lends itself as yet another valuable resource, especially for those whose weakness is teaching students to play by ear. In it, you will find six games that not only seek to refine our students' aural abilities but also serve to make a seemingly tedious task both motivating and fun; among this list are activities like rhythm chain, scale stops, and interval recognition--all of which can and should be implemented in K-12 music classrooms.

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.

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.

This website has profiles for several baroque, classical, romantic and 20th century composers. Each page seems easy to ready, and has video links as well as links to sources.

This website works as a database for many famous composers. Students can use this website to complete music history projects as well as composer projects. Composers are organized by country or by period.

The purpose of this website is to portray the artwork of the creator. With the posted artwork are description of the composers available the site. This website would be a useful resource for history facts about composers form multiple musical periods. The website also offers information about prominent and lesser known composers from several countries. YouTube inks are often provided for a listening example of each composer's work.

Yousician is a great software resource that teaches students to play a number of instruments including: piano, guitar, bass, ukulele, and voice. The software is set-up in a creative, game-like structure that tracks student progress and ability level through playing assessments. It's a great tool to use during general music units that focus on performance practice of these different instruments. The free version is open to all for a full 20 minutes a day. Great tool for students of all ages.

Yousician is another tool to build independent learners and musicians. Students with access to a computer or other device at home can build their instrumental playing skills on ukulele, guitar, bass, or piano with this self-guided program. Additionally, this resource can be used in the general music classroom to teach interval training, intonation, and rhythmic accuracy.

Yousician is an app for Android and iOS devices that can aid you and your students in learning how to play guitar, bass, ukulele, and piano, while also providing guidance with voice development. The app includes a free and premium version. There are videos and lessons that you and your students can follow along to.

A great resource for your last minute lesson plan needs!  There are plans, activities, and quizzes!

Resource for UF Masters in Music Education. I love this resource primarily for the fun and interactive nature that the games provide to my classroom. There are plenty of resources such as lessons, pre-made assessment, and videos. However, the games allow students to enjoy learning through assessment and interactive scenarios.

This website is a great resource for beginning to integrate technology into your classroom. There are ready-made lesson plans, as well as fun activities to do with your students. There are worksheets on theory, lessons on piano, and so much more.

The Rhythm Trainer is a simple flash-based game that reinforces rhythm concepts. Students can either enter the rhythm that they hear, or choose the correct audio that matches the rhythm they see. Each example is four beats long, and there are a limited number of rhythms available. Students can select any or all of the 8 rhythms available to practice. Results can be emailed to the student's teacher.

The Rhythm trainer is another great source for helping students learn the principles of ear training. Teachers can load listening examples of varying rhythmic figures which students can respond to picking the examples they think best fit. Students can choose two modes of rhythm training which either provide them with choices for answers or require them build their answers based on the specific rhythms they are being trained on. The Rhythm Trainer does require the use Adobe Flash Player in order to play the examples but can be great for anyone teaching or learning the very basics developing good ear training skills.

This is a great tool to have to teach students rhythm. I use this to teach my private students to strengthen their ability to read rhythm. They find this website quite fun, and they enjoy all of the practices in which assign.

SmartMusic has interactive, web-based editions of many popular instrumental, band, chorus, and orchestra method books, as well as a massive collection of sheet music. Students can listen, loop, record and submit pieces they are working on. A neat feature of SmartMusic is that students can click on a single note and hear how it is supposed to sound, and how to finger that note on their instrument. Students can adjust tempo, play with a metronome, use a tuner to check pitch, and more. A paid subscription allows teachers to create online classrooms for assigning and assessing work, and have access to the entire SmartMusic catalog.

SmartMusic is music learning software for music teachers and students. It makes music learning easy and fun. Students can continue their learning outside school. Teachers can also assess students outside the school wall. Smart music is good for rehearsals because a student can rehearse at home when the teacher is listening in and correcting him/her from anywhere else. It is easy to access and a good resource for music classes.

The purpose of the resource is for student and teacher practice/classroom tools. The content included in this source is a subscription to a web-based service that allows students and educators access to sight-reading material, repertoire accompaniments, and method books. Could be useful for encouraging student practice

This site is stocked full of useful features for students in the form of games, quizzes, and a great flash keyboard with music to match. Using the number keys, students can practice even if they don't have a piano keyboard. There are also lessons and resources for teachers, too.

This website is suitable for teachers who give students free time to work on music games. Many different music topics are taught by the music teachers and a better way for students to retain the information would include turning some of their assignments into competition. One thing i have learned, elementary students love to be competitive, so if the students are able to get high scores on music games, then they are retaining and getting the information.

The creator of this site, Karen Garrett, has compiled different games and quizzes to make her music class more interactive. Students can access games about different instruments, note naming, rhythm, and even composers. There are also theory quizzes and worksheets that anyone can access.

From the Top is an NPR program that features kids who have achieved an extremely high level of performance. There are many videos of student performances. It could be great for students to see kids their age performing advanced music.

From the Top is the video series that highlights young performers. This website houses the more recent streaming videos, sharing the performers' stories and their performances on the stage. These videos are great resources for the classroom as they highlight young performers on all instruments and a variety of genres. See specifically PBS's section on From the Top for earlier seasons and lesson plans.

This website is sponsored by the PBR. You have access to videos and podcasts about classical music and many other music topics. This would be a great resource for middle school and high student performers.

This website provides FREE sheet music for use in the classroom, private lessons, or ceremonial events. Students can sing or play with the built in playback features or print the music. Tempo and accompaniment can be adjusted and added. It would be perfect for sight-reading exercises or event use.

This is a great resource for free sheet music for students. It offers a variety of instrumental music of all kinds of genres. Students can also use this website to explore music on their own and develop sight-reading skills.

This website offers free sheet music for a variety of different instruments. Students can search for music based on instrument or song. The content for this website is sheet music.

The graphics on this website are amazing- any child would enjoy browsing through and learning about musical instruments, composition, and composers. Also very neat is the game where you can "play" different musical instruments. The numbers on the computer keypad become notes in a scale!

This is owned and operated by the San Francisco symphony. It requires Adobe flash so desktop computers are suggested for use.

This is a website that i have used with my students, more so free time. Allowing to practice their skill but also have fun doing it as it relates to games. The purpose of this would be for students to explore having fun with music!.