Digital Musicking

Auralia5 and Musition5 are very good soft wares for a music classroom. Auralia is for ear training, while Musition is for music theory. These softwares enhance a student's musicianship through very interesting activities of listening, composing, notating music, and sight reading/playing. A school has to purchase the software, though it is cloud based. The teacher adds students to different classes in the groups so that when assignments are set, they are easily submitted to the class where they belong. Teachers can create and assign worksheets, tests, and courses, and grade his/her students online as well. Tracking allows the teachers to run exams with high quality content that students love. Reports are also created in the software and parents can access their children's performance. Auralia and Musition are perfect for students of all ages and abilities. Auralia has a clean, easy to use interface designed to keep students focused on their essential ear training task.

Sound trap is an online Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) that one can use to create loops and tracks online. One doesn't need to download any software to install sound trap, it is typically online and is a very good resource for teaching creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking (4 Cs). I like sound trap because it enables students and teachers to continue work anywhere any time (in and outside the classroom). Teachers can easily add projects and invite students to work on the project any time anywhere. The fact that one can invite another person to work on the same project and/or even record a track together is mesmerizing. With sound trap, it is easy to record any instrument, download a track, and best of all, you can record using a microphone and/or use the free loops, MIDI, and effects that come with the software. A school has to purchase the software and add students to start using it. However, the software has a one month free trial which teachers can try out with their students before purchasing.

This is a discussion by New York Times columnist, David Brooks, and Kathy Fletcher, and the director of Turnaround Arts Initiative about the important work that Turnaround Arts does through the strategic use of the arts. The discussion talks about how music facilitates brain development, why certain things in music leave people fascinated, and what magic music brings to emotion. The discussion also unfolds how the arts, and music education in particular opens the student's mind to memorisation. David Brooks says "Students understand better when topics are introduced through music". I agree with that because most students become more alert when a topic is introduced through song and it fosters the interest of students. Therefore we need arts to succeed in education. A lot of artists came from struggling backgrounds so when they talk to children that would like to succeed in the music world but are frightened that they'll never make it, they tell them "I know what you are going through but you can make it". This encourages those children to push on and excel in the arts. Kathy Fletcher says music boosts critical thinking and confidence which is ideal for students and they end up excelling in all other fields. The arts connect us all through music in a way that music created is shared all around the world. Partnerships are created to perform music and people come together to listen to music. This makes us one.

MusicTheory.net is a great website to teach theory to students. It has lessons on a variety of topics, interactive exercises to support the theory topics, and tools that could be used in conjunction with other activities in the classroom. There are also apps available for devices. The best part is that the exercises can be customized (scroll down to the bottom of the exercise or tools pages) with a permanent link so that students can take quizzes or have additional practice for specifics without having to change the settings for themselves. For example, note identification can be customized to the clef and range of a specific instrument and sent to those students for practice or quizzes.

This website is an excellent resource to purchase materials for music themed bulletin boards. Bulletin Boards are organized by category and theme.

Great ideas for music and movement.

Informative page for Band Directors.

Apronus Piano is an online piano that works on both touchscreens and with piano keyboards. As opposed to some online keyboard that play C when you press the letter C, D when you press the letter D, it uses the keyboard as close to a piano as possible. The second row of keys corresponds to the white keys on the piano and the number row corresponds to the black keys as they occur (with one or two exceptions). The bottom two rows can be used to play chords. The range of the keyboard can be adjusted to hear different notes. This online piano can be used as extra practice for general music or piano students or as a substitution for a real piano if keyboards are not available but computers are available. It could also be used in conjunction with composition assignments or for choral students to practice vocal lines.

From the Top is a PBS series that features young performers on the Carnegie Hall stage. Each clip includes background and an interview with Christopher O'Riley (host and sometimes piano accompanist). There are representations of almost every major instrument in band and orchestra as well as vocalists, choral ensembles, pianists, and guitarists. The young performers have selected pieces in a variety of styles and some have amazing background stories, including an Olympic skater and one about the effects of Hurricane Katrina. The website also includes podcasts and a section for teachers that includes lesson plans to incorporate along with each episode. Clicking on From the Top at the bottom of the page gets you to more recent streaming videos from the show at fromthetop.org

Looking for additional loops to add to GarageBand, Logic Pro X, or Pro Tools? Looperman is a fantastic place to find additional material for your DAW based projects. Music technology classes will greatly benefit from new material (loops) in addition to those already included in their DAW. All of the audio loops, samples, wav files, sounds and other related files are completely FREE!

If you teach Music Technology, check out this FREE resource related to Ableton. There are great lesson plan ideas that can be adapted for use with any DAW. The site links to sample chapters from the book of the same title.

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.

Don't have Audacity or your favorite DAW handy to convert an audio file to another file type? What about converting a .pdf file to Word .doc or related file formats? This is a fantastic site that converts practically any file format to other related formats for that file type ONLINE with no need to download software! For example, an audio file to another audio file format; one document format to another document format, etc.

Kahoot.com is a user-friendly free website for all educators to use in the classroom. It is fun way to interact and assess the student knowledge of content. Kahoot quizzes can be created by a user, and quizzes can be shared other users. The quizzes can be formatted differently to keep the game fun and exciting such as, which student gets the most right, or who is the first to answer. The website is free, but with an upgrade and small annual payment, there are a few more benefits to the site.

An all around great site for piano teachers. Lesson and teaching ideas in plain English without all the teacher speak. This particular article applies to Group Piano / Class Piano, but there are other resources for private instructors. Very well done, and a great source for lesson plan ideas.

If you teach Music Technology, you simply MUST check this site once a month at a minimum. The Splice community area usually has at least one active remix contest where you can download professional STEMs (multitracks) to use in your own DAW projects / lesson plans. Your students will LOVE this!

Another GO TO site for Music Technology lesson plan ideas! A listing of project based assignments for Digital Audio Production or Music Technology. The link to Ethan's Google Spreadsheet is worth the click to this site - trust me!

Remember when Finale used to be able to import pdf files? PlayScore 2 is a great work-around. Music scanning software that includes the ability to export as a MusicXML file or MIDI file which can then be imported into programs such as Finale, Sibelius, to be edited, transposed, or re-arranged. ALSO - this is a great tech blog to follow / subscribe to.

Bucket drumming is a favorite activity during rhythm units in just about any grade. Coach K makes this whole process easy and encourages us to share our experiences.