Tip - YouTube Playlists

I know what you’re thinking - YouTube playlists? Seriously? I am serious. Creating and sharing YouTube playlists with your students is a fantastic resource for music teachers.

I have used YouTube playlists ever since I co-wrote a book with Tom Rudolph called YouTube in the Music Classroom back in 2009. If you don’t know what playlists are, it is really pretty simple. You can create and title a playlist by clicking on YouTube Studio (you’ll find a link to it by clicking your profile picture in the upper right corner of YouTube when you are logged into your Google account). Once you are in your YouTube Studio, click on Playlists from the left hand menu (3rd option down). Next, click on NEW PLAYLIST in the upper right hand corner. Give your new Playlist a title and set the Visibility to either Public or Unlisted, and then click Create. Unlisted is a great option if you only want to share a playlist with your students, and not the rest of YouTube.

Now that you have created a Playlist, all you have to do is find relevant and appropriate YouTube videos and then click on the +Save button under the video and then check the box next to the Playlist that you would like to add your video to. You can also Create a new playlist by clicking +Save on any YouTube video and then clicking +Create New Playlist. Here is an example of a playlist that I use with my graduate students at Teachers College, Columbia University that highlights videos of adaptive technologies for making music with special populations.

Some ideas for incorporating playlists into your music program include:

• Playlists of the pieces you are performing on your concert

• Playlists of music from a specific genre

• A collection of instrumental repair videos

• Playlists of videos on a specific aspect of music, including music theory.

One of the best parts of playlists (IMHO) is the fact that they will always be there when you need them. You can call them up quickly for use with future classes and you don’t have to go hunting for that video that you know the students will love. It is both a great way to organize your favorite videos, and a great teaching tool. Hopefully this tip is useful for you and you start incorporating YouTube playlists in your music instruction today.