It’s a time-honored tradition – music educators chatting about their favorite festival pieces, those that worked well for their program and were enjoyed by their students. Here’s installment #1 in our series of Top Festival Picks. In this posting, we feature picks by St. Louis Area’s Ron Sikes, Joe Pappas, Sister Gail Buckman, and Larry Johnson, complete with reference recordings. …
MORECurated from Collegemagazine.com, by Hillary Droke. Sponsored by the NAMM Foundation – Music education feels more important than ever before. Learning an instrument goes beyond plucking notes and the routine of practicing. Music education improves language abilities and increases emotional resilience, empathy, self-confidence, attention span and focus, according to the Royal Music Foundation. Music allows a sense of release and escape that…
MOREThis article, curated from amparents.org, written by Marc Whitlock, is a must-read for parents of young musicians. So if you’re a parent, read it! If you’re a music educator, share it! This scene is all too familiar: CHILD: “Mom, can you help me with my math?” MOM: “Sure thing, sweetie!” CHILD: “Dad, can you help me with my history?” DAD:…
MOREBy Ray Benton, Technology and Media Specialist, Nottelmann Music How would a practice room music workstation benefit your students? By opening this post, you’ve come to the right place to find out! The music workstation is a great way to use technology to make student practice time more effective, efficient, and fun! Nottelmann Music can get you set up with…
MORENeed someone to work with your ensemble as you prepare for an important festival or event? Music educators look to Nottelmann Music as a valued partner in teaching music to students. Our experienced and highly-successful staff clinicians can provide an on-site clinic or other advisory assistance to any instrumental music program or ensemble – concert band, marching band, or jazz…
MOREBy Ray Benton, Technology and Media Specialist, Nottelmann Music – Whether your marching band competes or just plays halftime shows, Nottelmann’s is where you go for a new sound system OR an upgrade to your existing system. Each band has it’s own needs and budget, so we offer a CUSTOM solution that includes on-site training and support at no extra…
MOREThe Everlast Rocketbook combines the ease and convenience of a cloud upload with the feel of pen and paper. For teachers – for students – for anyone who likes to take notes and stay organized! Available NOW at Nottelmann Music. Check out this short video!
MORECurated from The Violin Blog – Please share this with string teachers or young string players – Complete with printed music and a video! Let me blow the dust off my keyboard and begin by telling you, “Hello!” Yes, I realize it’s been 4 months since I last posted, but I’m a mommy first and foremost and summer break happened….
MORECurated from Midnight Music – midnightmusic.com.au – by Katie Wardrobe – Band and orchestra directors, looking for innovative ways to improve student home practice? Our good friend Katie Wardrobe has a great suggestion here! MTT71: Supercharge Your Practice Sessions with Modacity Marc Gelfo is the Co-Founder & CEO of Modacity – an app that aims to help musicians use their…
MORECurated from the Smartmusic Music Educator Blog, by Chip Crotts As the school year is now in full swing, let’s turn our thoughts to brass tone production. No doubt, your students are all playing a lot right now and are probably working the muscles more than ever before. Likewise, we may also be teaching a new crop of young brass…
MORECurated from “The Hub,” a Yamaha Music Education Blog – by Matt Kerns I worked in a music store for many years, and one of the most common requests we’d get from customers was help with picking a new mouthpiece. The conversation would often start something like this: “I need a new mouthpiece” “Ok, do you already have some idea…
MORECurated from Mark J. Connor’s The Everything Band Blog – Here’s a great national podcast posting of an interview with St. Louis’s own Sister Gail Buckman, who as this was recorded, is in her 50th year of teaching. Sister Gail Buckman has been teaching in the St. Louis are since 1968, and I recently had a chance to visit Sister…
MORECurated from posted YouTube videos – Featuring amazing trumpet artist and clinician Al Vizzutti – Can there be any more varied teaching concepts on a subject than how to play the trumpet well? Watch and listen as fantastic trumpet player Al Vizzutti discusses and demonstrates no-nonsense facts about how to successfully teach trumpet to your students. Convenient! You don’t have…
MORECurated from ChoralClarity.com – by Adam Paltrowitz – “Tone-Deaf” is an Excuse….not a Diagnosis…..and I blame the person who makes the diagnosis. Anyone can learn to sing. If a person can speak, they should be able to learn to sing. All speech is pitched and most people speak using a range of pitches; the concept of varied pitches in speech is…
MORECurated from Midnight Music – by Katie Wardrobe – What exactly does an IWB do? What’s so special? It’s a fancy presentation tool At its heart, an interactive whiteboard (IWB) is simply a fancy presentation tool. Great things: It allows you to get out from behind a desk when teaching your class It usually comes with interactive presentation software which…
MORECurated from TED.com – Technology, Entertainment, and Design – Conductor Charles Hazlewood talks about the role of trust in musical leadership — then shows how it works, as he conducts the Scottish Ensemble onstage. He also shares clips from two musical projects: the opera “U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” and the ParaOrchestra. TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the…
MORECurated from PSmag.com – by Tom Jacobs – Are you aware of this research from Canada which finds trained musicians more efficiently switch from one mental task to another? We all call it “multitasking,” but psychologists insist that’s a misnomer. Since we can’t actually focus on more than one thing at a time, the skill is really “task switching“—the ability to…
MOREWatch Joshua Rhine in action as he uses his Presonus Audiobox 96 USB with his Shure KSM 137 stereo mic pair from Nottelmann Music to teach critical listening skills to his young singers. Nottelmann Music, in St. Louis, designs recording/playback systems for music teachers. Quality PreSonus components including the Audiobox USB 96 or the AR USB Hybrid mixers. Speakers, mics,…
MORECurated from the Smartmusic Music Educators Blog – St. Louis’ own Laura Vaughan, Presenter – Ever wonder what adjudicators think but aren’t able to tell you? Wonder no more. In this archived webinar, experienced contest and festival judge Laura Vaughn expands on topics covered in her popular blog post. She talks with Giovanna Cruz about some of the unspoken thoughts that…
MORECurated from Katie Wardrobe, Midnight Music – Listen to the episode here: John Mlynczak – the Managing Director of Noteflight – is a passionate advocate for music education and technology. John and I discuss Noteflight Learn and the new Noteflight Marketplace – where teachers can purchase sheet music in a notation file format that they can legally edit and arrange….
MORELooking for a curriculum alternative to music appreciation, or a great supplement to your current music curriculum? This single blog post has everything you need to begin a music technology class in your school, how to put together a complete music tech lab OR a single music workstation for a practice room or your music room. Watch the Short Video Overview…
MORECurated from Smartmusic’s the music educator blog – by Mark Connor – Mark Connor, is an in-demand composer/arranger and a teacher with more than 20 years of music education experience. In addition to his current role as the band teacher at the Saul Mirowitz Jewish Community School in St. Louis, Missouri, Mark is also the host of Everything Band. This podcast…
MOREAn important, free resource curated from PAS.org – complete with individual audio recordings of the 40 Percussive Arts Society International Drum Rudiments. Download the free PDF copy or read the notated rudiments below. The list consists of the traditional 26 rudiments along with a number of drum corps, orchestral, European, and contemporary drum rudiments. This listing was an outgrowth of…
MORECurated from the Music Matters Blog, by Anita Collins – Listening to music benefits your brain. Performing music benefits it even more. We’ve heard it all before, right? Well, what’s different here is this great little video makes it simple to understand and is very convincing. Watch it for yourself. Then, can you think of someone who would benefit from…
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