Amy M. Burns

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Help! I am an Elementary Music Teacher with a SMART Board!

Amy M. Burns

This webpage was created for those who download the free ebook so that they can easily download the Notebook files for the lessons presented in the book. To download the free ebook, click here.

Files: **if it is listed twice, the second file is updated for notebook 17 software

IPADS/IPODS

 

This page is a portion from the section titled “Apps! Apps! Apps!” which can be found in my free ibook, Help! I am an Elementary Music Teacher with One or more iPads. Please download it today! This page will get you started. The ibook is more thorough and will assist you with using the apps.

These are apps that I have explored and how I will use or have used them in my PreK-4 general music classroom and/or 5th grade instrument class (Updated 2/9/2020) and apps that I have come across from reviews, webinars, blog posts, etc.

Note: These apps are listed in alphabetical order. In the end of the section, I listed them in categories. 

Note: Most of the free apps have in-app purchases. Due to this, many of the free aps have numerous ds on the screens.

Note: Due to Chromebooks becoming more and more popular in schools, many of the apps do not get updated to the latest iOS or they are only available in certain countries. As much as I would love to update this often, there are times that I cannot and some of the info will become outdated.

** My elementary students and/or my elementary daughters’ favorite apps.

If I Had to Categorize the Apps...

CREATING MUSIC APPS (NON-NOTATION): 

AutoRap, Beatwave, Do Re Mi 1-2-3, Doodle Sounds-Paper Piano, Dropophone, GarageBand, **Incredibox, Korg iKaossilator, Monster Music Pro, Music4Kids, Pitch Painter, Sketch a Song, **Soundtrap , **SoundForest, **Toca Band,  

Some Examples:

**Do Re Mi 1-2-3 - Fun, musical ear training games using solfege that challenge your children’s minds as they laugh, create, and play with moo-sical cows, boat-rowing pandas, and twinkling stars. Price: Free (Lite) - $1.99

Uses: Ear training and encouraging singing with solfege. You can also have the students create solfege warmups by selecting animals to sing a solfege pattern and the students sing back the pattern. 

Doodle Sounds - Paper Piano - Express your Doodle talent with piano, drums, saxophone, ethnic drums, accordion, bells, xylophone, and electric guitar. Record your music and replay with different musical instruments. Price: Free

Uses: The note names are in the colors of boomwhackers. This would be a good visual for boomwhackers.

**GarageBand - Virtual instruments, smart instruments, and recording studio all in one. This app can do so much! Price: Free (complete collection of GarageBand instruments and sounds in-app purchase Price: $4.99)

Uses: Used as a recording device and/or as a creating music device by teacher and students.

**Incredibox - The popular website is now an app that you can use to have your students create music! Price $3.99

Pitch Painter by Morton Subotnick - Pitch Painter is a musical finger painting app that is simple yet surprisingly sophisticated. While engaged in creative musical play, the child will be introduced to a variety of musical instrumental sounds and authentic scale tunings from four regions of the world. Price: $3.99

Uses: Great app for young students to “draw” melodies.

Sketch A Song Kids - Create your own music with Sketch-a-Song! Our colorful intuitive interface makes it fun and easy for anyone to make music in seconds. Price: Free

Uses: A great way to begin “drawing” or “coloring” a song. It also is a good way to reinforce instrument families through composition. While students are learning about the instrument families, use this app to have them create music with those instrumental families because they can effectively sketch the music onto the page, like coloring with crayons.

**Singing Fingers - Singing Fingers lets you finger paint with sound. Just touch the screen while you make a sound, and colorful paint appears. Touch the paint to play back the sound again. Price: .99

Uses: Have the students sing and create harmonies.

**SoundForest - SoundForest is a mini music maker that allows you to instantly compose a song using a collection of musical creatures. Compose a loop by tapping animal instruments and mix them into a hypnotic tune. Create a musical ecosystem with SoundForest. Price: free

Uses: Your students can create loops, ostinatos for Orffestrations, and musical creations in a guided form.

**Soundtrap - It is basically GarageBand online that is HTML5 so that you can access it from any platform on a computer and a mobile device. It also has collaboration capabilities, depending on how strong your network is. As stated by Mic Wright of www.thenextweb.com, Soundtrap is “the lovechild of GarageBand and Google Docs. The free version has 2200 free loops and 220 instruments. There are also Music Makers (Premium and Supreme), Storyteller, and Complete versions where you can subscribe in ranges from $7.99-$17.99 a month). The EDU Version is meant for the classroom with a teacher admin panel, easy integration with Google Classroom, you can create assignments, includes safewalls, and is COPPA compliant. The pricing for the EDU version begins at $249 for 50 users.

 

DISPLAYS MUSIC: 

Avid Scorch, forScore,  Notate Me, Notate Me Now, ScoreCloud Express, ScoreCloud HD, Symphony, Symphony Pro, Tonara, 

Some Examples:

Avid Scorch - Thanks to the Sibelius® engine, Scorch generates interactive notation. You can easily learn songs, adapt them to your instrument, or give a performance using the Music Stand mode. Price: $1.99

Uses: Interactive music stand.

forScore - forScore lets you take thousands of scores with you wherever you go. Finding a song in your library is easy, and since forScore can import PDF files directly from the web or DropBox, everything else is just a tap away.  Price: $14.99

EAR TRAINING: 

Blob Chorus, Do Re Mi 1-2-3, Ear Worthy, goodEar Scales, EAMIR Note, Master in a Minute, Ear Trainer Lite, Repeat After Mi, Seuss Band,  ScoreCloud, Solfa1 Lite, Xylophone Simon (the ads would make you want to pay the .99 for the paid version)

Some Examples:

**Blob Chorus Ear Training - This educational game is already used in thousands of schools to introduce children to pitch and improve their musical ear for notes. Each of the blobs in the chorus sing a note then king blob sings his note. The aim of the game is to identify the blob that sang the same note as king blob.  Price: .99

Uses - Ear training. This app can be difficult with elementary if you use more than three blobs because the blobs sing chromatically often. In addition, it would be beneficial if the “King Blob” sang his pitch first instead of last. 

**Do Re Mi 1-2-3 - Fun, musical ear training games using solfege that challenge your children’s minds as they laugh, create, and play with moo-sical cows, boat-rowing pandas, and twinkling stars. Price: Free (Lite) - $1.99

Uses: Ear training and encouraging singing with solfege. You can also have the students create solfege warmups by selecting animals to sing a solfege pattern and the students sing back the pattern. 

Rhythmic Dictation - Test and work your dictation skills by arranging randomly generated rhythmic blocks (Quarter Rest, Quarter Note, Eighth Notes, Triplet, Sixteenth Notes). Choose from three different tempos and beat lengths of 4, 8 or 16. Challenge yourself by limiting the number of times you can play each example. Price: .99

Rhythm Training - This app assists your students in practicing rhythms. Price: free+ 

FINGERING CHARTS: 

AtPlayMusic Recorder Free, **PlayAlong Recorder,

INTERACTIVE MUSIC STORIES: 

A Jazzy Day, BrainPOP Jr, **The Carnival of the Animals, **Duck Duck Moose Apps (Itsy Bitsy Spider, Old MacDonald, and The Wheels on the Bus), The Rainforest Musical Kakamega,

Some Examples:

**Old MacDonald by Duck Duck Moose - A traditional favorite where your students can sing along, record your students singing, perform in a variety of languages, and listen to the song on a variety of instruments. Price: Free

Uses: Have the students listen to this song in a variety of languages.

**The Carnival of the Animals - An amazing app of bringing the music to life. Price: $3.99

Uses: I have had the students move to the music, then play along with instruments, and then color pictures of the animals as they watch the app with the orchestra interacting with the animals.

INTERNET BROWSERS: 

Google Chrome, Safari, Photon Flash Player EDU, Puffin Web Browser

Some Examples:

**Photon Flash Player for the iPad (there is also an EDU version) - Would you like to use musictechteacher.com on your iPad? Well, now you can! Price: $4.99

Puffin Browser Pro - Similar to Photon EDU

Uses: Many of the flash-based websites can be used with this app. My students used incredibox.com in small groups to create a “respect” rap on their iPads. I would purchase the edu version of this app. However, now there is an incredibox app!

**Adobe Flash will be discontinued in late 2020.

METRONOMES: 

GarageBand, Loopy, HD,  Tap Metronome

Some Examples:

Tap Metronome - Tap Metronome is a simple metronome for those who want quick access to a reliable metronome.  Price: Free

NOTATION APPS: 

Noteflight (HTML 5), NotateMe, NotateMe Now, Notion, Notion Pad, ScoreCloud Express, Symphony Pro, YouCompose

Some Examples:

Noteflight - You can now use Noteflight on tablets and smart phones.  You don’t need to install an app: just log in using any web browser (http://www.noteflight.com). I will state that my students would rather use a computer or Chromebook over an iPad when using this tool for composition.

Uses: Have students create compositions with teacher-directed guidelines.

NotateMe - This app will take your written notation and turn it into a printed version that can play back. It can also take a picture of a one-line music arrangement (like an easy band arrangement) and scan the music into the app. Price: **Lite Version Free (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notateme-now/id783567215?mt=8) or $39.99 for the full version (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notateme/id699470139?mt=8)

Notion - Notion, is a notation editor and playback tool for your iPad, giving you the convenience of an easy-to-use music creation tool right at your fingertips. Price: $14.99

ScoreCloud Express - With this amazing app, your students can sing into it and it will attempt to notate what they sing. our students can also play an instrument (do not use vibrato) and it will attempt to notate what they play. This app is also a part of the ScoreCloud notation program that is free for your computer at http://scorecloud.com/. You do need to create a free account so that you can save items in the cloud. Price: $2.99

Uses: Have your students sing a simple phrase into the app. Then, open ScoreCloud and see the music appear in the software, or you can email it to yourself and download it as a midi or mp3 file that the students then use to compose more to their melody or add an accompaniment track using GarageBand.

Symphony Pro - Symphony Pro is a complete music notation editor that allows you to quickly write and playback music wherever you and your iPad go. This is an iPhone app that can be used on an iPad. Price $14.99

ORCHESTRA APPS: 

ABC Music, Beethoven 9, BrainPOP Jr, The Carnival of the Animals, **Music Learning Lab, My First Orchestra App, The Orchestra, Carnival of the Animals, Sounds of the Orchestra, **Meet the Orchestra, Tiny Orchestra

Some Examples:

ABC Music - Students can explore a world of pianos, violins, maracas & more through beautiful pictures, lively videos, and interactive scenes. Price: $2.99

Uses: Great app to reinforce instruments and the alphabet.

Meet the Orchestra - Great app to show elementary students the sounds and pictures of the instruments of the orchestra. The quiz is fun and a great way to assess what they learned as a group or in a 1:1 classroom. Price: $2.99

My First Orchestra - In this app, a little green creature called Tormod guides you through the orchestra. He is a troll who has come from the top of a mountain in Norway to find out about music. The students are to help him home while learning about the orchestra. Every instrument has its own page, with a young performer playing a solo. Tormod will show you all these, and sometimes he might even try the instruments himself.Tap any words or pictures and hear the text narrated, extracts of music, animations and sound effects. Price: $3.99

Uses: A nice way to introduce the orchestra to PreK and K projected onto a big screen.

**The Orchestra - Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the world-renowned Philharmonia performing extended extracts from eight works representing three centuries of symphonic music. The app allows real-time selection of multiple video and audio tracks, along with an automatically synchronized score and dynamic graphical note-by-note visualization of each piece as it is played. Price: $9.99

Sounds of the Orchestra - Sounds of the Orchestra is a fun way for children, parents, teachers, and anyone with an interest in music to learn about the classical musical instruments that comprise the orchestra. Price: $1.99

Uses: Play musical concentration with the instruments of the orchestra or learn about and listen to the orchestra.

PIANO APPS: 

JoyTunes (http://www.joytunes.com) has great apps for piano like Piano Maestro and Dust Buster), Magic Piano by Smule,  YouCompose

PREK MUSIC APPS: 

BrainPOP Jr, Carnival of the Animals, Doodle Sounds-Paper Piano, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Holiday Jams, Melody Jams, Little Fox Music Box, Moozart, Musical Me, My First Orchestra, Old MacDonald, Toca Band, Wheels on the Bus

Some Examples:

Doodle Sounds - Paper Piano - Express your Doodle talent with piano, drums, saxophone, ethnic drums, accordion, bells, xylophone, and electric guitar. Record your music and replay with different musical instruments. Price: Free  

Uses: The note names are in the colors of boomwhackers. This would be a good visual for boomwhackers.

**Itsy Bitsy Spider by Duck Duck Moose - A traditional favorite where your students can sing along, you can record your students singing, or you can change the musical instrument. Price: Free

Uses: Have the students record themselves singing the song.

Melody Jams  - This PreK/K app allows students to choose melodies and instruments to create a jam. Price: $2.99 (There is also Holiday Jams for .99).

**Musical Me - Another app from Duck Duck Moose. This one is geared for PreK/K and focuses on the basics of rhythms, ear training, and note reading. Price: Free

Uses: Mirror onto a screen and have each child take a tune creating music, tapping the rhythms, and more.

Wheels on the Bus by Duck Duck Moose - A traditional favorite where your students can sing along, record your students singing, and listen to the song on a variety of instruments. Price: Free

Uses: Have the students listen to this song in a variety of instruments or record your students singing the song.

RECORDER (INSTRUMENT) APPS: 

AtPlayMusic Recorder,  Learn and Play Recorder, PlayAlong Recorder, RecorderPad

Some Examples:

Learn and Play Recorder - This app is based on the Recorder Resource Kit byDenise Gagné. Learn and Play Recorder teaches beginners about the recorder, how to read music and how to play the soprano recorder. The app includes 38 songs from Just B to Camptown Races, all with a full performance track to play along with! Price: $3.99 (there is a lite version-not in US iTunes store-as well and a Learn and Play Recorder 2)

Uses: Another great assessment tool for students learning the recorder, especially if you are using Denise’s series.

**PlayAlongRecorder - A free app for playing the recorder. It includes fingering charts and songs. Price: Free+

Uses: This free app can be used as a virtual recorder for students who are challenged by playing the traditional recorder. Load Ode To Joy and the student can tap the fingering charts to play the recorder.

RECORDING APPS: 

Everyday Looper, GarageBand, iTalk Recorder, Loopy HD, Voice Recorder And Audio Editor, Voice Memos, WavePad

Some Examples:

**Loopy HD - This is the app that Jimmy Fallon and Billy Joel used on the Tonight Show. Create music with Loopy HD by layering looped recordings of singing, beatboxing, or playing an instrument with a savvy, sophisticated, tactile new looper that totally reinvents the formula. Price: $3.99

Uses: This is another great looping app that can assist your students when performing ostinati or creating music with beatboxing loops. You will need to experiment with it before using it with your students.

WavePad Free Audio Editor - A free sound editor for recording, editing, adding effects, and sending audio, Pocket WavePad allows you to record voice or music, then edit the recording and add effects to achieve high quality audio recordings. Price: Free

Uses: Record your students’ compositions, songs, improvisations, and more.

RHYTHM AND/OR NOTE DRILLS/GAMES: 

Bass Cat, **Flashnote Derby, Master in a Minute, My Note Games, My Little Rhythm HD, Music4Kids, Beginners Music Theory, Music Tutor (sight-reading), Name That Note, **Note Name Smash, Note Squish, NicoNotes Composer!, Noteworks, Rhythm Cat, Rhythm Dictation, **Staff Wars, **Staff Wars Live, Treble Cat

Some Examples:

**Flashnote Derby - Flashnote Derby is a fun way for kids to learn and practice identifying music notes by name. Price: $4.99

Uses: Great way to assess students on note reading skills.

Note Name Match Game - This is a note naming match game where you click on two cards and match the note with its name. Price: $1.99 Currently not available in the US iTunes Store.

Uses: You can use this with one iPad in the classroom, passing around the iPad, or you could create two teams. You can also use this app in small groups with a few iPads orclassroom.

**StaffWars - Finally! http://www.themusicinteractive.com popular note reading game comes to life with this new app. Price: .99

**StaffWars Live - Finally! http://www.themusicinteractive.com popular note reading game where you can play your instrument to name the notes comes to life with this new app. Price: .99

Uses: Assess your students’ rhythm reading and performing skills.

STUDENT ASSESSMENT APPS WITH WRITING (RHYTHMS, MUSICAL VOCAB, ETC):

Doodle Buddy, Educreations, **Explain Everything, ScreenChomp, ShowMe

Some Examples:

Educreations Interactive Whiteboard - Educreations turns your iPad into a recordable whiteboard. Create, record, and share your lessons with your students.Price: Free

Uses: Record your lessons for your students and share it on their or your website through embedding them. You cannot export to the camera roll unless you upgrade to their subscription of $8.95 a month. 

**Explain EDU - Everything is an easy-to-use design tool that lets you annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. Price: $13.99

Uses: Assessment and recording students’ works. Share the works through email or social networks or export to the camera roll. 

Explain Everything™ - Explain Everything™ brings together an interactive screencasting whiteboard, real-time local collaboration, and a content discovery portal and community for iPad. Price: Subscription

**Flipgrid - A free platform where students can successfully share and empower their voices with each other through videos and audio. Teachers can create an account and then set up their first grid. Each grid contains topics for the students to reflect and comment on, as well as musically perform, with videos (or using the blurred effect or whiteboards if they do not want to show their faces). Price: Free

**Kahoot!  - You can create game-type of assessments for your classes or find pre-made ones at kahoot.com. Collabortive and no student account needed. Students access a code through the iOS app. Price: Free

Nearpod - Have a 1:1 classroom? Use this free tool (there are also price point plans), to create or purchase other music educators' music lessons so that your students can follow along with your lessons. They access the lessons with a letter code. During the lesson, you can add polls, quizzes, and other assessment tools to check their understanding. Price - Free+

**Plickers lets you poll your class for free, without the need for student devices. Just give each student a card (a "paper clicker"), and use your iPhone to scan them to do instant checks-for-understanding, exit tickets, and impromptu polls. Best of all, your data is automatically saved, student-by-student, at plickers.com. Price: Free

Uses: This is a great tool for exit tickets. Only one device is needed as the students will use the Plickers cards to answer the questions. Read more about using this in the elementary music classroom by clicking here, which leads you to my blog post about this app.

**Seesaw - A Digital Learning Journal - A wonderful way for your students to create digital portfolios through writing, drawing, links, audio, and video examples that can easily be shared with the parents through their family app. It is like placing your music curriculum on the families’ mobile devices.  Price: Free

Uses: Please check out numerous posts I have written raving about this app in the elementary music classroom. In addition, here is a free 90-minute webinar to check out all of the features of Seesaw in the elementary music classroom.

**Socrative - A teacher can create a free account at http://www.socrative.com/ to create quizzes and assessments,  and use the apps Socrative Teacher and Socrative Student to turn a 1:1 iPad classroom into“clicker” or assessment tools. Price: Free Click here to read about a lesson using this app.

STUDENTS PLAY WITH THE MUSIC/MIX THE VOLUME IN MUSIC/SLOW DOWN MUSIC: 

Amazing Slow Downer Lite, Anytune, 

Some Examples:

Amazing Slow Downer Lite - Slow the song down, speed the song up, and change the key. This all can be done with this app. Since it is the lite version, it will only play the first 1/4 of the song. The full version is $14.99. Price: Free

TEACHER TOOLS: 

Acapella from PicPlayPost, Amazing Slow Downer Lite, Anytune - Slow down music, Bitsboard, **Book Creator, BrainPOP Jr, Class Dojo, Decide Now!, Doceri, Doodle Sounds-Paper Piano, Dropbox, Educreations, Evernote, **Explain Everything, **Stop Dancing, GarageBand, goodEar Scales, Google Chrome, **Google Drive, Google Earth, **iDoceo, Korg iKaossilator, Martin Luther King Jr’s Speech, Music Learning Lab, Music Resources, NotateMe, NotateMe Now, Notebook, **Photon Flash Player EDU, **planbook.com, Planbook Touch, Puffin Browser Pro, Safari, ScoreCloud, Seconds Interval Timer, **Seesaw, ShowMe, Sing-in-Tuna, **Socrative, **Soundtrap, Splashtop Personal Remote Desktop, Symphony Pro, Touchcast, UploadCam, You can handle them all, Youtube,

Some Examples:

 

**Adobe Spark Video for video creation, Spark Post for editing photos and creating stunning graphics, and Spark Page to create amazing web pages. 

Acapella from Pic Play Post - This app provides a simple way to create the multi-view acapella videos.

Stop Dancing - Freeze Dance app

Uses: Have the app control the music so you can watch and assess the students. Works best on an iPod Touch or iPhone screen.

**Google Drive and Dropbox - With all of the apps that you could use in your classroom, how do you organize your and your students’s works? The two most effective ways to do this are to create free accounts with Google Drive and Dropbox. Once you create those two accounts, download the free apps for Google Drive and Dropbox. You will now be able to move files from your computer to your iPad by placing them in your Google Drive and/or your Dropbox. In addition, man of these apps mentioned in this book allow you to export and/or share your or your students’ works through Dropbox and/or Google Drive. Price: Free

Google Earth - Fly around the planet with a swipe of your finger with Google Earth for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Explore distant lands or reacquaint yourself with your childhood home. Search for cities, places, and businesses. Browse layers including roads, borders, places, photos and more. Visit the Earth Gallery to find exciting maps such as real-time earthquakes, planes in flight, hiking trails, city tours, and more. Price: Free

Uses: Locate where you are and then the country you are studying to show the students how far away the music originated from where they are.

**iDoceo - iDoceo is your powerful and easy-to-use grade book, assessment tool, attendance book, and more for the iPad. Its spreadsheet engine will calculate averages in real time as you put information in. No internet connection is required to use it. Price: $11.99

Uses: Grading, assessments, record your students, seating charts, attendance, and so much more!

**Planbook.com - For $12 a year, you can use the website, planbook.com, to create your own customized schedule and organize your lesson plans. Price of app: Free

**Seesaw - The Learning Journal - A new way for your students to create digital portfolios through writing and video examples that can easily be shared with the parents through the app. Price: Free

**Socrative - A teacher can create a free account at http://www.socrative.com/ to create quizzes and assessments, and use the apps Socrative Teacher and Socrative Student to turn aiPad classroom into“clicker” or assessment tools. Price: Free

UploadCam - Photos that you take with this app on your mobile device, automatically save to your Google Drive or Dropbox. Price: Free

Uses: This app saves you a lot of space on your mobile device because it automatically saves your photo to the cloud.

You Can Handle Them All - Based on our best-selling book, You Can Handle Them All, this is the perfect app for any educator or parent who’s struggling to manage a student’s or child’s inappropriate behavior! Categorized by the 4 primary causes of student misbehavior, this app: Clearly describes 124 different student behaviors you may encounter; identifies the primary cause of each behavior; offers a number of quick actions you can take to manage each student behavior; reveals the common mistakes teachers often make when trying to correct behaviors; and cross references related behaviors. Price $9.99

TUNERS:

**GuitarTuna, Guitar Tuner, **n-Track Tuner, insTuner,

Example:

n-Track Tuner - Tune your guitar, bass or other instrument with n-Track Tuner. Just put your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad next to your instrument and play each string, the tuner will automatically recognize the note you're playing and tell you wether you need to lower (green bar) or increase (red bar) the string's pitch. Price: Free

VIDEO CREATION APPS: 

**Chatterpix, **DoInk, **Explain Everything, iMovie, Lego Movie Maker, **Sock Puppets, Touchcast

Some Examples:

**ChatterPix Kids - This app is cery intuitive as my PreK daughter has made several videos with this app. You take a picture, choose what in the picture will "sing", record your voice singing, and then choose filters and stickers to add to your video. You can then save it to the gallery and export it to your camera roll. Price: Free

Uses: This app could be a great tool to make a composer come to life. If your students are studying a composer, have them take a picture of that composer and record themselves talking as the composer.

**Sock Puppets - Sock Puppets lets you create your own lip-synched videos and share them on Facebook and YouTube. Add puppets, props, scenery, and backgrounds and start creating. Hit the record button and the puppets automatically lip-synch to your voice. Price: Free 

Uses: This app could be used in a one iPad classroom projected onto a screen. You can have conversational solfege with the sock puppets and record them singing short phrases (under 30 seconds) and turn it into a movie. I would definitely suggest purchasing for .99 the opportunity to save it to the photo library for easier exporting options.

VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT APPS: 

Animoog, Asian Drum, **Autoharp, aXylophone, BeBot, Bongos, Congas, Cymbals, DigiDrummer, Djembe, Doodle Sounds-Paper Piano, Drum Pad, Drum Set, **Erhu, **GarageBand, Hand Drums, Harp, Holiday Bells, iSteelPan, iTriangle, I Play My Chinese Drum, Jug Band, Korg iKaossilator, Pipa, Rain Stick, **Ratatap Drum, Tabla, ThumbJam, Ukulele, **Xylophone Orff, **Zampoña

Some Examples:

**Autoharp - Virtual instrument app connected into a sound system. Price: .99

Uses: I or the students can use this app to accompany. Never have to tune the virtual autoharp!

iAmUkulele - A a nice ukulele sound. Price: Free

**Xylophone Orff by Tim Purdum- This is a virtual Orff instrument app that sets up the instrument in pentatonic, hexatonic, and diatonic modes. You can also set the instrument up with letter names and/or solfege. It can play as an xylophone (bass, alto, and soprano) and glockenspiel (alto and soprano). Price: .99

Pipa - Virtual pipa. Price: $2.99

Uses: Great way to show the instrument when you might not have access to one.

**Ratatap Drum - The harder you hit the drums, the louder they sound. Swirl your finger around for slower or faster rolls. The drum sound varies slightly from hit to hit, just like real drums. With the fastest response time of any drum app, it feels incredibly good to play. Price: Free - $1.99

Uses: Add another instrument and depth of sound to our ensembles.

Taiko Drums - Used as a virtual instrument connected to a sound system by teacher and students. Price: Free - .99

Uses: Add another instrument and depth of sound to our ensembles.

**(Virtual) Erhu - Used as a virtual instrument by teacher and students. Price: $2.99 - just listed as Erhu

Uses: Have the students experience this Chinese instrument as a part of the Chinese New Year or during a unit involving the study of world music. Use GarageBand instead.

IPAD TIPS:

  • Close apps by double clicking the menu button, and swiping up the apps that you would like to close. Or, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and then swipe the app again. When finished, press the menu button again.

  • Show the students what to do if the apps begin to “wiggle” (press the menu button to make the wiggling stop). If not, they might delete your apps from your device.

  • To get back to the first screen quickly, press the menu button.

  • To find an app quickly, use the Spotlight tool or ask Siri.

.Guided Access: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202612 Guided Access allows you to keep only one app open so the students cannot exit the app and open another one (single-app mode). It also allows you to “block” items on the screen so that the students cannot activate them (such as ads).

  • Settings>General>Accessibility>Guided Access, then switch it on.

  • Open the app you want to stay open.

  • Triple click the “Home” button to turn on Guided Access.

  • Shade out the areas you would like to block on the screen.

  • Once you have limited the access to the app, click “Start” at the top right-corner of the screen.

  • Set a passcode.

•Turn off Guided Access: Triple click the “Home” button.

  • Enter the passcode.

  • Click “End” on the top left-corner of the screen.

How to audition an app:

  • Ask yourself, “What is my music goal?”

  • Read the ratings.

  • Go to YouTube and find a video of the app in use.

  • Go to the developer’s website.

  • See if there is a “lite” or “free” version of the app for you to try out.

  • Ask a music educator at the Music Teachers Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/musicpln/ and join. There are over 14,000 members. Someone has probably used the app and can give you an honest review.

How to organize your apps:

  • Place your similar apps into one folder by holding down an app icon until it wiggles, and then dragging it onto another app.

  • You will now have an app folder with two apps placed into it.

  • Label the folder.

IPAD ACCESSORIES

Projecting your iPad onto a screen:

Accessories:

Samson Expedition XP308i: 

http://www.samsontech.com/samson/products/portable-pa/expedition/xp308i/  

  1. I use this system to plug the iPads into the mixer and the students play virtual instruments along with Orff ensembles. Price: around $500

Jamhub -http://www.jamhub.com Price: Discontinued