I guess this is the week for lists of 50! Here’s another great collection – 50 Open Courseware Collections for Musicians. This is a list of places where you can find free on-line music classes and resources. From organ workshops to a course on the Physics of Sound to learning to play the cello, there are lots of possibilities to explore! The list is nicely annotated to help you navigate through the wide variety of website offerings.
Mike Saville, of the excellent How to Practise website, recently compiled a great list of 50 Websites that will Improve your Music Practice. This is definitely a page worth bookmarking and passing on to students!
Some of the wonderful folks over at Jemsite.com asked me to write a guest post for their blog. Although the site is primarily geared toward guitar enthusiasts, they wanted something that would be applicable to all musicians. Thus was composed, I’m Dreaming…Of Becoming a Great Musician:
Some things in life occur instantaneously. Learning to play a musical instrument is not one of them.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t prevent many an aspiring musician from entertaining grand visions of becoming an overnight virtuoso. Here’s how it usually works: You hear someone perform a musical selection that sends shivers up your spine. Inspiration strikes and you determine that you, too, can learn to play that piece. So you set out to acquire the necessary equipment, music, and instruction to make your dream a reality. This is the oft-traveled path of an eager teenage student to the door of my piano studio. And so begins my role as teacher-turned-cheerleader-turned-counselor as I try to keep the dream alive amidst the rigors and realities of the daily discipline of learning a musical instrument.
For all of you Kindle users out there, just thought you might want to know that subscriptions to Music Matters Blog are now available through the Kindle store. I haven’t taken the plunge and gotten a Kindle yet, but I am more and more tempted to do so! Right now, though, I’m thinking that I’ll just keep racking up my swagbucks until I have enough to get one for free. If you haven’t signed up for swagbucks yet, I definitely recommend it. I’ve already earned $15 worth of free Amazon gift certificates just by using their search engine (which, by the way, I don’t like…sometimes I still revert to google because I like the way it works better, but for basic searches I do like earning the free bucks…).
Sometimes it seems like I have to say the same thing five different ways before a student loses the glazed-over look in their eyes! And then, usually it’s still many more explanations later that the proverbial light bulb goes on in their brain and they finally get it. They’ll say something like, “I realized that to play the I, IV, and V chords, you just have to play the chord on the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale.” While I’m tempted to stare incredulously and make some sarcastic remark regretting that I don’t speak English fluently yet, I usually swallow my pride and exclaim over them having made such a remarkable and helpful discovery. I mean, imagine that the I, IV, and V chords would actually start on scale degrees I, IV, and V! 
But I digress. I mainly wanted to point your attention to a helpful website I found that explains succinctly what a scale is, how different scales are formed, how to identify key signatures, and more. I think these explanations would be especially helpful for adult students who really want to understand the principles behind what they are playing. They often need this mental connection in order to play accurately as well. But even for those of us looking for yet another way to communicate important theory concepts to our students…it never hurts to have another resource!
In the past week I’ve come across several new music blogs, so I thought I would pass the word on to everyone else, too!
ComposeCreate.com – Some of you are probably familiar with Wendy’s Piano Studio website and the great resources she offers. I was thrilled to recently discover that she has started a blog with “Tools for composing, creating, and teaching music.”
Rebecca W. Music – Music, Drama and Arts Education. Since I’ve been integrally involved with both drama and music education for quite a few years, I am excited to follow this new blog dedicated to the combination of these two areas!
The Music Notes Blog – A mixture of resources and free sheet music for piano and guitar. You may especially be interested in this free downloadable 3-octave piano keyboard graphic.
Teaching Adult Piano Students – I found out about this new blog from Rebecca, of the Piano Teacher’s Retreat blog. Its author, Dan Starr, has been teaching adults for over 20 years, so it promises to offer lots of valuable information for music instructors of adult students. You’ll probably also want to visit his Help for the Adult Piano Studio Blog.
Website for Those Who Like to Play Piano – Run by Annemie Van Riel, a Belgium teacher, the Tips and Games page especially appears to offer some promising ideas. (HT: Wendy)
If you’ve come across any other great blogs or websites, or have started one yourself, I’d love to know about it!
Perhaps a bit of a pretentious title, but this list of 100 Free Online Lectures that Will Make You a Better Teacher does look like a nice collection of helpful thoughts and ideas. This list of videos contains a wide variety of content – from serious lectures to short clips from the Late Show. I haven’t watched very many of them, but I think it’s a list worth bookmarking and coming back to in the future. Let me know if you find any gems that you especially like!
The May edition of the Music Education Blog Carnival will be hosted right here on Music Matters Blog. For those unfamiliar with the term, a blog carnival is a collection of posts from around the blogosphere related to a particular theme or subject. The carnival host compiles all submitted posts and presents them in a manner that makes it fun and easy for the carnival-goers to peruse them and click through to the ones that appeal to them.
“The Music Education Carnival was was created and is maintained by Dr. Joseph Pisano of MusTech.net and Joel of SoYouWantToTeach.com in order to promote the great works being done by Music Education Bloggers across the Internet.”
If you would like to submit something for the May carnival, just head over to the Music Education Blog Carnival page and fill out the form. It’s quite easy and is a great way to contribute to the music education community! Then, stop by here on May 1st to get your fill of carnival fun! Also, in the meantime, be sure to check out the April Music Education Blog Carnival.
I’ve been hearing about Swagbucks for a while now, and finally decided to check it out in more detail. (A friend of mine has been using this for several months now and loves it!) It was a piece of cake to sign up! Then all you have to do is download their search toolbar to your current browser and use it to search the internet. You earn Swagbucks as you search and can trade them in for prizes. Prizes range from gift cards to books to musical instruments, with new prizes being added frequently. Seems like a pretty effortless way to rack up some free money!
Two of the most popular posts here on Music Matters Blog are the ones that discuss how to set up a recording “studio” using the free Audacity audio recording software (you can read these here and here). I’ve used Audacity for numerous projects, but I know I still haven’t even come close to tapping into all of its capabilities. I know there are other teachers who would love to get some step-by-step instruction on how to use Audacity effectively in their studios. Well, guess what I just found? Yep, step-by-step instruction on how to use Audacity!
Music Creation World has put together a fabulous collection of activities that will walk you and/or interested students through the process of completing various projects using Audacity. Just download the file titled PDF Activities at the bottom of their page. There are six separate activity files that clearly explain and illustrate (using lots of screen shots!) the assignments. I could even see using this as a core lesson plan for a summer camp with a group of students who are interested in learning more about music technology. Everyone could bring their own laptop and work on several fun projects throughout the week. Wouldn’t that be fun?!
Click here to join the Sheet Music Plus Easy Rebates for Music Teachers and receive an 8% rebate on sheet music you or your students purchase!
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