What is MusicFirst Elementary ( 0:00-1:03)

Welcome to MusicFirst Elementary, Powered by Charanga! MusicFirst Elementary is a robust platform for K-5 music educators, offering a spiraled curriculum that builds skills progressively. It features creative tools like a graphic score creator, beat maker, notation with accompaniment styles, a rhythm decoder, and a web-based DAW for scoring films. Its supplementary tab includes resources for ukuleles, recorders, boomwhackers, and barred instruments, along with quick videos for introducing and reinforcing musical concepts. Teachers can also use these  Creative Tools to make their own interactive resources to personalize their teaching. 

The platform provides authentic, original, and public-domain music, sheet music for band and orchestral instruments, and more. It empowers teachers with diverse, engaging materials for comprehensive music education, fostering creativity and conceptual growth.

Quickstart Video - How to Begin (1:03-2:42)

This quickstart video will help get you started with MusicFirst Elementary. Since you have already created a login, let’s look at the home page.

1. A great place to begin is to look at the “Get Started with Three Steps”. 

1. Click a grade tab and scroll to Unit summaries. Here we are showcasing Grade 2.

2. Each unit has six songs in different styles and a lesson plan. We will showcase Unit 2 Lesson 3, “The Redwood Tree”.

3. Click Plan for Lesson Plans and sheet music.

4. Click Teach for interactive classroom resources.

5. Click resources on the left side of the lesson viewer to load them.

2. Start with “Understanding Music” which is a warmup on foundational musical skills like echo-clapping, improvising with three notes, and echo-singing.

3. Use the provided higher-order thinking questions and cross-curricular information as students listen to the song. As the curriculum moves into grades 3-5, these questions and information become more in-depth and involved.

4. Integrate reading lyrics with or without notation.

5. Use instruments or sing along via the “Playing Your Instruments with the Song” tab. In grades 3-5, these include various parts for instruments found in band, orchestra, and general music classroom instruments.

6. Encourage three-note improvisation using pitched or non-pitched instruments with the “Improvise with the Song” tab.

7. Compose a new melody with guided notes and rhythms using the “Compose with the Song” tab, which includes Music Explorer, one of the seven creative tools.

8. Conclude with the “Perform the Song” tab.

Try One Creative Tool (2:42-4:13)

Since you utilized Music Explorer in the “Compose with the Song” tab, let’s level up to YuStudio, the web-based digital audio workstation tool that can create music and score videos. Follow these steps to create a drum and bass loop for student improvisation:

1. Launch YuStudio from the Creative Tools Tab.

2. Click on YuStudio app and make it full-screen.

3. Set the Key to C Pentatonic.

4. Add a full drums loop (Rock) from Audio>Sound>By instrument.

5. Loop the drum track to end at measure 9.

6. Add the Motown Soul Bass Loop from Bass>Electric Bass.

7. Adjust the volume for each track.

8. Click the Loop button so a green bar appears above the two tracks and drag it to the beginning of measure nine.

9. Go to File>Save a copy and title it C Pentatonic Improv.

10. Adjust the tempo if necessary.

11. Have the students improvise with the rhythm pattern of “ta ta ti-ti ta”, “du du du-de du”, “1 2 3-and 4”, or rhythm patterns found in a chant or song to a pitched instrument set to C pentatonic or using non-pitch instruments. Encourage improvisations in a large group, then smaller groups, and then individually. 

Try One Supplementary Activity (4:13-5:06)

To access classroom resources, click on the Supplementary Tab and select “Resources for Classroom Instruments.” Choose a song for instruments like recorder, ukulele, barred instruments, or boomwhackers, and perform from the playlists.

Do you prefer using a methodology in your classroom? Let’s look at the Kodály Supplementary Songs Tab to utilize songs and activities found in that tab. You could sing with the recording or acapella, encourage multiple stave reading, hide the lyrics and encourage decoding, or click the “More Fun” tab to enhance the song with movement activities. Or utilize the many Orff-Inspired Activities and the Orffestrations (coming soon)!

Need to Customize Your Lessons or Assign Them to Students? (5:06-6:18)

Customization of lessons can be done by adding lessons, activities, creative tools, and such, to “My Workspace” and then creating new lessons from the materials found in the curriculum. To see more about this, check out the videos in both the MFE and #Techtip MFE playlists.

To assign lessons to students, you simply:

• Go To My Workspace>My Student Groups

• Create a group and assign a grade

• Add student names. I usually copy and paste from a Google Sheets or Excel file.

• Click “Add Students”

• MusicFirst Elementary automatically assigns them a login user ID and a password.

• Add Assignments using the Assignments Tab and add your customized lessons or units from My Workspace.

• They can access your assignments through Yumu, a password-protected online space where students can learn, play, and develop their musicianship. It is the area where students and teachers can access assignments, create music, and share content. 

Need assistance? (6:18-end)

Contact MusicFirst Elementary Music Consultant Amy Burns, at amy@musicfirst.com. For some great videos showing MusicFirst Elementary in action visit  Amy M. Burns’ YouTube channel found at https://www.youtube.com/c/awillisburns