Free (and low-cost) lesson plans, resources, apps and websites for music teachers
What can I do with Chromebooks or mixed devices in music education? Many of you have been asking me how you can effectively use Chromebooks or a combination of technology like iPads, Android devices and laptops (sometimes BOTH Mac and PC!) in music education. I thought I’d put together an online training session that shows
Lesson: Compose and play rhythms in different meters with Chrome Music Lab In March, Google launched the free Chrome Music Lab Experiments site to celebrate Music In Our Schools month and to allow users to explore the way in which music works. Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music wrote about the browser-based music tools in
The 12 Bar Blues in a Tango Style? If you’re looking for a blues activity that’s a little different - and you have some iPads you can use during class - you might like to ask students to “transform the blues” using the GarageBand app. This lesson invites students to come up with their own
Access For All I’ve just finished up at the ASME (Australian Society for Music Education) 2015 conference which was held in Adelaide last week. I delivered a keynote speech and 3 other workshops, but I also managed to attend a few other sessions. I always enjoy learning from other presenters - both from a “content”
Introduction In today’s post, technology and performance combine in a lesson plan based on one of the most simple (yet effective) pieces: Steve Reich’s Clapping Music. In 1972, composer Steve Reich (born 1936) decided to compose a piece that - in his words - “needs no instruments beyond the human body”. The result was Clapping
[Updated July 2018 - bonus walkthrough video added below] Free Music Technology Lesson Plans This is the first of a new ongoing series of more "formal" lesson plans that suggest simple ways to incorporate technology into music lessons. I'm aiming to map each lesson to the US and Australian national standards for music education (UK coming
Free note identification game for all platforms and devices With its Star Wars-style space theme, Staff Wars has long been a favourite note identification game of music teachers around the world. Even though I’ve been using it in workshops and conference presentations - since 2009 I think (!!) - there are still teachers who
Unit: Instruments of the Orchestra A unit about the instruments of the orchestra is frequently included in music education curricula around the world and there are lots of free resources online to help you introduce or expand upon the topic. Here are some of the links that I have found over the years. How orchestral
All you need are the Smart Drums I was running an iPad workshop last week and it occurred to me that the Dice "randomiser" function in the Smart Drums could make a good listening exercise tool for students. And why not turn it into a game? The Smart Drums instrument in GarageBand allows you to
Please note: this post was originally published in August 2012. I'm not sure how or why, but the original post disappeared completely (!). Thanks to the magic of the Wayback Machine I was able to grab a copy of the text and re-do the whole thing. I took the opportunity to revise it a little
