Tip - The Power of Google

I will start off by saying that the following may come off as a bit snarky - but that is not my intention at all. It’s the first of many Tips that I will be sharing on my new blog.

If you are on social media, it is highly likely that you will see a music educator post something like this: “Hello Hive Mind! I am looking for your go-to resources for teaching students about Native American music. Go!” Whenever I see this type of post, I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or throw something. Really. That said, I inevitably end up turning to my go-to resource to help them out - and it’s called Google. I end up spending 3-5 minutes looking at search results, clicking on ones that look promising, and then posting a response to the music educator who posed the question. Most of the time, I get a “OMG! This looks amazing. Thank you!!” type of response. I often want to instead post a link to one of the funniest websites - Let Me Google That For You - but I always manage to resist the temptation.

Last week, I was doing some guest lecturing up at Berklee College of Music and one of the amazing students in the class asked me how I became an expert in music technology. My response was pretty simple: “I’m just good at Googling”. I got some chuckles from the students. I then said “No. I mean it”. And I did. Being able to search for anything in Google is pretty amazing. I never take it for granted. The search algorithm is worth billions of dollars. Literally. I use what are known as booleans to refine my search results. Things like adding quotes, +, - and so on really help glean the exact results I am looking for. Once I get the initial search results, I usually move past the paid ads, and look for sites that I believe will give solid, trustworthy results. Most of the time, the results that are listed on the first page are pretty incredible. The search algorithm orders the results based on a variety of factors and they are almost always spot on. If you search for “Music of the Native Americans” lesson plans, the results are really good. This is a terrific article on tips of better Google searches if you’re looking for more.

So, my first tip is this: be a good Google-er! You just might find exactly what you’re looking for.