Midnight Music's "Free Festival of PD"
This week, Midnight Music is running its "Festival of Free PD" which includes four webinars for anyone to access until Cyber Monday.
Read MoreElementary Music Technology and Integration
Amy M. Burns has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for over 25 years at Far Hills Country Day School (FH) (https://www.fhcds.org/). She also teaches grade 5 instrument class, directs the FH Philharmonic, is the Performing Arts Department Manager, and teaches privately in the after-school conservatory after being the director for over 20 years. She has authored four books and numerous articles on how to integrate tech into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including four keynote addresses in TX, IN, St. Maarten, and AU. She is the recipient of the 2005 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year, the 2016 New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) Master Music Teacher, the 2016 Governor’s Leader in Arts Education, and the 2017 NJ Nonpublic School Teacher of the Year Awards. Her most recent publication, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches (2020), published by Oxford University Press (OUP) is available from OUP and Amazon. Burns is also the Community Coordinator for Midnight Music (MMC) at https://midnightmusic.com/, the General Music Chair for NJMEA Board of Directors, and the Elementary Music Consultant for MusicFirst (https://www.musicfirst.com/), a company built by music educators for music educators, dedicated to helping music teachers and their students make the most of technology in the classroom.
This week, Midnight Music is running its "Festival of Free PD" which includes four webinars for anyone to access until Cyber Monday.
Read MoreIn this rhythm and body percussion play-along with a fall and thankful theme, there is a mashup of the snippets from the following songs: We Are Family by Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, Performed by Sister Sledge; Vince Guaraldi Trio - Thanksgiving Theme; Home by Drew Pearson and Greg Holden, Performed by Phillip Phillips; Kind and Generous by Natalie Merchant; and Count on Me by Bruno Mars. The concepts performed are triple and duple meters, quarter rest, quarter, eighth, half, and whole notes.
Read MoreThe wise folks at MusicFirst Elementary (MFE) Powered by Charanga have crafted a treasure trove of docs to help you get the most out of their program. If you are new to the program, use this video to assist you with getting started!
0:00-:31 Introduction
0:31-1:05 Getting Started with MusicFirst Elementary (wonderful to read as the introduction to the world of MFE)
1:05-1:20 MusicFirst Elementary Summary (Data about MFE to share with administrators, families, etc.)
1:20-1:41 MusicFirst Elementary National Standards Alignment (Showcases how you are meeting each standard at every grade level)
1:41-2:15 MusicFirst Elementary Curriculum Design (Use the principles outlined in this document to enhance your program)
2:15-2:46 Scope and Sequence (You can use this to check the melodic pitch sets and rhythmic values for each grade level)
2:46-3:05 My Workspace: Setting Up Students and Yumu (see the full video here: https://youtu.be/p3f6_XCuqhc?si=9sL9he4RvB2H4LMO )
3:05-3:40 Musical Spotlights (You can use this to find extensions for lessons, outlines for teaching concert music, and as a springboard for other lessons and unit ideas)
3:40-4:11 Social Themes (Many Essential Questions can be found here)
4:11-4:36 Guided Questions Bank: K-5 (Use these as writing prompts and for writing samples in your older elementary music classes)
4:36-4:53 Documentation found at the top of each grade level
4:53-5:28 Learning Objectives and Content by Musical Element
5:28-5:40 Learning Objectives by Activity (In grades 3, 4, and 5, Music Notepad is added) 5:40-5:46 National Standards Alignment (Checklists)
5:46-6:06 Curriculum Map (Download and give to administrators)
6:06-6:29 Musical Progression Guide (Each song is listed by grade level, pitch set, rhythmic value, activity, and more)
6:29-7:40 Assessments (Checklists, Printables, and more)
7:40-8:18 Creative Tools (A brief overview of the documentation included with the creative tools)
8:18-end Conclusion
Check out the 16 videos about everything MusicFirst has to offer and a deep dive into the curriculum and creative tools!
Well, it's that time of year in the States. Personally, I loved Katie's picture of the few pumpkins and the purple packages of tangerines being sold in her area where here, if you turn around, you are presented with a pumpkin patch, hayrides, and pumpkin spice everything...not that I mind. I do love my pumpkin spice.
If you need some Halloween/Fall Play-Along Videos, especially if you are teaching on Halloween, please feel free to use these. If you like my resources, please consider buying me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
Read MoreThis past week, I researched Canva's AI tools and had it rewrite the song, Five Little Pumpkins, and turn it into a whimsical tale. It was amusing, to say the least. I had fun using Canva to illustrate and record that tale. Most of this video was produced in Canva, with the recording of the song done in Soundtrap, and the final edits to put the three videos together in Final Cut Pro.
Read MoreThis is the seventh installment of my summer project of creating play-along videos of songs and concepts found in the Kodály and Orff Schulwerk approaches. This week, I feature Pass the Pumpkin Round and Round play-along video and steady beat movement activities (Boomwhackers, Percussion, Xylophones, and Game) video.
To break down the video so you can use it as a whole or teach it in parts:
00:19 Melody
01:28 Bass Line
01:59 Percussion
02:29 Steady Beat Game/Activity
03:28 All of the parts together
Read MoreHave you checked out MusicFirst Elementary Powered by Charanga? Check it out here!
Read MoreIn this video, I am using Canva's animation tool to record the movement of the snail. This can be used as a play-along video and a sing-along video. You could also use this as an assessment and place it in an LMS platform or Seesaw to share with your students. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
Resources: Blog Post:
Seesaw Activity: https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?prompt_id=prompt.e995c45f-2425-4b93-a737-abe664e428c4&share_token=b-lfU1JtS6qZy3NrDJH-4g
Snail, Snail: https://kodaly.hnu.edu/song.cfm?id=833
Canva for Education: https://www.canva.com/education/
Read MoreIt's Day #4 of my week of #techtips for #music #education, especially #elementarymusicteacherlife! Today's tech tips show some fun presenter tools in Canva that can intuitively be used in the music classroom. Check back for more tech tips this week!
Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
Read MoreMany elementary music educators are in the midst of summer break or holiday break, which means relaxing, taking time for themselves, spending time with families, and exploring some new materials and professional development for their return to the school year. I thought I would join in this by having a "Week of Tech Tips!” Check back daily with me this week as my YouTube channel and blog posts will reflect on tech tips for music educators.
Tech Tip Day 1: 🎥 Join Music Educator Amy Burns in a Fun 5-Minute Tour of the MusicFirst Elementary Kindergarten Curriculum! 🎶
Read MoreLast month, I was thrilled to be able to present at the ISTE Live23 Conference in Philadelphia, PA. I presented a poster session titled “Making Elementary Cross-Curricular Connections Intuitively With Book Creator”. It was a 90-minute session that explored the following:
“Elementary special subject areas like music, STEAM, and more have numerous cross-curricular connections. However, showcasing those connections to administrators and parents can be challenging. Book Creator gives educators ways to achieve cross-curricular connections and allows students to use multiple modalities to showcase their work.”
Check out the webinar and the blog post. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
Read MoreThroughout the 21-22 school year, I created many “mashup” or medley play-along videos featuring seasonal pop and rock songs. This summer, I made it a goal to create play-along videos and lessons for songs inspired by the Kodály and Orff Schulwerk approaches. This one is for Doggie, Doggie.
Read MoreAnother fabulous day at TMEA/TI:ME National Conference! Here are some more highlights from today.
The day started out with an 8:30 am session in the Hyatt Ballroom titled, “Help! Preschool/Kindergarten Has Been Added to My Schedule!” It was so wonderful to see so many music educators at this session, participating, and asking me some excellent questions at the end.
The link to the Wakelet, which has the handout as well as the resources, can be found here.
The session included activities and routines to help music educators teach the youngest learners at their schools. Some items that were included here:
Using Dr. Feierabend’s 8-step workout from First Steps for Preschool Music and Beyond.
Creating your own workout based on his workout.
Gathering activities from that series as well as Denise Gagne’s Musicplay and Music Together.
Taking classes with those methods to deep dive into their materials and activities.
Going on a theory that activities are around the one-minute per age. For example, a class of three-year-olds would have around three-minute activities. This is a theory that some educators use to base their plans and the pace of the classroom.
Pacing movement, singing, songtale/book, instruments, steady beat, props, stuffies/puppets, throughout the class to help with the pacing.
Questions that were asked at the end?
What is the right pace?
It depends on your students, how many there are, their age group, and the time of day. If they are late in the day or before lunch, you will probably pace a little faster because they are tired and hungry. And then leave more time for the songtale so that they can relax after the quick pace until the teacher comes to pick them up.
I have 30+ young students. Do you have any tips for handing out instruments?
It is always a challenge when we have numerous young students and no assistant to help us. It will limit how often we use props because of the time it takes to hand them out. Plus, if you do not have the same item for each, you might have students with behavioral challenges that cannot handle yet how to cope with not getting what they want. My advice is to limit activities at this time that have props and instruments and incorporate them slowly into the activities over the next few months so that the students learn the expectations of what to do when the instruments are passed out.
How do you handle misbehaving students?
At this age, I tend to redirect more often than not. Obviously, if a child is hitting another child, then you have to stop the class and you will pivot. However, if it is not a behavior involving this, then I will try the following with these popular encounters in our classroom:
Bathroom: Unless they are doing the “potty dance”, I tell them that they can go in a few minutes. They will usually forget and not ask again. If you have one who always goes during your class, you will have to ask the classroom teacher to assist in either making sure that they go to the bathroom before the class, or the teacher stays.
Won’t participate: The first class, I let that go if they will stand up when we are moving. After that, I tend to encourage them, even if it is a baby step into our activity. I do go the encouragement route because they can set off other students to not participate. I also ask the classroom teacher what their strategies are when a child will not participate in their class and follow that for consistency.
A lot of students: Again, I pace quickly, pass out fewer items, and have the brain break videos of GoNoodle and others, so that I can press play and they follow the teacher on the screen while I set up for the next activity.
This session was presented by the 2023 NJ Master Music Teacher Award Recipient, Dr. Missy Strong. In a packed ballroom, she presented movement activities that lived up to the title of the session. She showcased Dr. Franklin Willis’s stick routine (which is a favorite in many music classrooms), and movement cards to the song Happy by C2C (featuring Derek Martin). She also showed us the dance of tinikling, a Philippine folk dance involving bamboo poles, two people beating, tapping, and sliding the poles, while one or more dancers dance between the poles.
Missy reminded us of her expectations for her students. They are to be musical and never cross the line. Plus, she asked us to consider moving away from only using classical music. She encouraged us to branch out our music so that all of our students are represented in the music that we play in the classroom.
It was a fantastic session that I enjoyed thoroughly!
Shawna Longo gave a session on how to use the Essential Elements Classroom (EEC) by Hal Leonard to promote social-emotional learning in your music class. This session gave wonderful ideas with excellent activities and questions to promote student awareness of their social-emotional learning. Though the EEC is not necessary when you want to include SEL in your music classroom, this program does help many music educators who are new to the field or those who are not sure how to incorporate SEL into their classroom.
This session was amazing. It was led by their featured elementary music clinician, Dr. Loneka Wilkinson Battiste. She spoke about what Black Music Aesthetics is and talked about the heterogenous sound is ideal in African American music. She also spoke to Black music being about the way that it’s performed and the way that it’s listened to. She did a wonderful job connecting with everyone in her audience. For me, the “aha” moment was when she spoke about the folk song, Lil’ Liza Jane. She told us how when she was in elementary school, her music teacher had the students perform a ta ti-ti rhythm pattern with the song. When they performed it, it was very simple and the rhythms made the music very straightforward, and almost march-like.
Once you change the accompaniment rhythm with syncopation, polyrhythms, melodic embellishment, and body movement, the song took on a whole new sound and meaning.
She finished with a “Now you wild out” rap game where there are two teams and there is a hip-hop beat playing. One group throws humorous shade at the other group in the style of rap and ends with, “Now you wild out”. The other group has to throw humorous shade back at the first group, and end again with “Now you wild out”. She introduced this with a game-show-style clip. This would hook in your shyest of students and get them thinking ahead, rapping to rhythm, and participating as an ensemble. and improvising. It was a definite keeper!
One more day to go!
Day 1 of TMEA: TI:ME National Music Technology/Education Conference. Click here to read about tow highlighted sessions from the day.
Read MoreNew! Valentine’s Rhythm Play-Along Video to That Thing You Do! Here is a fun, simple rhythm play-along video to the song, That Thing You Do, written by Adam Schlesinger. The song is performed by the fictional 1960s band The Wonders, who are the focus of the film with the same title. The song peaked at No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1997. The note values that are covered are quarter, eighth, and half notes, as well as quarter rests. It also includes a dance party in the middle of the song. This song will be featured in my TMEA/TI:ME session tomorrow where you can see how to create the video in two different ways using free tools! Have fun with this!
Read MoreNeed a fun Valentine Medley Rhythm Play-Along with the teaching manipulatives? Check this out! If you enjoy my resources, please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
Read More#2 The trick of adding - between the t and the u in the URL
This is a quick video for #2. And “oldie but goodie” tip.
This is a trick that sometimes works, but not all of the time. To make the YouTube video become full screen with no ads, no comments, and no videos that will play right after, take the YouTube video’s URL that you would like to show, add a - between the t and u, and refresh the screen.
There are a lot of other ways to do this. Another way is to load the YouTube video you would like to show, click on the share button, and click on embed. A large iframe code appears. Click copy and paste the iframe into a new tab. Look for where the https begins and the URL ends, usually with letters. Delete the other items so you have a URL in the tab. Click refresh and the video is now embedded onto the screen with no ads, comments, etc.
Read MoreHave you ever needed free notation graphics that you could easily grab and use at a moment’s notice? Or have access to them to create manipulatives, presentations, worksheets, posters, and more? Look no further than Katie Wardrobe’s Midnight Music’s Big Free Music Notation Library COMPLETE 2022! Check out the webisode and blog about this great resource. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
Read MoreMany of my favorite music educators from Katie Wardrobe to Jim Frankel have spoken highly of the free website, Vocal Remover (https://vocalremover.org/) created by Melnik Dmitry. This site can do so many things that you need for your music classroom, and it can do it for free on various devices because it is web-based. You are not required to login to use this, but if you become a patron, you will be able to use the website often. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
Read more to find out how to remove vocals, split accompaniment tracks into separate, instrumental tracks, and so much more!
Read More#8 Creatability from Google Experiments. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
From the website: “Creatability is a set of experiments made in collaboration with creators and allies in the accessibility community. They explore how creative tools – drawing, music, and more – can be made more accessible using web and AI technology. They’re just a start. We’re sharing open-source code and tutorials for others to make their own projects.”
Use these three I show in the webisode to visualize pitch and dynamics and to give the opportunity for all of your students to make and create music.
Read More