Digital Musicking

Crocodile River Music is a group based in Worcester, MA, the city where I teach. They provide students with a chance to not only listen to, but also to take part in a world music experience. They run programs to come into schools and teach about music from Africa, while also having students come up and try some of the instruments.

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.

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.

Describes ways that the teacher can incorporate Google Classroom into the large ensemble classroom.

Using Google Classroom in a general music room makes a lot of sense. Your students can do research, turn in papers, forms, and tests, all online. How about a large ensemble though? Google Classroom is a tool that you will want to utilize for your playing tests. Students can record themselves and submit their recordings for you to view. This allows them to practice and record at home without taking up valuable performance time during school.

Google Classroom is a fantastic way to manage your classroom, engage students, and have assignments posted and submitted without any papers being lost. A lot of music teachers have no idea where to start with this software. This article posted by NAfME details four ways to integrate Google Classroom into your music classroom.

This blog is great for seeing what other band directors are up to. This post specifically is an introduction to Google Classroom. It outlines what Google Classroom is and how it can be utilized within the music classroom. As someone who uses Google Classroom, I highly recommend it.

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.

The Smithsonian Folkways Recordings website is filled with standard-based content from around the globe. There are articles to read, podcasts to listen to, recordings to listen to, artists to research and lesson plans to use in the classroom. The lesson plans are standard-based and well researched. Each lesson is labeled on the world map for easy reference. Lessons have links to playlists, videos and additional resources. There are lesson plans designed for all ages K-12.

These recordings provide students the opportunity to hear music from all over the world and explore the social impact of music on our society. These resources are invaluable as a music teacher.

This website contains PDFs of wind band music that is available for free to download in the United States. The music is public domain or available via a Creative Commons license. This is very helpful with finding older music or replacing parts, especially with music that is out of print.

This band music library includes pieces that were written for American Town Bands. American Town Bands used to be so popular that almost every town in my region of Massachusetts had one. Sadly, these bands have been slowly dying out. Thanks to this website, you can find free music that those bands used to play and revive them with your ensembles.

This website has free arrangements of band music, written with beginning bands and band programs with low budgets in mind. Pieces can be downloaded as PDFs and you can download the condensed score, as well as individual parts for all of the instruments. Pieces are rated so it is easy to find music that will work for your students.

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.

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.

This is the website for the app Complete Ear Trainer. It is an aural skills development app that is completely free to use and allows educators to complete custom lessons and groups for their students. It is available of Android, iOS, and Amazon platforms.

This website provides a multitude of tools for music teachers, among other subjects. The website contains lesson plans and teaching strategies for grades K-12. There are lessons on world music, on instruments (such as building instruments), as well as the history of musical genres. The free version is limited, but the premium version is fairly inexpensive.

Resource for UF Masters of Music Education. This site is helpful in planning lessons for application of new ideas. I love that it has something to offer every teacher from grades K-12.

I use this website sometimes to help out with some of my lesson plans if I'm in need of worksheets to help back up the topic that is chosen for that particular week. This is good for any teacher because it provides a variety of different worksheets for many topics.

Choralnet.org is a site specifically geared towards chorus directors and teachers of vocal music. The site contains blogposts, open discussion forums and links to various online resources such as teaching materials and concert repertoire. The purpose of the site is to serve as a platform for chorus directors to share ideas with one another or use it to seek advice or help from other experienced educators.

Band Directors Talk Shop is a great online resource that works towards having music educators collaborate on ideas and share resources that others may find helpful in their own classes. Teachers can share links to teaching materials or exchange tips and ideas on methods that they have used in their classes and found to be effective.