Low Cost MusicTechnology Options For The Music Education Classroom
Low Cost MusicTechnology Options For The Music Education Classroom

Finding ways to stretch your budget in a music classroom is always important and even more so when trying to purchase high tech electronics, software, and other materials.  This article provides an updated list of dozens of different low cost or free alternatives to expensive music education products.  It includes such categories as music notation software, drill design software, special needs hardware, and many more.

 

The Star Spangled Banner- Free Sheet Music For Band Inst.
The Star Spangled Banner- Free Sheet Music For Band Inst.

This document contains sheet music for all common instruments to play The Star Spangled Banner, also known as the sheet music to the National Anthem of the United States of America. You can view the sheet music online or download the individual parts arranged for all common concert band instruments.  If you do not see your instrument listed please scroll to the bottom of the page and try one of the the other instruments.  Most musicians will be able to find at least one instrumental part that matches their range and preferred key signature.  If you are seeking a simple piano version of the song please select from the voice, trumpet, or alto saxophone versions.

 

Using Plickers as an Assessment Tool in the Music Education Classroom
Using Plickers as an Assessment Tool in the Music Education Classroom

Music, band, choir, and orchestra classrooms can be huge and assessing the knowledge and retention of individual students in such a large class can be daunting.  Plickers are one of several solutions that can be adapted to work in large groups, making the act of assessing a student’s understanding a little easier and a whole lot faster.  

Is Marching Band A Sport? Pros, Cons, and a Reality Check
Is Marching Band A Sport? Pros, Cons, and a Reality Check

In recent years the question of whether or not marching band is a sport has been brought up time and time again for various reasons and by various groups.  On one side you have the YES crowd who says that marching band is competitive, physically demanding, and every bit as much a team event as any traditional sporting event.  On the other side of the coin are those who say no, that marching band is NOT a sport and it is a musical pursuit that happens to involve coordinated movements.  Both sides are right, but to make a final decision we need to look deeper into the facts.  Read on to find out what they are!

Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews
Portable Digital Audio Recorder Buying Guide With Reviews

Scroll down to view the comparison chart of over a dozen different portable digital audio recorders.

Buying a portable digital audio recorder is a major decision.  The balance between price, features, and quality is a fine line that has many different options to choose from.  There are dozens of different models of portable digital audio recorders, some of which have drastically different sets of features yet sell for roughly the same price.  This easy to read head to head comparison chart and guide to many of the more popular portable digital audio recorders is intended to help potential buyers more easily see these differences and make an educated buying decision.

Apps and More for the Choral Classroom
Apps and More for the Choral Classroom

The number of apps, software, and gadgets available for use in the music classroom continues to grow each year but finding things that can actually be beneficial to your classes grows more and more difficult as well.  We spoke with Dr. Christopher Russell, Director of Choirs at Oltman Middle School in St. Paul Park, Minnesota to get his must-have list of apps.

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Selecting music in Finale 2010 More recent versions of Finale and Sibelius have really lent themselves to allowing users to create attractive worksheets and handouts using high quality music notation.  There are still times however, that a teacher or other user wants to move pieces of a composition into other publishing programs such as Microsoft Word or Open Office.  An example of this would be wanting to paste the graphic of a four bar phrase into a Word document or save that four bar phrase to be included in an online web page.  The good news is that you can easily save either segments of a score or entire pages of a score as JPG, EPS, or other graphic formats using tools that are already built into the music notation programs.
Exporting music as a graphic or image file in Finale

Current versions of Finale have a built in feature that allows you to export portions or entire pages of music as image files.   Once you have the score looking the way you want it to use the menu at the top of the screen to click Tools > Advanced Tools > Graphics.  The menu at the top of the screen will change slightly and there will be a Graphics pull down menu between Tools and Window.  If you want to export an entire page as a graphic file click the selection marked Export Pages...  Pages can be exported in four different formats including JPG, EPS, PNG, and TIF.    For early versions that do not provide this feature you can use a free screen capture tool such as Screen Hunter Free to accomplish many of the same tasks.

To export a smaller section of the page, such as a single measure or even a single note, follow the same basic procedure as above but do not click Export Pages...   Instead, double click (holding the button down on the second click) and drag a box around the information to be saved as an image file.  After the dashed line box is correct, release the mouse button and return to the Graphics menu this time choosing Export Selection...  Follow the same save procedure and the notes or other graphics will be saved as image files for use in other documents.  Clips can be saved as EPS, JPG, PNG, or TIF files.

Importing graphics and images into a Finale document

Sometimes it is nice to be able to include an image in a music score.  Whether writing an elementary music workbook or simply creating a piece of holiday music Finale makes it possible to include images and clipart in a Finale document.  To do so, set up the document the way you want it then click Place Graphic... from the Graphics menu (see above to find out how to get to this menu).  Browse to the image file you wish to add to the document and click OK.  It is almost always a good idea to resize the image in an external image editing program before importing it into Finale and will often make arranging the image on the page much easier as well as allow for a much smaller document file size.





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