Today I will be presenting an early morning session on behalf of MusicFirst at the 2023 Conn Selmer Institute, held at Bethel College in Mishawaka, IN. I have been coming to this event for over 10 years now. It brings instrumental directors and administrators from across the country to a 3-day intensive event, that also gathers some of the best minds in music education to serve as the faculty.

Coming this Fall, the MusicFirst Classroom will include ALL of the amazing Level One videos from MusicProfessor.com at no additional charge. MusicProfessor is an online library that contains hundreds of short videos that provide lessons so that students learn how to play an instrument at home at your own pace on any device. The videos are excellent and professionally produced, and I personally believe that it is a perfect resource for any band or orchestra director who may not have the time to provide individualized instruction to EVERY student.

The most common way that people interface with computers and mobile devices is clicking. It’s such a simple way to select something. But did you know that there are MANY different ways to use this simple but powerful tool? You may think that it’s silly for me to point this out, but over the past 35 years I have taught tens of thousands of music teachers how to use technology, and I can tell you first hand, LOTS of people are unaware of the various types of clicking available, and how understanding and using those options can make your workflow with technology much more efficient. It’s all about the Power of the Click.

Flat for Education, an amazing web-based notation program sold by MusicFirst, recently announced a powerful new and updated feature - the Resource Library. This collection of sample resources includes 3 categories - worksheets, composition assignments, and performance assignments. The folks at Flat have really created something useful here, and anyone who uses Flat should check out these assignments to see whether they might be useful to use with their students.

This past Monday evening, MusicFirst hosted a one-hour webinar that provided an overview of our new product for the elementary music market, MusicFirst Elementary. The webinar was presented by the amazing Amy Burns, who is now the Elementary Educational Consultant for MusicFirst.

Tonight (Monday, June 5, 2023), MusicFirst is hosting a webinar with the one and only Amy Burns who will be providing an overview of MusicFirst Elementary - a product that I are VERY excited about. The webinar runs from 7pm - 8pm ET and will be recorded for anyone who is unable to attend.

One of the most important parts of creating a podcast, especially with students, is writing a script. Red light fever is a real thing and often invokes filler words such as like, um, and ah. The recording and production process is SO much faster when you’re reading from a script, and the organization of an episode is so much clearer when you take students through the process. The Draft>Edit>Revise aspect of script writing can be a lengthy but in the long run, it is worth it. This lesson plan appears in my Podcasting Across the Curriculum publication, and is available exclusively through MusicFirst. Sign up HERE to get free access to the curriculum for 30 days.

Tonight I will be presenting two sessions at DAYTiME 2023, sponsored by MusicEDNet, in Adelaide, Australia - albeit virtually - and I’m really looking forward to it. Along with some of the best presenters in the industry, I will be filling in for James Humberstone for the Plenary Session, and presenting a session on podcasting. I posted about this event a few weeks ago, but it’s finally here and I’m excited.

Today I am up in beautiful Burlington, VT for the University of Vermont Music Education Mini Summit, hosted by Dr. Andrea Maas. Andrea has put together a wonderful schedule of events, and I am thrilled to be joined by both Dr. Cara Bernard from UCONN and Stefanie Weigand from Music-COMP. I will be giving the Keynote Address and a session on podcasting today, and I’m really looking forward to meeting many VT music educators, UVM music education majors, and even some high school students who are thinking of becoming music educators.

If you’re interested in the genealogy of popular music and LOVE infographics, then Musicmap is the site for you! Created by Kwinten Crauwels, this incredibly detailed and well-researched site provides users with a detailed map of the many connections between all styles of popular music. Simply by zooming in on any area of the initial map (see above) you can see the many sub-genres associated with each style of music and if you zoom in even further, you can click on the sub-genre and get a YouTube playlist that illustrates the style of music and includes representative bands and musicians from that style. It’s amazing.

Don’t let the name of this tool fool you. The Online Metronome site has an amazing collection of free tools for music educators, and it is definitely something that you should bookmark right now. Created by musician and educator Andrew Swinney, this site is a wonderful resource for music teachers and their students, specifically in terms of getting students to practice. This post includes a detailed description of each of the tools, and how they can be used.

I recently had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Canadian music educator Steve Giddings for my podcast - Profiles in Teaching With Technology. I had been following Steve through his amazing website, Steve’s Music Room, for some time. We had an amazing conversation and I quickly realized that Steve is a master music educator and our visions aligned quite closely in terms of technology integration and inclusivity in teaching music. He is a rockstar.

You read that correctly - there is a FREE DJ interface (Called YouTube DJ) that allows you to select two YouTube videos and mix the audio together in a software DJ-style interface. Best part? It’s FREE. While the site is not affiliated with YouTube itself, the YouTube API makes it possible to build a tool that pulls content directly from the vast online video library. Students find radio-clean versions of their favorite songs and start DJing right now. Here’s how it works.

One of the coolest websites on the internet is the Internet Archive. One VERY important thing to note on this resource though: do not take your students there! The site is literally an archive of TONS of media, including some types that are completely inappropriate for school use. That said, if you are a teacher, it is a wonderful resource for finding lots of stuff. There are numerous ways to use this site to find content for use in student projects, search previous versions of websites, listen to live music, and more. Here are a few of my favorite ways to use this site…

I was going to write this post on Mothers Day, but here goes: My mom is a badass.

For those of you who know me, you know that I was raised by a New York City cop and a Broadway dancer. My parents were/are a true New York love story. This past Monday I had the distinct honor of escorting my mom (Diane) to her triumphant return to the Broadway stage at the Dancers Over 40 Tribute to Angela Lansbury at the Actors Temple Theatre. Less than 10 weeks after breaking her hip, there she was, up on stage, being interviewed by fellow actor and performer Kurt Peterson, about her experiences and memories of working with Angela. I sat in the back of the theater with a huge smile on my face. I was/am incredibly proud of her.

Teaching 8th Grade General Music can pose many challenges.  Teaching the History of Western Music to 8th graders can pose even more.  How can one successfully capture the attention of middle school students (the period before they eat lunch) when discussing the works of Bach, Mozart, Mahler, and Copland?  Although there are effective approaches to the teaching of this specific subject matter that do not involve technology, approaches that effectively incorporate technology can truly bring the subject matter to life in ways you may not have imagined were possible.

James Manwaring is the Director of Music for Windsor Learning Partnership in England. He works with the 4 schools that are part of the academy trust, an amazing model of education that is unique to British schools. He is a FORCE in music education and the intersection of music technology. His blog, Manwaring Music Education Blog, is a vast resource of information for any teacher looking to incorporate technology into their instruction. MusicFirst UK is extremely fortunate to have him on board as an author and consultant, and this past weekend, he was elected as the next President of the Music Teachers Association - the UK equivalent of NAfME.

With the launch of MusicFirst Elementary here in the US about a month ago, a VERY cool piece of software is now available to the US market as a part of the Creative Tools area of the MusicFirst Elementary dashboard. These Creative Tools are included for no extra charge, and they are very powerful. One of those tools is called YuStudio, and it may just be worth purchasing MusicFirst Elementary just to access it. What is YuStudio you ask? Here we go…

Last month I had the honor of being included in a panel discussion at the NAMM Show in Anaheim, CA hosted by Daniel Liston Keller. The panel discussion was recorded on video (posted above) and is a part of the Insights In Sound podcast series. The title of the panel discussion was "Building the Bridge Between Education and Manufacturing," and featured John Krivit, myself, and Jonathan Wyner. If you're a student, an educator, a manufacturer, or just want to know more about the relationship between these two camps, you'll love this conversation.

Whenever I am asked what I think the best example of music technology integration into music education is, without hesitation I always say Music COMP (formerly the Vermont MIDI Project). The COMP part stands for Composition Online Mentoring Program. The organization was started back in 1995 by Sandi MacLeod and Anne Hamilton as a way to teach students in grades 3-12 in Vermont how to compose original music. The original program had teachers sending MIDI files of student work to a composer who would then provide feedback via email. In the nearly 30 years since then, the program has flourished and I am a HUGE fan. Students no longer have to reside in Vermont to participate in the program. If you have a young composer in your school, you should DEFINITELY consider signing them up for mentoring.