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- Written by Chad Criswell
The sound systems used in most music rooms have changed greatly over the years. The cassettes of the 80’s and 90’s gave way to CD players and now are transitioning to solid state and streaming media in the form of MP3 players and computer based audio applications. The next ten years will be even more digital as we continue the trend away from the CD and onto other media like SD cards, hard drives, and online cloud storage services. Making informed and intelligent purchasing decisions now can help make sure that whatever audio system you invest in today will still work well with the technology of tomorrow. Consider these tips and suggestions when planning any new audio technology purchase for your room.
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I subscribe to a lot of news feeds and newsletters trying to find new and interesting stuff to use and pass on to others in the music education community. Well, this time I have to give props out to a source outside the norm of our little genre. Today's Kim Komando Cool Site of the Day was a web site called Thetamusic that has some very interesting ear training games that I have to admit are pretty awesome as well.
Read more: ThetaMusic- Imaginative and Fun Online Ear Training Game Web Site
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The sheet music files for Take Me Out To The Ball Game have been updated to include harmony parts as well as Finale, Sibelius, SmartMusic, and MP3 file formats as well. You can now download the music for the song for all concert band instruments and mix and match the harmony parts as needed. If you find you don't like my harmonizing (trust me, I'm not the greatest at it), then you can use the Finale or Sibelius music notation files to edit it as you see fit. The 1st parts are all melody while the 2nd parts are the harmony.
The MP3 file has the full concert band arrangement in it, and the SmartMusic file can be used in class or at home to practice and assess a student's performance of it.
It is my hope to slowly do the rest of the free sheet music in the collection in this same way. I am converting files from Sibelius over to Finale and hope to post them as they come available.
Of course, there is also a large quantity of free sheet music already available here at MusicEdMagic, in fact I have published dozens of public domain pieces in many different categories, all arranged to be playable even by first year beginners. If an instrument is not available try one of the others and you will likely find that one of them falls into the playable range for your instrument.
Take Me Out To The Ball Game
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Music teachers and band directors all have the same problem, how to get their students to practice their instruments on a regular basis outside of class. Most educators require some degree of home based practice, but their methods and level of success at getting students to actually do it varies widely. I was having a big problem with lack of student practice with my beginners, and after speaking with counselors at the three schools I teach at I came up with an incentive program that really helped a lot. The problem is it also put me in the poor house...
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- Written by Chad Criswell
The explosive growth of the use of video in the classroom has changed the way many of us could teach our lessons, but when using YouTube or other online instructional video sources the information usually flows in only one direction. Videoconferencing opens up the opportunity for teachers to have truly interactive conversations and lessons with their students by connecting their classroom with other students, other teachers, and professional performers from all over the world in real time. We spoke with NAfME members Heather Mandujano, Distance Learning Education Coordinator at the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, OH, and Dr. Fred Rees, Professor of Music in the Department of Music and Arts Technology at Purdue University in Indianapolis, IN, to discover what the current best practices and opportunities are for connecting our classrooms to a wide variety of musical opportunities.
Read more: Music Education At A Distance- Videoconferencing Technologies In The Music Classroom
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Sources for legal free sheet music lyrics
Finding lyrics to your favorite song on the Internet is no big deal any more. Most of the time all you need to do is do a Google search for your chosen song and then sift through a few pages of junk to arrive at what may, or may not, be accurate lyrics to the music you were looking for.
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- Written by Chad Criswell
If there is one thing that every musician needs more of it’s practice time. In the first years of a musician’s training getting the student used to a regular, effective practice routine is essential to long term success. Technology has come a long way in recent years toward helping us achieve this goal by providing us with a large number of useful software titles and mobile apps that can help us practice in a variety of different ways. Whether you are looking for an app that actively listens to and assesses a student’s performance or a simple app to track a student’s practice time you will find many different options both for desktop computers and for mobile devices.
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- Written by Chad Criswell
Everyone seems to have a smartphone or tablet with them at all times these days, even in our classrooms, so online assessment tools like Quizizz take advantage of that ubiquity to assess the understanding of a particular concept in a fun, entertaining way. If you are already familiar with what a Kahoot is then Quizizz will make you feel right at home, but with much less student stress and generally more accurate assessments.
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- Written by Chad Criswell
When one thinks of the use of technology in music education one does not often think of the marching band field as being a very high tech area. However, many of the same technologies that we use in the music or general education classrooms are now finding their way onto the field as well. Here are just a few of the ways that the well orchestrated use of tablets, apps, computer software, and other techno gear can breathe new life into traditional outdoor marching rehearsals and performances.
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- Written by Chad Criswell
2012 marks the reemergence of one of the big names in free sheet music creation software, Finale Notepad 2012. This product, in addition to several other free sheet music writing tools make it easy and very inexpensive to get started writing music at any level of ability. However, not all of these programs are created equal, some of them lack features that others provide. Which one should you use? Read on to get our suggestions on the best free sheet music creators available.
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What do you do with the old musical
instrument sitting in your closet? Sell it on eBay! Selling musical
instruments or anything else is fairly simple and easy to do, but
there are several things that a seller needs to think about to
protect himself from the backlash of a buyer that feels you
misrepresented the instrument in some way.Â