Music Technology Tools for the Music Teacher! By Jeff Ingraham, Mead Public Schools
Sometimes life takes a turn you don’t expect!
Mine sure did this Late Summer! After doing Technology support and training Since 1991, there was a resignation a few days before school started and I was asked to take a High School Band director job at Mead High Schoo!l So, after 35 years of Professional Development, tech support and teaching tech at the Graduate level, I am back in a music classroom and having to navigate the changes to our profession that have rolled out since 1991. To help my fellow music teachers, I want to focus on a few Music technology tools that have really helped me share the fun of music with a new generation!
Of course if you know me much you probably know I am a big fan of Garageband from Apple. Free for any iPads, Macs, or iphones it is a fantastic recording and compositional tool. I was at the Macworld conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco the day that Steve Jobs and John Mayer introduced it and I have used it EXTENSIVELY ever since!
The Next tool I have used the heck out of is Musictheory.net and also the Tenuto app (Same Content in App form) Great lessons and practice exercises and assessments for students to learn music notation, rhythms etc.
Staff Wars: ($1.99) is a cool gamified, arcade-style app that drills note reading on the musical staff. It is really good for elementary and middle school students building note-reading skills in a fun and engaging way!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/staffwars/id810405576
Next we have Note Ninja which is basically the Fruit Ninja game to practice note names! Andh it is FREE!!
Berklee college of music Ear Training Games for Oculus VR Headsets
A fantastic tool to learn music theory and rhythm practice in a VR world!
https://online.berklee.edu/takenote/berklee-online-brings-ear-training-to-virtual-reality-with-new-game/
Teoria is a comprehensive web site for music theory and ear training. It offers tutorials, exercises, and interactive tools to help understand and practice music theory concepts.
With the cost of music these days, downloading free music has been very helpful. A few amazing collections to consider include:
https://bandmusicpdf.org/ A Fantastic collection of public domain Band tunes that is completely free.
https://imslp.org/ the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) a well cultivated collection of 262,000 musical works as of this writing!
https://www.cpdl.org/ The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) Free CHoral music for most any occasion.
https://www.ipl.org/choral-public-domain-library/ The Internet Public Library billed as the largest free collection of music on the internet!
Hopefully some of these tools will help you or a child or a music teacher you know to become a better musician quickly! Please share your favorites if there are some I missed!
Jeff
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