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This website provides a free 58-page music book for beginning instrumentalists. The website also provides backing tracks for songs from the tutor book. However, some of the information in the books may need to be tweaked. For example, quarter notes are referred to as the British "crotchets" here.

This is a website that describes software for learning the recorder. It uses interdisciplinary aspects that seem to be interesting - and probably appealing to students.

Here is as software program review of Go for the Gold! I have never seen a software program for the Recorder. This program can be useful for elementary school music students that are beginning to play on song flutes.

This site offers useful instruction to students of jazz piano. For piano students beginning to explore jazz the Jazz 101 lesson is a good resource.

Free Improvisation software tool for beginning to intermediate jazz musicians.

The software has its occasional glitches (it is free after all) and does not allow for audio input like many paid doppelgangers, but this allows students to understand chord progressions, work out solo lines (and notate them using colorized notes for feedback), play along with auto-accompaniment and utilizes the brick chord layout for easy form understanding.

This blog is a great resource for Jazz drum set.  The video in this entry is from Ed Soph from UNT. The series of videos are strong set of lessons for beginning Jazz drum set players.  Enjoy!

These games can be used to teach young string students how to properly hold a bow and play with the correct posture. I will use these games with my beginning violin students. 

This page has videos describing and showing basic snare drum technique. Even if you do not use the book with which this is associated, there is some great information available that can improve your student's playing. Everything from the very beginning steps of holding the sticks, through bounce strokes, and into rolls is covered.

A music theory and performance site for beginning through advanced musicians. It is filled with articles to help teachers and students as well as downloadable and printable sheet music, a bookstore, and customizable lessons for students. There is a free subscription to this site on the homepage.

Vic Firth's education resources include videos on all things percussion related.  There are video and audio clips regarding beginning snare drum/mallets, drum set, rudiments, concert percussion, and marching/world percussion.  This is a great resource for teachers and students.

Purpose of this resource: This website contains many educational videos, articles, and resources for educators and students about percussion playing technique and history. Musical Content: The Vic Firth Educator page contains fundamental playing technique for snare drum, keyboard percussion and drum set as well as demonstration videos, articles, and sequential playing exercises. There are also videos about instrument set up and maintenance. Other information: The resources on this page are geared toward both educator and student. Many of the music reading articles and exercises are also applicable to non-percussionists and can be readily adapted for classroom use.

Aside from quality percussion equipment, Vic Firth provides a wealth of information on percussion education. The site includes videos, articles, and pdf's of exercises as well if needed.  

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. 

Great website for beginning class piano courses

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

games for instrumental practice

love this site for beginning band. I will use this for 5th and 6th. Fun game. Charanga Music World

Good for start up activities. Get the kids playing right away. Also great demo videos showing young student performers.

This sites contains downloadable links that contain very lucid and practical curricular ideas and suggestion for beginning and intermediate guitar classes and ensembles. The language is targeted at two groups: those teachers who are starting guitar programs and those teachers who themselves are not proficient guitarists yet are teaching a guitar class. The "further reading" at the bottom is icing in the cake.

20 Great Lesson Plans for your Beginning Music Technology Class! Here you will find projects that can be adapted to your own music technology class - very simple, progressing to a more advanced Final project. Great source with PD opportunities! Contact information is on the website.

West Rowan High School has proved scale sheets for each instrument at different levels of ability. This source provides easy to read full range scale sheets for students practice their scales with. For younger students, one octave scale sheets are available to begin practicing their scales without the extra notes they do not know how to play yet.

I use this website with my beginning bands when they are first starting to pick what instrument they want to play. It categorizes instruments by family and gives a brief description of each with a sound clip. There are strings, percussion, woodwinds, and brass. The woodwind section is missing tenor and bari sax, and the brass section is missing euphonium but otherwise it is quite complete. I usually show this while having the actual instrument out.

This website has a series of games meant for younger children to understand sound, rhythm, mood, and sounds of the orchestra. I would use this in my beginning band classes, even though it's middle school, just to ensure that they understand instrument sounds.

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.

This game goes through The Magic Flute, and gives students examples of instruments as they appear in the music.

This website offers one interactive game, using The Magic Flute, where students guess the instrument sound, as it appears in the music. I would definitely use this in my beginning band classes, so that students can remember instrument sounds in an interactive way.