This page will feature jpg images you can save on your iPad and embed into a Keynote presentation for warm-ups. To add an image to your iPad, touch the image and hold it. Then “save” …

Here is a quick and easy play-along for the start of the 2014-2015 school year. The song is "Love Runs Out" performed by the group One Republic. There is much good news with this popular song, not the least of which it is in G dorian mode. Our Orff instruments are all set for this - all you'll need is B-flats and you're good to go! The other good news is the lyrics have no "bad words" so you're safe to use it completely in tact in your classroom. Please be sure to PURCHASE THE SONG before using this play-along. A $1.23 investment isn't much. Once you have it, you can use it as-is, there is no need to alter the key or tempo using a program such as Audacity. This song follows a very simple I, IV, V chord progression, but in case you're not quite clear on the chord changes, I've posted the beginning play-along below. Once you try it out, I'm sure you'll notice where the changes occur throughout the song. Feel free to add or subtract instruments at will. This is a fantastic review for students to see and hear the difference between BEAT and RHYTHM. The hand drum part (or any type of drums will do) clearly plays the steady beat. The other parts are playing a rhythm pattern (some more intricate than others). I did this with my students by having three groups that used the Boomwhacker colors - Green (the G minor chord) Red (the C major chord) Orange (the D minor chord). This was easier for them than having each student play all the chord changes. I placed the three colors on the board and pointed and called out the changes as the recording played. There is a part in the actual recording where the bass line moves from C to B-flat and then to G, but I have only written "the basics" here for you. Have fun!

It's been a while since I posted anything that you can take right to your classroom. Here's a new one that you can use right away - well...with a little work on your part. The song "Happy" from "Despicable Me 2" by Parrell Williams is a very catchy tune. I feel it's a great teaching piece for many reasons. For one, it's a catchy, popular tune with lyrics you can actually play in the classroom! Another reason I like it for teaching is that it illustrates a very important concept when learning music. So often we tell students "major" songs sound "happy" and "minor" songs sound "sad." Well...here is an example that flies in the face of that logic. When you hear this song you can't help but feel "happy" even though it's actually in the key of F minor! First: BUY THE SONG. Please don't use a free service to play the song. It's available from most music services of your choice (Amazon, iTunes, etc.). Now, if you have a plethora of instruments at your disposal with a full compliment of chromatic notes, then by all means, transpose what I've provided here and use it as-is with the original. Most folks with Orff instruments are limited with the only accidentals available being F-sharps and B-flats. For this reason, I needed to transpose this song down a half step to E minor. Not to mention my fourth graders do not have any idea of how to play A-flat or B-flat on the recorder and I have no desire to confuse what we've already started by teaching those pitches. The way I have it here fits beautifully with the fact that my fourth grade students have just learned the pitch E, so this will be excellent (and fun) practice. "But...how do I get the recording in the correct key?" you may ask. There are options. I transposed mine with a program that I love called "Wavepad." Transposing it down took a little trial and error (it goes by percentage rather than actual pitch or half steps - 94% did the trick) and yes, the result sounds slightly different than the original - but as I find myself saying so often when I have to make do "It's close enough for this side of town!" They do have a free version available here: Click here. Another option that many music teachers like is to use Audacity. You can download Audacity completely free here. To get you going on how to transpose music with Audacity there are several resources available on the Internet. Simply Google "transpose with Audacity" and you should be well on your way if you need help figuring that task out. So here's the play-along notation for the transposed version in E minor. If you have instruments at your disposal with lower pitches (for example, I have some of the bass Joia tubes) I recommend changing the pitch B in the bass xylophone part an octave lower - but that's just a personal preference. The unpitched percussion part can be anything you have - sticks, hand drums, tambourines, etc. The alto xylophone part also provides a great opportunity to teach the famed "syncopa" rhythm pattern in the second measure. The ostinati laid out here can be played throughout and the wonderful thing about the original recording is that it gives you a nice set-up count-off at the beginning. Enjoy and...be HAPPY!

Using the free web tool, Incredibox, in the classroom for technology projects. Great way to incorporate music into your curriculum! Will work on Chromebooks, laptops and computers. There is also an iPad app available for $3.99

just because thanks to michelgaubert About last night

A booklet I made in preparation for my continuing Orff teacher certification. It contains helpful references to Orff techniques as well as how to set out an Orff style score in Sibelius & Finale.

Music education ideas, activities, games, and songs | Technology tips for the music classroom | Resources for the elementary music room.

Curricular Charts

Chrome Music Lab- Andrew Keegan shares 5 lesson ideas to try to save you time. Full of practical ideas to share with you students.

"In this quick post I want to share with you this beautiful interactive image on the SAMR model. I learned about this resource from a tweet shared by our colleague David Fife. As you can see from the image below, iPadders provided examples of how to use each classroom task according to the different SAMR categories. And in each category, a set of apps and tools are provided to help you carry out the task under study. I invite you to have a look and share with your colleagues. Enjoy"

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This overlooked museum houses an amazing collection of rare, antique typewriters.

Matrix

Here are 10 cognitive, emotional, and social benefits associated with piano lessons (and other tidbits about playing the piano).

Now, the theremin—a strange little invention that translates hand gestures into pitch and volume—could make a comeback

I used to dread making custom dice for my classroom, unless you are lucky enough to have wooden cubes to paste pictures onto, one step on a cardboard template dice from a student and th…

One of my favorite songs for Spring/Easter is "Old Mr. Rabbit". I've taught it many time to younger students (kinder/first), but this year I decided to incorporate it into my recorder lessons for my older students (3rd/4th) following a similar format they've already been using. I created this PowerPoint, Old Mr. Rabbit, to aide in teaching the song. I've stuffed it full of vocabulary because I'm really working on this with my 1st graders (I discuss it with kinder and my older students already know it). The PowerPoint includes notes and tips in the notes section. Sometimes, I need to review them myself to make sure I'm addressing everything I want to! The PowerPoint begins with a lyric slide. Students love creating motions for the lyrics, and I've created my own just in case. Then, we add the steady beat and time signature/bar lines/double bar lines. Students like to play "whack the screen" - which is basically them taking one of my pointers and pointing to the thing (for example, "time signature") that I'm asking them to locate. When discussing measures and bar lines, I used the analogy of my instrument shelves. If we didn't have individual shelves, the instruments would be very unorganized. In music, the wooden shelf dividers are the bar lines and the shelves themselves are measures. The time signature tells the measures how many beats to contain. Here's an example of the rhythmic preparation slide. As soon as my students see the steady beat slide, many of them are ready to tell me what rhythms will go where. This slide helps struggling students see what advanced ones can already tell from the way I've grouped the words alone. I like to have students come up and "whack the staff" to show me which pictures they think will "transform" into, say, the quarter note, on the next slide. This is the rhythm slide. I like to have students chant the lyrics while pointing, then chant the lyrics while using body percussion. Then, they keep performing the body percussion while they say the words. I've noticed (as my husband pointed out with some 3rd graders in their recent Cowboy Program), that when I do transfer students to percussion instruments, most of them will continue to sing the song while playing the instrument. With recorder players, we add more steps. We sing the rhythm on "doo" while tapping our recorder mouthpiece (simulating the movement of the tongue when playing). This is great for me to assess who "gets it" and who needs help. Tonguing can be a difficult concept for beginning recorder players, so this steps helps them kin esthetically (moving the finger), aurally (singing "doo"), and visually (watching their finger move). Then, they play the rhythms on "doo". I often select students to play alone because this helps me assess them, helps the student who is playing gain confidence, offers more advanced listeners the opportunity to identify and fix problems/mistakes, and offers less advanced students the opportunity to follow along and silently practice themselves. It is a win-win-win-win (can you tell we're getting into the 7 Habits?). The PowerPoint includes a solfa slide (for the older students). I have the students discuss the pitches (who is highest, who is lowest), sing on solfa with hand-signs, sing the song on the lyrics while using hand-signs, then sing the song with movements they've created. This is an example of the absolute pitch slide (for older students). We discuss what absolute pitches are (at the top of the screen) then review the pitches we will use (at the left of the screen - including these really helps struggling students gain enough confidence to play along). We sing the song on the pitches while moving our fingers. We sing the song on "doo" while moving our fingers. I demonstrate the song. Students play the song (many times). I choose "Recorder Senseis" (see this post: Recorder Group Jobs) to play the piece alone and "Recorder Doctors" to diagnose the mistakes of the senseis and the class. Then, we sing the song again, this time using the music staff. Then, we play the song using the music staff (the advanced students love this step - they love reading "real music" - but you can easily refer to the previous slides for struggling students). We also play "whack the screen" again - pointing out specific solfa and absolute pitches, the time signature, bar lines, measures, the double barline, etc. By now, almost 1/3 to 1/2 of the class has go to "whack the screen". I swear, the longer I teach, the more questions I ask! This PowerPoint will probably take us at least two class-times to get through! Of course, I am big into printables. I like to use these on subsequent lessons to assess my students' progress. Here's an example of a printable: Younger students can match the lyrics printable to the rhythm printable. I'll have the students turn over their answers and perform from memory (they love it), I'll give them an instrument to play the rhythms on, and I'll even have them turn all the cards face-down and play a matching game. Here's a movement activity I've used in the past. It is really simple, but the younger students love it and erupt into laughter anytime a naughty rabbit is caught. This song also pairs very well with Bunny Bop. Although I geared "Bunny Bop" toward younger students, I played the game with my choir (3rd-5th graders) at the end of one of our rehearsals. They LOVED it.

Okay...so I promised a tech tip for this week. I lied. Actually, I want to give the tech tip I had in mind a week with the kids so I can discover any pitfalls while in real practice. I think it'll work out fine, but...I'd rather wait so I can say, "It worked for me!" That being said, I am preparing to meet my students next week. At the beginning of the year, I always go over rules, expectations, etc. etc. and begin with something simple. Steady beat and basic rhythms are my topic of choice for the first week of school. Whatever I choose, I try to make it as fun and relevant as possible (especially for my 3rd-5th classes). One thing I like to do is create simple ostinati or instrument parts for either really cool songs I've discovered or a very popular, current song (finding one that doesn't use "questionable lyrics" is the trick!). Since Carly Rae Jepsen came out with her hit "Call Me Maybe" late in the spring, I don't think there is any song out there that caught on quite like this one has. We've seen Olympians and other celebrities performing lip dubs all over YouTube, etc. AND...it doesn't use any "bad words!" (side note: I honestly feel there are no "bad words" - just bad intentions behind them...but, being a teacher, I have to function as an upstanding member of society, so I'll stick to the traditional term for them). The good news for us elementary music types is - it's in the key of G major! GREAT! Orff instruments come with an F-sharp - ROCKIN'! So, here are two very basic ostinati for the verse and refrain of the song: If you want to have a discussion about beat versus rhythm, you can have one group of students play the steady beat during the verse on the pitch G, then teach the rhythm and pitches shown here for the refrain. This is also a good review/discussion about "on-the-beat versus syncopated" rhythms. Feel free to adapt at will for your particular situation. Be sure to leave a comment to let me know how it worked out for you! Until next week...