If you’ve ever looked for free quality band music online in the past, you may have come up a bit short. Sure, there are tons of sites where you can download a MIDI file and then open it up in notation software like Sibelius or Finale, but the many times there is a lot of editing left to do before you get something that is usable with your ensemble. But is there a place where you can get free “print and go” music for your band from the public domain? The answer is yes.
I was presenting a workshop a while back, and someone introduced me to an incredible website called simply, Band Music PDF Library. This simple but powerful website houses an incredible selection (currently over 500 works) of standard repertoire for concert band. The site was started by a few members of the North Royalton Community Band in North Royalton, OH. It is now a separate entity, and they are doing incredible things.
When I finally checked out the site, I must admit I was a bit skeptical about what I would find. Then I started searching. My first search was for “Stars and Stripes Forever”. After clicking through a copyright warning, I found the complete score with all of the individual parts available for free download as a PDF file. Look for yourself. As I searched more and more, I found some incredible works for band by composers such as Herbert L. Clarke, Henry Fillmore, Arthur Pryor, and of course, John Philip Sousa. There are many well-known marches, and some pretty obscure pieces. I would strongly recommend bookmarking the site, downloading some pieces, and playing them with your middle or high school band. If you own Sibelius 5 or 6, you can open these PDF files directly into the software. You can also scan them into either Finale or Sibelius to create your own arrangements.
I applaud what the folks at Band Music PDF Library are doing. They are seeking volunteers to help with the collection, and of course, could certainly use some donations to keep the project going.
The intent of these compositions is to provide music educators who teach in a keyboard lab environment with quality literature, with a focus on keyboard pedagogy. The pieces are not at the beginner level (hand positions really won’t help you out here), but are certainly playable by students who have both a good understanding of the piano, and good music-reading skills. The best part of this collection is that they are very reasonably priced at $9.95 each, and are delivered as password-protected PDF files that can be printed out as many times as necessary.
I urge you to visit the new Sheet Music section of the SoundTree store and look through the pieces. Each piece has both a sample page from the score and a 1 minute MP3 recording of the piece. If you buy some of the pieces - I’d love to know what you think!
By now you have probably heard of the incredible online notation software called Noteflight. If you haven’t, stop reading this, log on to their site, create a free account, and start composing. I mean it.
I have been a long-time fan of what the folks at Noteflight have been doing - facilitating free online composition for students and musicians with a powerful notation program that lives entirely online. Now they have created an incredible resource for teachers called Noteflight Learning Edition which affords teachers the ability to create online learning environments for their students. One of the only drawbacks with using Noteflight with your students the way it currently works is that the students have to either print out their scores at home, or log into their account at school and then export their work in order to turn it in for assessment. While the software is free and you can make it work, in the long run it will become cumbersome when trying to assess large groups of students.
Noteflight Learning Edition allows you to share your musical scores with your students, as well as post activities and assignments for your students to complete and turn in for assessment online. This system makes it easy to create and post materials that are accessible from any computer with internet access the moment they’re created. Your students will be able to access and work on their assignments from anywhere - including home. Noteflight has teamed up with Haiku to create a fully functioning LMS - Learning Management System - so you’ll even be able to facilitate an entire assortment of other online course interactions.
From the Noteflight website:
Foster a musical community.
Students and teachers have a private, secure online space for all their scores and teaching materials, separate from the public Noteflight.com site. It’s perfect for group composition activities and informal sharing.
Manage online assignments.
When you create an assignment, Learning Edition automatically gives each student their own copy to work on. You can review individual students’ work and provide feedback directly in their scores. You can even see how a piece has evolved by looking at previously saved versions.
Create online courses.
Embed scores directly in online courseware. Students can play back all of a score or just a few measures, and can listen to individual parts and notes as a cursor follows the playback.
I see Noteflight Learning Edition as a perfect solution for any K-12 or college level music courses that are looking to integrate composition, music theory study, and online assessment. SoundTree is a proud reseller of the Noteflight Learning Edition. Pricing is extremely affordable and the service is available on a monthly or yearly subscription. If you are interested in learning more about implementing, please contact us and we will provide you with more information, including pricing.
Are you using Notelfight? How about the Learning Edition? I’d love to hear about the kinds of things you are doing with it in your music program!
If you are looking for a cool, easy-to-use, and most importantly FREE online music making tool, check out JamStudio.com. Called “The Online Music Factory” this social-network style site allows users to create loop based compositions by entering chords onto a virtual lead sheet and choosing the style and instruments to play back those chords. Created by a musician and software engineer, the site is very musician friendly while at the same time allowing those with little musical knowledge to create music. A free account allows you to make some pretty cool tracks. I played around with the interface for a little while and created a 32 measure tune that sounded pretty cool. After you are finished, you can save your song to your account and post comments for when you come back to the song to continue working on it. You can also share your work with friends by simply sending an email to them with a link to your song. If you’d like to export the song as an MP3, you’ll need a paid subscription which costs $4.95/month - which also grants you the copyright to the song you have created. The site also includes a forum where you can post questions and get involved with the JamStudio online music making community.
Some of the key components that will make music teachers smile include:
- Students need to create their own chord progressions rather than relying solely on loops to create music.
- Students really need to listen to create something that sounds good.
- While a paid subscription is optimal, you can do some great things with your students with a free subscription.
- Teaching song form and songwriting is easy with JamStudio.
- There is a section on the site for educators where you can apply for a grant to get the full version of JamStudio in your classroom.
- A new feature is JamRecorder where you can record live tracks into your JamStudio songs. You can try it for free, or pay $29.95 for the full version.
I would strongly recommend checking this site out and start thinking about how you can implement it into your music curriculum. Not only will your students love making music with it - I am sure that you’ll find it to be quite a bit of fun too!
If you have not yet heard of ARRA and what it means for education - you will soon. ARRA stands for the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act - better known as the Obama Stimulus Package. This package has over $100 billion in funding for a wide variety of projects meant to stimulate the economy. As part of that unprecedented funding, over $50 billion is earmarked to help improve our nations schools through a variety of funding initiatives. The Obama Administration has set up an information website that covers every possible aspect of the funding. As an educator, you need to read up on this subject as much as you can. These funds are being made available to each state department of education, and requests for funding for specific projects will be handled on a first-come first-served basis.
The six funding initiatives that are specifically for educators include:
* State Fiscal Stabilization Funds (SFSF) Recovery Act Program
* Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) Recovery Act Funding
* Qualified School Construction Bonds (QSCB) Recovery Act Program
* Workforce Investment Act (WIF) Recovery Act Funding
* Qualified Zone Academy Bonds (QZAB) Recovery Act Funding
* IDEA Recovery Funds for Services to Children and Youths with Disabilities
Each of these initiatives has specific goals and objectives - many of which are directly related to purchasing and upgrading technology for use with our students. For music educators who have long lamented over not being able to fund music technology labs, audio recording studios, TV and video production studios, as well as assistive technologies for special needs students, this funding just might be the direct route to making your technology implementation dreams a reality.
SoundTree has set up a website to assist educators with understanding the process and requirements for obtaining
funding through the ARRA program. This site contains links to relevant resources and documents that describe how music technology labs fit the ARRA funding goals. This is an incredibly important resource for all educators, and I strongly recommend checking out the site. The bottom line is that there is a tremendous amount of funding available, and if you don’t ask for it, you won’t get it. I am sure that when you return to your school district in the next few weeks (unless you’re already back to school) your district and building-level administrators will be mentioning ARRA. If they don’t - ask them about it. You will need them to be an advocate for your request as they will need to present your request to your state DOE. Contact SoundTree to get a proposal or if you have any questions. Please don’t let this opportunity pass you by. The funding is on a limited time frame. If you don’t start the process by October, it will most likely be too late.
Today and tomorrow I am in Albany, NY at the 2009 NYSSMA Summer Conference on behalf of SoundTree, where I am presenting two sessions - Mixcraft in the Music Classroom and Notating Percussion Parts in Finale & Sibelius. As always, I have created a special landing page for the event where I have posted relevant information, including links and podcasts of the sessions. If you are in the area, please stop by the SoundTree booth and say hello, or stop by one of my sessions!
Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting two sessions on behalf of SoundTree at the NJMEA Summer Conference at the beautiful Molly Pitcher Inn in Red Bank, NJ. It is perhaps the nicest location of any conference that I have been to. SoundTree provided the hands-on music technology lab and Robin Hodson presented a great session titled: Taking the Fear Out Of Music Technology. In case you have not already heard the news, Robin is the new Mid-Atlantic Accounts Manager for SoundTree after working for Sibelius and Avid for the past decade. I presented a session titled Music For All: Using Technology With Special Learners in the morning and afternoon sessions, where I demonstrated the incredible SoundBeam and spoke about many other adaptive technologies. I also unveiled the new SoundTree/ARRA Information page which provides information, links, and documents related to funding technology purchases through the Obama Stimulus Package for eduction.
As always, we created a special landing page for the conference where the presentations and podcasts are posted. Special thanks to Dr. Rick Dammers for coordinating the event. SoundTree looks forward to supporting the conference for many years to come.
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