Digital Musicking

This page provides links to the All Star Orchestra education pages on Kahn Academy. Topics include masterworks, theory, instruments, and even conducting. This is a great resource to be used in the classroom.

Great pinterest page that lists great ideas for orchestra directors. This is a cool resource to gain some outside the box ideas for string teaching. Includes everything from Star Wars activities to Minecraft string parts.

This provides a comprehensive list of composers that you should know. It divides the list by era and even includes film music composers. It provides a list of major works as well as links to gain more information.

This is a website from PBS that chronicles the evolution of music recording from the phonograph to iTunes. As you read through the different stages of music production, there are interesting facets of information regarding the progression of copyright laws.

This is a website dedicated to the famous wind band piece, "Four Scottish Dances," by Malcolm Arnold.

This is a summary of "Toccata For Band" by Frank Erickson.

A clinic handout from the Midwest Clinic on marches.

This website features a number of famous classical composers. Biographies and links to important musical works are featured. Additional features include links to classical music stations and stores and recommendations for setting up home audio systems. There is a blog and several interviews of musicians who share the great composers' intriguing life stories and interesting anecdotes.

This website contains biographies and information on many Classical, Romantic, and other composers of different genres.

This website provides resources especially suitable for the elementary music teacher. Downloadable music resources for purchase include graphics for music bulletin boards, awards and brag tags, music coloring sheets, exit tickets, games and activities and music decor bundles. Numerous and varied music education products featuring a full range of musical concepts are available. Products seem reasonably priced and may be a valuable resource for music educators.

This is resource for any music educator teaching violin (or other stringed instrument) to a student. This excellent one page information sheet provides vital instructions to beginning players on violin basics such as care for and maintain the instrument and great tips and advise on renting or purchasing the instrument. This is a quick and valuable information sheet for educators to print and give to beginning students.

Care and maintenance of string instruments.

This YouTube video gives excellent but brief instruction on the topic of tone color or timbre. What is tone color? The presentation uses several instruments to illustrate what timbre is and how composers might use this musical element to evoke a mood or paint a musical picture.

Why is an "A" not enough when performing music? This YouTube band video demonstrates how a piece of music sounds when it is played with only 90% or even 98% accuracy and how vitally important it is to strive for 100% when performing. This video may be a very useful tool for any music educator to teach students about the importance of always striving for the highest degree of excellence in music...and in life.

Classics for Kids is a website featuring high quality weekly radio shows/podcasts about classical composers and their music. The service is provided by Cincinnati Public Radio. Excellent biographical information along with quality excerpts of composers' works are included. There is an extensive catalog of previous shows available for listening which are child friendly and is a great resource for music educators. The website also includes games and a section under the "For Grownups" tab for educators featuring music lesson plans.

This website is a resource page for Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe. Backward design aligns desired outcomes, assessments and planning to lead to student understanding.

This web page from Edutopia.com is a very interesting read about Project-based learning. The web site considers why PBL is important, what PBL is about, how does PBL work, and has many resources.

The Flickr Internt Archive Book Images has over 12 million copyright-free images. Sign in with your Yahoo account and browse away. There are groups to follow as well.

This site is a webquest on the making of musical instruments; specifically, the violin. While based on a string instrument, this is a great site for inspiration for creating a similar project for wind or percussion instruments.

Webquest on American regional music.

This webquest engages students in a potential disscussion with a composer from a different era. This activity could also be adapted for exploration of current composers as well.