I have been on a quest for the past several years. The quest has been to find something that would make my life as a travelling band director easier and more efficient. Carrying three arm loads full of instruments, music, and supplies between three different buildings each week is a hassle, and I have been on the lookout for something that would help me simplify things a bit. Ordinary gig bags are good, but I am looking for something exceptional. I may have found it...
While acoustic instruments are in no danger of falling into the scrap heap of history, there can be no doubt that music of the future will look (and sound) quite different than the music of today. As analog gives way to digital so to does acoustic give way to electronic. A perfect example of this evolution happened in March at a competition designed to feature newly invented musical instruments, and provide a cash prize to the winner. While not as grand or awe inspiring as Burt Rutan's Space Ship One flying into space with no NASA logo needed, taking a look at these new instruments can be very enlightening and send the mind wondering exactly how and what we will be teaching our kids to play in another ten or twenty years.
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Read more: $10K Prize Given For Futuristic Musical Instruments
For those of you not familiar with TED, it is a wonderful resource site filled with incredible videos and speeches on a wide variety of educational topics. Each year the TED Prize is presented to several innovative thinkers who are given $100,000 and one Wish To Change The World. The video pasted below is a high definition video clip of a youth orchestra from Carracas, the conductor of which is a student of Jose Abreu, creator of El Systema, a national music education program in Venezuela that has garnered incredible reviews.
Read more: The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra: A musical sensation from Venezuela
A few months ago I wrote a few articles (including one that ran in MENC Teaching Music Magazine) about the topic of using technology and software to teach educational concepts in music class. In particular I mentioned a little game called Wii Music that I have been personally fascinated by in how easily it seems to grab the attention of students of all elementary school ages. While it is not a purely educational game it is still very useful in music class. I and many others around the world have tried using it in some form or another with our young students and I have to say in most cases it has been a very good experience.
Read more: Use of Wii Music In Classrooms Appears To Be Growing
MusicEdMagic is three years old now and has matured nicely into something that I hope is of use to the many hundreds of people that read the newsletter each week and the many thousands more that visit on a regular basis. Three years though is a long time, and I admit that from time to time I have written articles for the site that may have been less useful than I would have liked. My new year's resolution is to try to get back to the basics in terms of what I personally write about on the site. MusicEdMagic started as a place for me to force myself to learn new things that would help me in my classroom and then write about them so that others could benefit. Although I never really lost sight of that goal I am now going to work very hard to get the train back on that solid, straight track to the future. The problem is, after three years I find myself wondering what the readers of this site actually want to hear about. To that end, I am throwing this out to all of MusicEdMagic's readership:
Please communicate with me, either by the comment forms found at the bottom of each page or by email using the Contact The Webmaster form. If you have an idea that you personally are an expert on maybe you would like to share your knowledge with the rest of the world through this venue? I am constantly looking for new authors and music teachers that just want to make a difference and help out our community as a whole. Send me an article you have written or perhaps an old research paper that is sitting on your shelf collecting dust. We'll put it up online and let it help others to improve themselves as educators. I have always wanted MusicEdMagic to be a community effort, and it is my goal that in the future it will grow to be the best music education community on the Internet. Let me know what you think! I am looking forward to hearing from you!
I have long been searching for a music notation editor that could be used online not only for me to use when not able to get to a copy of Finale or Sibelius, but also to use as a collaborative tool in the same vein as many other music oriented Web 2.0 applications. Now there is finally a solution for creating and embedding music notation in a blog or in a web page without the need for dealing with creating scores in Sibelius and uploading the Scorch files or doing screen captures or PDF's of Finale documents. Enter Noteflight, a new online music notation editor that looks great and makes it much easier to collaborate online.
Traveling with any instrument, especially a guitar, can be a
stressful event to say the least. While we may never be fully relaxed when our
instrument is in the hands of the airline, train or bus companies, there are
several steps we can take that will ensure our guitar makes it to its
destination in playable shape.
For many years now I have been transcribing the melodies of many popular, traditional Christmas carols into PDF, Sibelius, and Finale music notation formats. All of these songs are in the public domain, and so likewise I am providing these Christmas songs as free sheet music and lyrics for anyone to download and print at their convenience. You do not need to have the Sibelius software to view these files. Copies of each part are provided in Adobe PDF format as well. However, in order to edit this sheet music or change the key of the music you will need to have Sibelius installed on your computer. You may feel free to edit the lyrics and sheet music in these files for your own personal or educational use. Any commercial use or distribution of these files is prohibited without the written permission of the arranger.
Read more: Free Christmas Sheet Music And Lyrics For Any Band Instrument
I recently began a project to write down and transcribe all of my favorite old summer camp songs from my many years spent as a camper and staff member at a Boy Scout summer camp. The Grand Old Duke of York is one of those favorites and is provided here as free sheet music in PDF format. The document contains both the lyrics and the actual written sheet music to the song, and can be sung or played on a number of different instruments including trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, or oboe. Other instruments can play it as well but will have to transpose it into a note range that works for them. Enjoy!
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Read more: The Grand Old Duke of York- Free Sheet Music and Lyrics
Over the River and Through the Woods is a folk song originally composed by American abolitionist, Lydia Maria Child and written in or slightly prior to 1844. Many different singers and songwriters have done their own arrangements of this song over the last century, but the original children's song version is still the most prominent and well known. Originally written as a Thanksgiving song it also occasionally is heard with verses relating to Christmas as well.
This page contains links to the PDF versions of the sheet music for Over the River and Through the Woods. Links to the Sibelius format parts are also available for those that wish to edit and arrange their own unique arrangement using the Sibelius music notation editor.
Read more: Over The River and Through The Woods- Free Sheet Music and Lyrics
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