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- Written by Chad Criswell
SmartMusic has yet another competitor in the intelligent assessment space with the introduction of the Weezic Augmented Sheet Music app for iPad. The app listens to you as you play and marks the notes correct or incorrect, all while keeping a running total of your score at the bottom of the page. It's a free app, but this very early release has a very limited number of songs available, and not all the instruments in a traditional wind ensemble (the poor trombones never get any love). Is Weezic worth the bits it takes to download? Read on to find out.
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- Written by Chad Criswell
One of the really promising things about MuseScore as a music notation system is its open source nature. They openly ask people to modify the code and make improvements, some of which may eventually be incorporated back into the main program. In June, 2011 at Barcelona's Music Hack Day some of these ingenious coders demonstrated a new score following system that takes audio from a microphone source and automatically follows the score notation on the screen. Notthing new you may say? Stop and think about the applications and possibilities here. If they can do this now then perhaps a free, open source music accompaniment system to compete with SmartMusic is on the horizon. Read on to find out more.
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- Written by Chad Criswell
No one can deny the benefits that recording our soloists and ensembles can provide. From an educational standpoint recordings of rehearsals and performances can provide many different opportunities for critical evaluation and enhanced learning in the classroom. Those same recordings can often be used as public relations, marketing, and fundraising tools as well. However, there are others who think of a classroom recording studio as much more than a way to record and listen to student performances. Some see it as an educational class all to itself. The growth of digital music distribution has garnered a related growth in the recording fields, pushing recording and audio engineering classes to be created at community colleges and universities all over the country. A few secondary schools are also picking up on this and beginning to offer classes in these areas wherein the students walk away with a certificate in the recording arts as well as an extensive portfolio of their own work to show to potential colleges and employers.
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Let's give a big welcome to our newest writer here at MusicEdMagic, Ariel Alexander!
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- Written by Chad Criswell
Neuratron is known for their Photoscore software that many people use to scan music and convert it into a music file that can be read by Sibelius, Finale, and other music notation programs. Now they have come out with an incredibly useful and handy app that does much the same thing on the iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. NotateMe takes hand written music, made with your finger or a stylus on your device's screen, and instantly changes it into a form than can be printed, edited, or exported to a music notation program. While this is pretty cool by itself the features they have planned down the road blow make it almost indispensable.
Read more: Neuratron's Awesome NotateMe App For iOS and Android
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A few days ago a fellow music ed blogger named Thomas West tweeted about a news story he read about the Massachusetts legislature considering a law to require schools to santize their instruments each school year and to promote band instrument cleaning and hygiene practices to prevent infection. When I first heard it I thought it might be just something that was a knee jerk reaction to the H1N1 Swine Flu stuff. Chances are that the flu pandemic did have something to do with it but after reading the story I still wonder how people can be so badly misinformed as to recommend a proceedure that costs hundreds of dollars per instrument versus the chemical cleaning job that my local music store does for less than $75.
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As the school year begins anew here is a quick look at some useful educational grants for classrooms and teachers to apply for. Most of them are tech related, but isn't everything these days?
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- Written by Chad Criswell
I’m lazy at times, I admit it, so when I decided I needed some new note identification worksheets to use with my beginning band class to help them practice reading the notes on the staff I didn’t really feel like pulling out Finale and writing one out. Yes, their templates make it easy and all, but like I said, I was feeling lazy. Luckily I found a fast, pre-made solution.
Read more: Free Music Note Identification and Music Theory Worksheets
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- Written by Chad Criswell
If you are looking for some easy to play, beginner level free clarinet sheet music the list below might have just what you need. All of the over 80 free sheet music files on MusicEdMagic are written in keys that are easy for almost any B-flat soprano or bass clarinetist to play as long as they have had at least a few months of dedicated instruction on the instrument. The clarinet sheet music found on MusicEdMagic is listed in several categories from Christmas and sacred, to folk music, patriotic music charts, and more. Use the listing below to find what you need and if something is missing be sure to send us a message and we may be able to arrange it for use in the future. In some cases the clarinet versions of these pieces may also be appropriate for instruments such as the piano. Please feel free to look around and decide for yourself. Thank you!
Please also be aware that you can play these pieces as a unison duet or trio if you have the appropriate part for another instrument. For example, a clarinet, flute, and saxophone player can all play this song together in unison if each musician has a copy of the appropriate part.
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- Written by Chad Criswell
Certain physical disabilities or injuries caused by birth defects or traumatic events can lead people to believe that the door to being an instrumental musician is one that has been permanently closed. How could a person with only hand possibly play a violin? How can a person with one arm play the saxophone? Yet these discouraging situations occasionally carry with them inspirational solutions. Those solutions lie with three interconnected pieces, first in the man or woman who crafts the instrument that allows that musician to flourish, second in the musician who must find the conviction to succeed, and finally in the teacher with the patience and dedication to help guide the student along his or her musical path.
Read more: Adaptive Music Technology For Physically Disabled Students
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- Written by Chad Criswell
For the last seven years I have been steadily building the archive of free printable sheet music for piano and other instruments here at MusicEdMagic.com. Most of our selection of sheet music is beginner oriented, meaning that they are melody only, usually written for right hand only, and written at a 5th grade beginning band ability level.