
Resources for Chinese New Year
Here are a bunch of online resources for you to help teach your students about the Lunar New Year or Chinese New Year celebrated this year on January 22. 2023 is the Year of the Rabbit. 新年好!

Recommended Reading: The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin should be required reading for all music educators.

Tip: Spotify Playlists are your best friend
Make Spotify playlists your go to resource for easily accessing and playing music during your music instruction.

Resource: Happy Birthday Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lesson Plan
Did you know that Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday song was one of the many reasons that Dr. King’s birthday is a national holiday? Check out this wonderful lesson plan from TeachRock.org.


Tool: DrawBeats
DrawBeats is a wonderful FREE pattern sequencer that runs in a browser, and you should definitely bookmark the site today and share it with your students!

Happy Public Domain Day!
Every year on January 1st, a new set of literary, music, film and art works fall into the public domain. Check out what is now available for free use in 2023.

Tool: Who Sampled?
Check out this incredible free website to explore the DNA of popular music, and find out - who sampled?

15 Years Later: Reflections on Leaving Full Time Teaching and Joining the Corporate World
My reflections on being in the corporate world for 15 years - as many years as I taught in the public schools.


Resource: Music Animation Machine
Stephen Malinowsi, creator of the Music Animation Machine, has been posting hundreds of animated graphic scores of musical works for years on YouTube.

Tip: YouTube Integration in Auralia & Musition
Check out one of the VERY cool new features in Auralia & Musition 7 - YouTube Integration!

Tool: Interactive Circle of Fifths
This super simple interactive Circle of Fifths tool makes learning music theory a whole lot easier.

Tool: Basic Pitch
Check out this brand new Audio-to-MIDI converter from the geniuses at Spotify.

AI meets Music Composition - Meet AIVA
In further exploration of AI this week, I stumbled onto Aiva - an AI program that can compose music of any length, in any key, in any genre.

Tool - Music Speed Changer for Chrome
This FREE Chrome Web Browser extension is a MUST for any musician who uses the web to listen to and practice their music.

Have you heard of Chat GPT? You will soon!
Have you heard of Chat GPT yet? You will! This amazing (and scary) new technology writes anything you want and it is VERY good at it. The implications for education are serious.

Tip - Hardware then Software - Always
This post covers one of the most essential parts of using hardware with software - the order in which you do things really matters!

Tool - Factile
If you’ve ever tried to create a Jeopardy-style game for use with your students for things like quiz and test review, meet Factile - your new best friend.

Resource: Creatability
Creatability - a collection of amazing free music making tools from the Experiments with Google project - is a great way to get students with disabilities (and those without) to create music.