Digital Musicking

These are short and humorous videos by the folks at Music K-8 that help reinforce a few music concepts. When my younger students have earned a little reward, or when it's flue season and my voice needs a bit of a break, we sometimes take a moment to watch a couple of these concept videos

A short playlist of three videos to demonstrate the sound of the soprano recorder, proper hand position, and the value of practice and patience.

This website provides valuable resources for piano teachers. It can be used as a group class or private teaching. It contains worksheets, games, sheet music (easy and intermediate level). It is suitable for early childhood and elementary 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 resource serves as a simple list that can be used for choral teachers of different ability levels to get a basic handle on teaching middle school chorus. It offers many teaching ideas that can help teachers become more connected with their student's singing through their teaching. There's many categories for the teaching techniques including: teaching middle-level girls, boys, and mixed voices.

This is a great resource for teachers and students that connects to music history. This could serve as a review resource or a quick introduction for whatever musical period is being studied. If offers great facts as well as information about instruments from that time. It could also be used as a WebQuest assignment for sub-plans.

This collection of videos is a great resource to use during general music classes when introducing instruments of the orchestra. This is a great way to get students interested in the different instrument families. It offers a great deal of information on the instrument, how it works, and even gives students examples of how to create their own instrument using found objects.

This website offers a multitude of resources designed for music-making. This specific organization is devoted to offering musical programs to students who are in the 80% of the population that are not involved in performing ensembles. It offers curriculum, lesson plans, and interactive activities for guitar, piano, drums, bass, ukulele, composition, voice and more. There are free PDF songbooks and lesson plans that are connected to the program, that are extremely helpful towards teacher and student interest. The best part of the program is that the majority of the music is examples that students know already - a lot of pop, rock, and even hip-hop. It connects the bridge between traditional musical concepts with music of today.

Little Kids Rock has a multitude of resources for creating a modern band in your classroom. There are songs loaded on the website that include tab for ukulele, guitar, and bass. There are also drum set patterns included. This website serves to expose educators and students modern band and provides lesson plans to go along with the popular songs. Little Kids Rock also provides workshops on how to effectively teach a modern band program.

This website offers many lessons for instruments that students may be interested in playing (piano, guitar, songwriting, drums,etc). The website offers video lessons as well as current play-along songs for students to put their newly learned skills to work.

MusicFirst suggests this LMS comprehensive aural theory software designed for grades K-12 and beyond. Since it was created in 1990, it has been monitor and enhanced to provide a tool for educators and students. It is cloud-based, supported by educators with decades of knowledge and skill in integrating technology into the music classroom. Auralia promotes student ownership of learning through the appropriately paced lessons and exams which provide immediate formative feedback.

This website is a spin off of a Podcast from Mrs. Miracle. MusiQuest is an application designed to utilize technology to make music education accessible, creative and fun, and in keeping with digital advancement. Different music genres, personalize learning, cross curricular studies, song writing and sketching, melody, and, literacy and drama are a few of the attractions fo this website.

This is a simple, free, loop based music sequencer that allows students to create short compositions. It is very simple and easy to learn and nicely shows subdivisions. The sound samples are of high quality.

Article written to support the use of technology to compliment instruction and enhance student learning instead of technology for technology sake. Teachers should use social media cites, e.g., blogs, to facilitate discussion and feedback from students, create online PLNs. The cross curricular benefit is increasing writing facility and literacy. A couple of concerns are cyberbullying and parents who may question how much learning is taking place with social media. Educators can help others, including students, understand that music learning can take place outside of the classroom through social media and broaden the audience.

This website list 10 top rated sites that offer free music education resources, e.g., technology, music and instrument lessons, platforms for educations to share ideas, web based curriculum,

Quaver has a large amount of lessons available for teaching from PreK-8th grade. It is probably the most complete music teaching software resource I have found. This could be used in any general music class as well as ensembles. It is much more interactive than a textbook and the interface changes as the grade level increases so that it remains engaging for the age group.

Resource for the University of Florida Masters Program. This interactive program allows teachers to more effectively reach students through games, movement, song, and dance.

This website is awesome! I call it "Quaver the Saver." When you can't figure out how to explain a concept clearly, show a Quaver DVD. The DVDs are You can purchase the DVDs and access a multitude of resources with a subscription. Great for Elementary General Music.

This simple app is great for reading notation and having students identify notes on the staff. Difficulty levels range from three notes in one clef to over 20 notes using a grand staff with accidentals. Exercises can be done in as little as 30 seconds. I think any middle or high school musician would benefit from the use of this app as a simple reminder of how to recognize pitches notated on the staff.

Authors Nicole Springer and Ella Wilcox summarize strategies for effective classroom management in the ensemble classroom. By citing the experiences of former high school orchestra director Gretta Sandburg as well as her tried-and-true teaching methods, they provide their audience with four substantial tools that enable directors to make the most of their students' rehearsals; reading suggestions pertaining to this same topic are also provided at the end of the article and are accompanied by downloadable handouts. 

This page lends itself as a particularly valuable resource, especially for those whose weakness is intonation. In it, you will find philosophies, phrases, analogies, activities, and what the author terms "common threads" for approaching the aforementioned topic with your students. Among the most popular suggestions are singing, practicing characteristic tone quality, and listening down, or back, to the tuba section--all of which can and should be practiced in the early stages of a student's musical development.

Educator David Pope aims to provide his audience with effective strategies for selecting repertoire that compliments their ensembles. His list includes but is not limited to setting realistic expectations, knowing the demographics of your ensemble, determining the curricular goals or outcomes to be achieved through the repertoire, and connecting with each student; additional information pertaining to each of these four strategies, especially their impact on the repertoire selection process, has been summarized in the article as well.