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- Written by Chad Criswell
Thank you if you attended my session at the Midwest Clinic! The handout given at the session has been expanded below to include comments and other links not available in the PDF. Please read the full article and scroll down to get to all the good stuff!
The tools, apps, and software products listed below are recommended for use in the music education classroom to not only assess student knowledge but also to easily store and aggregate the results of those assessments for use in a planning context by the teacher. All apps and software on this page either stores the assessment data in a form that can be easily exported as a spreadsheet or it incorporates a dedicated learning management system (online gradebook) for storing assessment data.
Read more: Technology Based Assessment In The Music Classroom
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For several years now I have been a big fan of Ricci Adam's web site, musictheory.net. I have used his training exercises with my beginning band students to teach beginning concepts while also helping them practice things like naming notes, key signatures, and aural intervals. When I returned to the site at the beginning of this school year I was met with quite a surprise, Ricci has updated almost every tutorial and exercise on the site as well as adding some new material.
Read more: Ricci Adams Updates MusicTheory.net Exercises and Lessons
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The brain child of Bob Kellar of Harvey Mudd College, Impro-Visor is a useful jazz accompaniment and improvisation training aid that can challenge anyone from the barest beginner to the advanced jazz artist. Using a setup similar to that of Band-In-A-Box, Impro-Visor can help you train your improvisational talents, and it will do it all for free.
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For over a hundred years school children have been taught that Thomas Edison was the first person to make a viable audio recording. Well, get ready to do some revising of the history books...
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- Written by Chad Criswell
Do you have a trumpet or trombone player that can’t play high notes? Maybe they can’t get a good solid tone because of lack of strength in their facial muscles? Are they frustrated? Read on to find out how I solved this problem for many of my beginning band students using a cool little practice device called a P.E.T.E.
Read more: Improve Beginner Trumpet Embouchure With The P.E.T.E
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We have all heard the stories of teachers being goated into losing their temper in class by students whose motives were to record the event and then upload it to YouTube for the entire world to see. Some of these stories are not pretty, some are incredibly mean, and others are enough to make a teacher give up on the profession alltogether. An arguement could be made in some cases that these teachers allowed themselves to get to this stage through poor classroom management or through inadequate preparation or training. That is not and should not be the point, however. No matter how it is spun, such an attack on any teacher goes beyond being a simple student vs. teacher prank. Luckily some school districts and local communities have seen the light to defend their teachers and take serious actions against students that would be so blantantly evil.
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Here’s another budget saving tip for your classroom. Did you ever need to have a larger poster sized diagram or photo made to put on the wall of your room? Custom posters can cost a lot to have made at a print shop, and if you go looking for a pre-made poster chances are you will never find one that is exactly like what you had in mind. Luckily there is a web site that will take your photo, chart, or anything else and let you make your own huge poster at home.
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In my neck of the woods most elementary schools teach the recorder starting in or around the 4th grade. As a band director I understand the reasoning for teaching recorder to kids as it helps build many of the skills needed to get them into the band once they get to fifth or sixth but I’ll be honest, I hate the sound of the recorder. The ocarina on the other hand seems to be the unwanted step child in the music classroom even though (in my opinion) the more earthy resonant tone of an ocarina is almost always superior to the sound of a cheap $3 soprano recorder. So why don’t more people use it in their classrooms?
Read more: The Ocarina vs. The Recorder in the Music Education Classroom
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I first spoke to Gary Doherty, the new head of Drum Corps International's educational division about three months ago. At that time the idea of the new OnQ performance education program was in its relative infancy. When I first heard the great ideas and possibilities that the OnQ program had in the works I was immediately taken by the fact that if successful, OnQ could be a very worthwhile and exciting way to help musicians with an interest in the Drum Corps activity to improve and excel, even in the absense of being in an actual Corps. Recently OnQ was officially rolled out with great fanfare by DCI and asked Mr. Doherty if I might share our conversation with my readers here at MusicEdMagic. This article shares a written interview, taken on August 20, 2007. Click the read more link to view the interview with Mr. Doherty and to see what all the hype is about.
Read more: DCI Lauches OnQ.org: Online Music Performance Education
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At the 2008 MENC Conference I was able to attend a session given by
Robert Duke of the University of Texas at Austin and James Byo of
Louisiana State University regarding a new instrumental band method
book that they have been working on over the last several years. Since
the conference the method has been getting some significant attention
on the MENC message boards
from teachers who are looking for something new and innovative to
replace the old, traditional method books that have been used in our
classes for decades. What is making The Habits Of Musicianship
generate such a buzz? Maybe it is because many of the premises behind
it make so much sense. Maybe it is because the progression of
activities in the book is completely different than almost any other
method book out there. Of course, it could also be that "The Habits of Musicianship- A Radical Approach To Beginning Band " is radical in that it is FREE for use by anyone that chooses to download it!
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- Written by Chad Criswell
You don't have to have high end recording gear to create a decent classroom recording studio setup. Here are some suggested places to start:
Read more: The Classroom Recording Studio- Suggested Equipment