Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Core Art Standards Draft Review
There will be a public review of the new Arts Standards on the wikispace for the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. The review will be opened on June 30th and close on July 15th. This is a small window. They want input quickly. If you are interested in reviewing the standards and providing input, follow this link: http://nccas.wikispaces.com/NCCAS+June+30th+Public+Review
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Dropbox for the Music Teacher
I have fallen in love with Dropbox!
I was first introduced to Dropbox by a colleague. She recorded herself singing some songs for our district honor choir for the students to use when practicing. She shared the audio files with me via Dropbox.
I have also used Dropbox to store sheet music. I scanned the music for the All-State Children's Chorus and uploaded it to my Dropbox so that I would be able to study the scores at home on my iPad, even if I forgot the sheet music on the piano stand at school. Likewise, it prevented me from leaving the sheet music at home and not being able to rehearse with it at school. In fact, at All-State Children's Chorus, my student forgot her music in the car, which was parked 4 blocks away in a parking garage. I gave her my iPad and she was able to view the sheet music via Dropbox!
The biggest use for Dropbox has been with my preparation of my National Board Portfolio. When I began the analysis of my videos, I first set up two laptops on the kitchen table. One would be used to play video footage while I typed on the other. At some point, I had an epiphany and uploaded my videos to Dropbox. I was able to view them on the iPad and type on my laptop. I also uploaded all the instruction manuals (which were organized in a 2.5 inch binder). With Dropbox, my iPad replaced a laptop and a huge binder. It was much easer to move my things upstairs and downstairs when needed.
I was also able to share files with my sister so she could proofread them. When you open Dropbox on your computer, you can drag and drop files into the folder as you would into any other folder. It is very easy!
If you have not tried Dropbox, you should check it out!
Hello, again
Hello again! I apologize for the absence of my posts. Here is an update on what I have been doing the last five months:
In January, I began working on my National Boards Portfolio and had very little time to plan my lessons and capture them on video. Not only was the portfolio deadline quickly approaching, my belly was growing as well! On March 29th, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy!
My maternity leave allowed me to take off the rest of the year. I worried little about my students because I had a retired music teacher filling in for me. I knew they were in great hands. It took me about a month to get out of the newborn coma and for the entire month of May, I've been using every spare moment to complete my portfolio entries. Today, I finally submitted my portfolio to be scored! I still have to take a computer-based test toward the end of June, but the biggest work is behind me! The results will be announced in December. I will keep you posted.
Now, I plan to get back into the swing of things and share some more posts. Here are some ideas for my first posts. Leave a comment to let me know what you would like to read about first.
1) Designing Interactive Flipcharts for Interactive Whiteboards
2) Click Clack Moo
3) Crazy Eights
4) Rap a Tap Tap
5) Farkle McBride
6) Arts & Humanities Program Reviews (Kentucky Accountability System)
In January, I began working on my National Boards Portfolio and had very little time to plan my lessons and capture them on video. Not only was the portfolio deadline quickly approaching, my belly was growing as well! On March 29th, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy!
My maternity leave allowed me to take off the rest of the year. I worried little about my students because I had a retired music teacher filling in for me. I knew they were in great hands. It took me about a month to get out of the newborn coma and for the entire month of May, I've been using every spare moment to complete my portfolio entries. Today, I finally submitted my portfolio to be scored! I still have to take a computer-based test toward the end of June, but the biggest work is behind me! The results will be announced in December. I will keep you posted.
Now, I plan to get back into the swing of things and share some more posts. Here are some ideas for my first posts. Leave a comment to let me know what you would like to read about first.
1) Designing Interactive Flipcharts for Interactive Whiteboards
2) Click Clack Moo
3) Crazy Eights
4) Rap a Tap Tap
5) Farkle McBride
6) Arts & Humanities Program Reviews (Kentucky Accountability System)
Friday, January 25, 2013
The Journey Begins . . .
I thought about waiting until I was completely finished with my boards before blogging about it, but I think I will keep you posted with tips and wisdom that I discover along the way. I have made one big realization this week regarding the videos. Two of the entries have time limits of 15 minutes. Many of my lessons start on the carpet in front of the Activboard to prepare the concept and lesson material, then we move to the Orff instruments. Although I try to be as efficient as possible, the transition to move to the instruments causes delay in instruction as we often must get extra mallets for students sharing instruments, take off bars to prep the pentatonic scale, etc. You are not allowed to edit the videos submissions, so this was very puzzling if I wanted to include part of the instruction on the carpet and on the instruments.
Yesterday, I had an epiphany! Before beginning the lesson and before hitting record on the camera, the students chose their instrument they would be playing for the day. We took care of all issues with mallets and removed the appropriate bars. After everything was prepared, we came back to the carpet to begin the taped part of the lesson. The transition to the instruments took 60 seconds or less!
Now, on to my next challenge . . . finding a way to mute the intercom system and telephone!
If you are also attempting your National Boards, I would love to network! Comment below or you could send me a private message if you are a fan of this blog on Facebook.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Free Online Music Games For Kids
I have revamped my classroom website and a view links may have been lost. I am reposting my collection my music websites just in case any of you have difficulty following the original links. The original post is found here.
Friday, January 4, 2013
110 Free Music Education Apps
I've had the iPad for about 3 months and have downloaded many free music apps. I have organized them into the following folders so that all the music apps can be found on one screen. The folders are shown in the screenshot below:
1) Classical Lite
2) SPCO (Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra)
3) NPR Music
4) Pandora
5) Classical Music For Babies
6) iLuvMozart
7) Classical 1
8) Beethoven Symphonies
9) Classical Masters
10) Mozart Symphonies
11) XmasRADIO
13) Soundrop
14) Singing Fingers
16) Pro Metronome
17) iMetronome
18) Gibson Studio Share (This has a metronome and tuner.)
19) Pitch Pipe Now
20) AccuTune
21) insTuner
23) Monster Chorus. Monsters who sing the pitches of a scale.
24) Karaoke HD. Comes with a few free songs with the option to purchase more.
25) Songify. Records your speaking voice and then auto-tunes it into an instant song.
26) Sing Along Christmas Carols Free. Words appear on screen karaoke style.
28) Bagpipe. You have to blow on the microphone receiver to play it!
29) Zampona
30) Ocarina 2. You also have to blow on the microphone receiver to play it.
31) WoodwindIA. The English Horn is free; you must purchase the other instruments.
32) Shehnai HD
33) Recorder Master. Play along with your recorder or by touching the screen.
35) Ukulele. I love how you hold the iPad like a real instrument to play it.
36) Guitar
37) Bass Guitar!
38) Santoor
39) Celtic Harp Lite
40) 12-String Lite
41) WI Orchestra. This is a piano keyboard, but the violin sounds are the only ones that come free.
42) On The Music Path. Videos teaching how to play guitar and other folk strings.
44) Congas
45) Bongos
46) iTablas
47) Chakra Chime
48) Slit Drum
49) Washboard
50) Percussion for Kids. A mix of congas, bongos, maracas, wind chimes, and triangle.
51) Awesome Cowbell Free. A selection of 3 different sizes of cowbells.
52) Bottle Xylophone
53) Marimba. The lowest note is an A (I wish it were a C)
54) Sansula Lite Thumb piano
55) Drum Man An aerial view of a drum set.
56) Bottle Music Make music with bottles or wine glasses.
57) Finger Stomp Lite
59) TrumpetLiteHD
60) TromboneLite
61) FrHornLiteHD
62) Trumpet+ Lite
63) Vuvuzela Man
64) Music Instruments by Tidels Free Flashcards with real images of musical instruments.
65) My Musical Friends HD Cartoon versions of the instruments to appeal to younger students.
66) Melody Street An interactive story to introduce the instruments.
67) Mozart Interactive You get to choose which instrument will play next.
68) Kids Musician A preschool app exploring percussion and keyboard instruments.
69) Music Sparkles A glockenspiel and drum set are unlocked for free.
70) Music School For Toddlers. The piano is unlocked free. I like how the note names appear above the keys.
72) iPiano Lessons Instructional videos about the piano.
73) Piano Free Full 88 keys, adjustable size, with a metronome and songs.
74) Magic Piano Play beautiful piano music by touching lights as they move across the screen.
76) Music Keys. Quizzes pitch names of piano keys.
77) Music Tool. Shows how to play chords on the piano keyboard.
78) Inversion Invasion A space-themed game improving chord building.
79) Piano Prodigy. Play songs from color-coded solfege.
80) Dust Buster. A game that can be used with the touch pad piano or can use the microphone to pick up the sound of a real piano or keyboard.
81) Pluto Piano. Play songs on a touch piano or by navigating a penguin up and down the staff.
82) Piano Hero. Dual player touch pianos on each side of the iPad. Play the keys as the lights approach the keys.
A previous post on Rhythm Cat can be found at this link.
84) Rhythm Training. Read rhythms and tap the screen. You may also practice at different tempi.
85) S4-RComposer Create beats and loops with electronic percussion sounds.
86) Monkey Drum Play rhythms and let the monkey echo you, or compose your own tunes.
A previous post on Monkey Drum can be found at this link.
88) Nail That Note Lite Absolute, melodic, and relative pitch trainer using a piano keyboard.
89) Blob Chorus. Aural game matching pitches.
A previous post on Blob Chorus can be found at this link.
90) Ear Trainer Lite. Practice aural recognition of intervals, chords, and scales.
91) Right Note Lite Ear Trainer assessing intervals, pitch, and melody.
92) Musical Puzzle HD Arrange a song by correctly ordering jigsaw pieces containing short melodic phrases and notation.
94) Harmonizer Explore harmony with lights and patterned shapes.
96) Rhythm Repeat Lite A memory game echoing rhythmic and melodic patterns.
97) Young Music Genius. Consists of several games. One game is memory-style flipping instrument cards over until you find a match. There is also an instrument quiz aural identifying instrument sounds and a composer quiz identifying musical excerpts by listening.
99) ClefTunes Lite Touch notes on a staff to hear the pitch.
100) Playpad. Touch lines or spaces on the staff to hear their pitch.
101) Penguin Chase. Touch a penguin and navigate him up and down a staff to play a melody, avoiding obstacles. Watch out, the tempo continues to increase!
103) Jazz Cats Explore jazz music by selecting which instruments you would like to hear.
104) Country Cats Explore country western music by selecting which instruments you would like to hear.
105) Spanish Sound HD Explore Spanish music by selecting sound clips.
107) Tonara Some music is offered for free. The best feature of this app is that it turns the page automatically as it hears you performing the music.
108) MusicStandPad Scan your own sheet music and store it digitally using Dropbox. This app will connects to the Dropbox library to view your music. You may write on the music to take notes and turn the page with just a flick of a finger.
109) Steinway Etude There are many free songs, but you can also purchase more sheet music. But I love the setting that shows you the strings on the inside of the piano while it plays the song selected.
Listening
1) Classical Lite
2) SPCO (Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra)
3) NPR Music
4) Pandora
5) Classical Music For Babies
6) iLuvMozart
7) Classical 1
8) Beethoven Symphonies
9) Classical Masters
10) Mozart Symphonies
11) XmasRADIO
Sound Exploration
12) Falling Stars13) Soundrop
14) Singing Fingers
Metronomes
15) iBeat16) Pro Metronome
17) iMetronome
18) Gibson Studio Share (This has a metronome and tuner.)
Tuners
19) Pitch Pipe Now
20) AccuTune
21) insTuner
Singing
22) I Am Composer. Sing and then see your music notated on a staff.23) Monster Chorus. Monsters who sing the pitches of a scale.
24) Karaoke HD. Comes with a few free songs with the option to purchase more.
25) Songify. Records your speaking voice and then auto-tunes it into an instant song.
26) Sing Along Christmas Carols Free. Words appear on screen karaoke style.
Woodwinds
27) Honey Harmonica28) Bagpipe. You have to blow on the microphone receiver to play it!
29) Zampona
30) Ocarina 2. You also have to blow on the microphone receiver to play it.
31) WoodwindIA. The English Horn is free; you must purchase the other instruments.
32) Shehnai HD
33) Recorder Master. Play along with your recorder or by touching the screen.
Strings
34) Classical Violinist. Violin, Guitar Hero-Style35) Ukulele. I love how you hold the iPad like a real instrument to play it.
36) Guitar
37) Bass Guitar!
38) Santoor
39) Celtic Harp Lite
40) 12-String Lite
41) WI Orchestra. This is a piano keyboard, but the violin sounds are the only ones that come free.
42) On The Music Path. Videos teaching how to play guitar and other folk strings.
Percussion
43) iTriangle44) Congas
45) Bongos
46) iTablas
47) Chakra Chime
48) Slit Drum
49) Washboard
50) Percussion for Kids. A mix of congas, bongos, maracas, wind chimes, and triangle.
51) Awesome Cowbell Free. A selection of 3 different sizes of cowbells.
52) Bottle Xylophone
53) Marimba. The lowest note is an A (I wish it were a C)
54) Sansula Lite Thumb piano
55) Drum Man An aerial view of a drum set.
56) Bottle Music Make music with bottles or wine glasses.
57) Finger Stomp Lite
Brass
58) BrassIA. The piccolo trumpet comes free; you may purchase other instruments.59) TrumpetLiteHD
60) TromboneLite
61) FrHornLiteHD
62) Trumpet+ Lite
63) Vuvuzela Man
Instruments
(Apps with instruments from multiple familes)64) Music Instruments by Tidels Free Flashcards with real images of musical instruments.
65) My Musical Friends HD Cartoon versions of the instruments to appeal to younger students.
66) Melody Street An interactive story to introduce the instruments.
67) Mozart Interactive You get to choose which instrument will play next.
68) Kids Musician A preschool app exploring percussion and keyboard instruments.
69) Music Sparkles A glockenspiel and drum set are unlocked for free.
70) Music School For Toddlers. The piano is unlocked free. I like how the note names appear above the keys.
Piano
71) MiniPiano One octave, full-size keys.72) iPiano Lessons Instructional videos about the piano.
73) Piano Free Full 88 keys, adjustable size, with a metronome and songs.
74) Magic Piano Play beautiful piano music by touching lights as they move across the screen.
Playing Piano
75) Music Intervals. Quizzes intervals on treble or bass clef.76) Music Keys. Quizzes pitch names of piano keys.
77) Music Tool. Shows how to play chords on the piano keyboard.
78) Inversion Invasion A space-themed game improving chord building.
79) Piano Prodigy. Play songs from color-coded solfege.
80) Dust Buster. A game that can be used with the touch pad piano or can use the microphone to pick up the sound of a real piano or keyboard.
81) Pluto Piano. Play songs on a touch piano or by navigating a penguin up and down the staff.
82) Piano Hero. Dual player touch pianos on each side of the iPad. Play the keys as the lights approach the keys.
Rhythm
83) Rhythm Cat HD. Read rhythms and tap the screen.A previous post on Rhythm Cat can be found at this link.
84) Rhythm Training. Read rhythms and tap the screen. You may also practice at different tempi.
85) S4-RComposer Create beats and loops with electronic percussion sounds.
86) Monkey Drum Play rhythms and let the monkey echo you, or compose your own tunes.
A previous post on Monkey Drum can be found at this link.
Ear Training
87) Pickup Tunes Free Ear training games recognizing intervals and scale degrees.88) Nail That Note Lite Absolute, melodic, and relative pitch trainer using a piano keyboard.
89) Blob Chorus. Aural game matching pitches.
A previous post on Blob Chorus can be found at this link.
90) Ear Trainer Lite. Practice aural recognition of intervals, chords, and scales.
91) Right Note Lite Ear Trainer assessing intervals, pitch, and melody.
92) Musical Puzzle HD Arrange a song by correctly ordering jigsaw pieces containing short melodic phrases and notation.
Harmony
93) Sound Prism Explore harmony with lights and patterns on a grid.94) Harmonizer Explore harmony with lights and patterned shapes.
Memory Games
95) Piano Game. An aural game of Simon challenging your ear training skills.96) Rhythm Repeat Lite A memory game echoing rhythmic and melodic patterns.
97) Young Music Genius. Consists of several games. One game is memory-style flipping instrument cards over until you find a match. There is also an instrument quiz aural identifying instrument sounds and a composer quiz identifying musical excerpts by listening.
Staff
98) Note Brainer. Assess note reading flash-card style. You can customize the game for treble or bass class only.99) ClefTunes Lite Touch notes on a staff to hear the pitch.
100) Playpad. Touch lines or spaces on the staff to hear their pitch.
101) Penguin Chase. Touch a penguin and navigate him up and down a staff to play a melody, avoiding obstacles. Watch out, the tempo continues to increase!
Genres
102) Blues Cats Explore blues music by selecting which instruments you would like to hear.103) Jazz Cats Explore jazz music by selecting which instruments you would like to hear.
104) Country Cats Explore country western music by selecting which instruments you would like to hear.
105) Spanish Sound HD Explore Spanish music by selecting sound clips.
Sheet Music
106) Sheet Music Direct. A library of scores. Lots of music can be previewed for free or purchased through sheetmusicdirect.com.107) Tonara Some music is offered for free. The best feature of this app is that it turns the page automatically as it hears you performing the music.
108) MusicStandPad Scan your own sheet music and store it digitally using Dropbox. This app will connects to the Dropbox library to view your music. You may write on the music to take notes and turn the page with just a flick of a finger.
109) Steinway Etude There are many free songs, but you can also purchase more sheet music. But I love the setting that shows you the strings on the inside of the piano while it plays the song selected.
110) My Note Games
My Note Games. This last app is not in a folder because it could belong to many categories. This features music theory and note reading games you can use with just your fingers on the touch screen, or with your singing voice, or any musical instrument (including recorder).If you have any other suggestions to add to this list, please comment below.
Labels:
composing,
games,
harmony,
instruments,
melody,
technology
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)































