This will be a short and sweet suggestion to try in the next few weeks, or later this school year. I hope you’ll give it a try! For many people, it’s almost concert time. As we’re preparing for the big performance, we analyze the music, listen to recordings, and make those final musical decisions to…
This blog post is going to take a slightly different angle. Instead of looking at tech tools you can use with your students, we’re going to talk about the tech many of us use every day: Gmail! While email is a fantastic innovation, for many people it’s also more time-consuming than we would like. So…
We’ve hit the time of year where many of us have settled into routines and (probably) feel pretty comfortable with what we’re doing. This is often when we ask, how can I make rehearsal more interesting? How can I ensure the students are engaged? How can I mix things up? While there is comfort in…
By 2022, most adults have probably watched a how-to video at some point in their lives. Maybe it involved cooking techniques, home repair, or even craft projects. It’s also very likely that students have watched this type of video as well. In fact, there were many days when students would come to class, proud to…
This was post was originally published in July 2021, but has been updated now in September 2022. As the new school year is about to start, remember how important it is to include students in the creative process. Even though my project was completed during hybrid learning, the concepts can definitely transfer now that we’re…
For many music teachers, the creativity standards are the most elusive and sometimes challenging to incorporate. When the National Core Arts Standards were released in 2014, there was a noticeable change in the format and language included in the standards. What were nine simple statements turned into a multi-page document with numerous subsections. The difference…
August 2022: This blog post has gotten a much-needed update! Whether you are about to start the school year or a few weeks in, hopefully it will provide you with simple ways to empower your music students. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that you can only empower music students later in…
This article was originally published in The Woman Conductor Journal, June 2022 issue. Prior to the year 2000, a digital audio workstation, known as a DAW, was only found in professional music studios. The DAW was complex and primarily used by those in the music industry. However, in 2004 Apple introduced GarageBand on all of their devices,…
Important Update: As of July 2024, Flip is now exclusively available within the Microsoft Teams platform. If you’re looking for alternatives to collect student performances, foster feedback, and build community, check out my latest blog post: The Best Flip Alternatives for Music Education. They’ve done it again! I first wrote about using Flipgrid in music…
June 2022 – This post has gotten a much-deserved update! This blog post has been updated, just like the awesome tool it features! Flat.io, the creators of the well-known Google Add-on, Flat for Docs, has recently announced some changes to this tool, including a name change! Flat for Docs has re-branded, and is now known…