The Importance of Using a Tuner: Finding Your Perfect Pitch

Music is a beautiful language, but like any language, it relies on clear communication.  Just like people speaking the same language can do so with different accents to their voice so too can musicians play the same note but with slight changes in the way it sounds.  The pitch may be a bit high or a bit low, and over the centuries musicians have come up with ways to analyze these differences so that multiple musicians can better "play in tune."  Just as proper grammar and pronunciation are essential for understanding spoken words, playing in tune is paramount for creating harmonious music. This is where the tuner comes in.  For the beginner (or even the more advanced musician) it can be a vital tool for developing accuracy of pitch.

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Apps and More for the Choral Classroom

The number of apps, software, and gadgets available for use in the music classroom continues to grow each year but finding things that can actually be beneficial to your classes grows more and more difficult as well.  We spoke with Dr. Christopher Russell, Director of Choirs at Oltman Middle School in St. Paul Park, Minnesota to get his must-have list of apps.

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Purchasing the Best Piano Keyboards with Weighted Keys

For individuals or families hoping to improve on or develop a skill for piano playing, few items are as important as a quality keyboard to use for studying and practice. As the rise of online shopping continues to shape the marketplace, the means for discovering the perfect instrument has never been more accessible to musicians.

With technological advancement allowing players of all levels to achieve a professional sound on even the tightest budget, students of music now have a treasure trove of fine products at their disposal to help kickstart their love of playing or to take their music career to new heights. Here are just a few things to consider when looking for the best keyboard for you or your family. 

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Online Collaboration Tools For The Music Classroom

One of the many facets of the new national music education standards emphasizes the importance of providing music creation opportunities in our classrooms.  At the same time making the jump from being a consumer of music to actually creating it can be a scary one even for experienced musicians.  This perceived barrier to becoming a composer continues to be made less of an issue thanks to innovative new technology tools and the equally innovative teachers who are finding new ways to encourage friendly, collaborative music creation environments.  We spoke to music teachers and technology vendors alike to find new ways to get kids composing in new collaborative ways in and out of the classroom.

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Music Education Labs In The Cloud

If you are familiar with old music education software titles such as Music Ace or MIBAC then you probably also have fond memories of taking your music classes down to a computer lab and having them boot up the machines, only to then battle with the local network or file storage that seemed to always be losing the student’s submitted work.  As technology has progressed over the years many schools have started to do away with dedicated computer labs entirely in favor of one to one computing.  Music teachers can also benefit from this shift in focus by doing away with these old CD based software tools and instead move traditionally lab based projects and activities into the cloud.

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Technology Based Assessment In The Music Classroom

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.

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Hooktheory and Hookpad Online Music Composing Tools

To a beginner or even most experienced musicians the act of composing original music is a daunting task.  Due to the perceived difficulty associated with composing most individuals avoid it completely or limit themselves to very basic, unsatisfying projects.  Enter Hooktheory.  An easy to use tool that when combined with classroom instruction can make the act of composing music fun and engaging.

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Using Quizizz In The Classroom

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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Adaptive Music Technology For Physically Disabled Students

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.

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Using Plickers as an Assessment Tool in the Music Education Classroom

Music, band, choir, and orchestra classrooms can be huge and assessing the knowledge and retention of individual students in such a large class can be daunting.  Plickers are one of several solutions that can be adapted to work in large groups, making the act of assessing a student’s understanding a little easier and a whole lot faster.  

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