Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

Please welcome the following guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online courses for OnlineCourses.org. This post nicely follows the previous post about educational websites that can be used in the elementary music classroom. This post has some excellent resources. I encourage you to click on each link. I found many links that I could immediately utilize!

I thank Karen for being a guest blogger!

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Teachers, educators, and music professionals who are looking for new music technology or curriculum ideas for the classroom can find a wide range of no-cost resources online. Here are 20 free music technology and curriculum resources for educators to explore before the start of the new school year.

1. Music Ed Magic - Music Ed Magic offers an amazing collection of music resources for educators, including lesson plans, sheet music, education articles, and free software.
2. K-12music.org - One of the most popular music education resources on the web, K-12music.org provides free learning resources for music students and teachers at every level.
3. Music Education Online - This free website from Children’s Music Workshop provides free music lessons, sheet music, news, event listings, and other helpful music education resources.
4. Music Tech Teacher - This blog is operated by Karen Garrett-2006 TI:ME Teacher of the Year-who posts free music and technology-related lessons, quizzes, word searches, and other games.
5. MusTech.net - Created by Dr. Prof. Joseph Pisano, this site is dedicated to spreading the word about technology in music education.
6. KIDiddles - KIDiddles provides free printable sheet music and lyrics for thousands of nurseries and children’s songs. The site can also be used to professionally produce original song sheets for the classroom.
7. McGill English Dictionary of Rhyme - This free reference is used by more than 100,000 poets and songwriters in over 100 countries. The dictionary and the free software that comes with it would be an asset to any music curriculum.
8. Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music - This sheet music collection from the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University includes more than 29,000 pieces of sheet music that can be used in the music classroom.
9. SongFacts - SongFacts is an excellent place to find lyrics, song meanings, trivia, and other resources to engage students in music curriculum.
10. Musicards - This site offers free web-based flashcards that can be used to teach students note names, key signatures, and music theory.
11. Free Ear Trainer - Educators can teach their students to play music by ear with this free music trainer. The trainer includes a picture-based guide and three video tutorials.
12. JamStudio - This online music factory provides education grants for teachers so that students can use the site’s music mixing and songwriting tools for free.
13. Audacity - Audacity is an open source sound editor that works across multiple platforms. It can be used to easily record, edit, and mix music.
14. MEF - This free, award-winning tool can be used to record and edit music. It includes its own CD burner and provides many sound editing functions.
15. Musette - Musette is free music notation software for songs and scores. The program is easy to work with and requires no special installation.
16. Jokosher - Jokosher is a free music studio with a wide range of features and an easy-to-use interface. It can edit, mix, import, and export audio.
17. Pitch Perfect Guitar Tuner - This free guitar tuning software for musicians makes it easy to quickly tune any guitar. Pitch Perfect works with Windows and Pocket PCs.
18. Songza - Songza is a music search engine that doubles as a free Internet jukebox. Users can look up any song or band and then stream or share the music they find.
19. Last.fm - This free music search engine/player recommends music, concerts, and videos based on the type of music you like to listen to. It is the perfect tool for teachers who want to introduce their students to new music.
20. Midomi - Midomi allows listeners to search for music using their voice. Simply sing a few bars (at least ten seconds is best) and Midomi will find the song you’re looking for.