During my visit to Berklee College of Music yesterday, I was shown an amazing online resource that I believe is the only one of it’s kind. The Stan Getz Library is an online searchable database that allows you to enter any jazz musicians name and see all of the recordings they made not only as a leader, but all of the recordings that they played on as a sideman as well. If you enter “Paul Motian” for example, you get to a page with 73 listings. Each listing includes a click through to a full page about the album, including all of the standard record catalog listings, as well as all of the musicians that played on the recording (with each name being clickable once again to see all of the recordings they played on). I am a huge jazz fan, and have always loved the incredible network of musicians - each playing on so many other records. This community atmosphere has always been very interesting to me, especially when compared to the clan-like atmosphere in rock.

I strongly recommend checking out the catalog yourself. It is a great tool for jazz educators who are interested in both the history of jazz and finding great recordings to play for their students. Thank you Berklee!

Looking for some great free lesson plans geared toward music theory students written by outstanding music educators?   Log on to Berklee Shares and choose from a wide variety of topics under the Music Education menu.  All of the lesson plans are available as downloadable PDF files, and you can even email plans you like to fellow educators.  Under the Production & Technology menu, you’ll find many tutorials for common software titles.  There are also sections for improvisation, song writing, arranging, and even lessons for individual instruments.  Check it out - it’s worth a visit.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

Edutopia is a great magazine that highlights effective uses of technology in the classroom. While not targeted directly toward music educators, it is a great resource for anyone interested in the integration of technology into a curriculum. Recently, there was an article that caught my attention entitled A Glorified Whiteboard. Written by Amy Standen, the focus of the article is a free online service for all educators called Wikispaces.com. The site allows anyone to create a website for their class. With many useful features, such as a Visual Editor, the ability to protect the site and restrict the activity of users, a fantastic discussion board feature, and the ability to upload files of various formats. You can even monitor the site activity, and invite students and fellow teachers to your space. Wikispaces can be used by anyone to create a website for a specific class, a specific unit of study, or anything else.

I decided to Wikispaces a try, and I created a website for my 6th Grade & 8th Grade General Music Classes, and one for my Instrumental Music students. The process was very easy, and I was able to create a few pages in a matter of minutes, posting my course objectives, project guidelines, and notes from the PowerPoint presentations that I used during class. My students joined the space at home, and even responded to a few questions that I posted. I found it very interesting how savvy the students are, and how carefully some of their answers were constructed.

Today in class my students commented on how “cool” the site was, and a few even took the time to create their own Wikispaces. While I urge you to caution students about posting information about themselves online, Wikispaces is a pretty safe alternative to the scary world of MySpace.com.

I plan on utilizing Wikispaces extensively during the remainder of this school year. It will be very interesting to see the growth and impact of this site on my students, and more specifically, on my pedagogy. Try creating a Wikispace for your class. It’s free, it’s easy, and it’s a great way to connect your curriculum with the Wired Generation.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

The New York Philharmonic has hosted a wonderful website geared toward children for many years now. Called Kidzone, the site has a number of sections that your students - I recommend grades 3 through 8 - will thoroughly enjoy. These sections include the Game Room, the Instrument Storage Room, the Dressing Rooms, the Instrument Lab, the Musicians’ Lounge, the Composition Workshop, the Composers’ Gallery, and the Newsstand. There are a wide variety of things that students can do in these rooms, but my personal favorite is the Composition Workshop. Once you enter the room, you are presented with two options, the Minuet Mixer and the Orchestration Station. The Orchestration Station allows students to re-orchestrate Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and then compare their version to the original orchestration by Ravel.

The Minuet Mixer is a very clever piece of software that allows students to create their own 16 measure minuets in the style of Mozart. The interface presents the students with 8 tiles, each one containing a one measure phrase. The students can drag one of these tiles into the score. Once doing so, the tiles change immediately so that they will work harmonically with the previously chosen tile. The students continue selecting tiles until they have filled in all 16 measures. Once complete, the students can play back their minuets - it’s really pretty cool. There is also a free compose option that allows users to make the choices of which tiles to choose on their own - without the aid of the software. You will need to have Shockwave installed to run the site. I strongly recommend you try this site out with your students.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

I often read online newspapers from around the world in search of an unbiased look at world events. This morning, as I was looking the London newspaper The Guardian, I came across an article about an educational technology event that will be happening this January in London called the BETT Show. Each year at the BETT Show, educators gather for a look at the latest releases in educational technology and the article, entitled Roll Up, roll up! The Circus is in Town. spoke mainly about music technology. Of the new resources listed, I checked out an online composition site called Numu, and I was immediately impressed. The site is a center for new music composed by students. Unlike the Vermont MIDI Project however, the music on Numu is primarily pop-oriented - a place for new bands to get their music heard. The site is extremely well put together and features many different songs from a wide variety of genres - everything from alternative rock to pantomimes. There are top-ten lists, links to other websites that deal with music - including Sound Junction and Music Manifesto. The subtitle of the NUMU website is The Future of Music. I believe they are right on the money.
With Numu, students have an opportunity similar to blogs and websites like MySpace - they can create their own music and have a safe place (that’s also pretty hip) to showcase it. It will be interesting to see the direction Numu takes these students. It would be great to see a similar site here in the States.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

In addition to my position at the Franklin Avenue Middle School, this year I have taken a position as the jazz ensemble director at the Indian Hills High School in Oakland, NJ. We are playing a number of funk songs as well as some jazz standards, most of which my students have never heard of. In an effort to provide the students in the ensemble with listening examples of each tune, I created an iMix on iTunes for my students. It’s a great way to provide the students with free clips of the songs which they have the option of purchasing if they desire. Here’ how to do it:

Step One: Log on to iTunes.

Step Two: Create a playlist of all of the tunes you’d like to include in your iMix.

Step Three: If you own the track already, simply drag the track into the playlist. If you do not own the track, you can log on to the iTunes Music Store and drag the desired track into the playlist.

Step Four: Click on your playlist - you’ll see an arrow pointing to the right next to the name of your playlist. Click on the arrow. Then click create iMix. You’ll then need to log into your iTunes account.

Step Five: Name your iMix, create a description, and click publish. You’re finished!

Your students can access your iMix by logging on to the iTunes Music Store and searching the iMixes for your given title. My iMix this year is called simply: Indian Hills Jazz Ensemble. One important note - the only way that a song can be included in the playlist is if it is available through the iTunes Music Store. If iTunes doesn’t carry it, it cannot be included.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

MENC has an interesting section of their website called Creativity in the Classroom. This section features lesson plans targeted at copyright issues and how they effect creativity - everything from intellectual property rights to fair use. The lesson plans are broken into interdisciplinary subject areas including: English, History, Civics & Government, Economics, Technology, and the Arts. Each discipline has a series of lesson modules that address how copyright issues effect everyone from the creator to the owner of the content. They are interesting lessons in that they were funded and created to teach students specifically why downloading music without paying for it is a crime. Organizations such as ASCAP, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Schools Boards Association, the U.S. Register of Copyrights, and the American Bar Association supported the creation of the lessons, and they have had a strong influence on the lens that copyright law is presented through.

I have lectured at countless workshops and conferences about this topic with my presentation titled To Burn Or Not To Burn: It’s More Than An Ethical Question. The thrust of my discussion has always been what teachers can do to educate their students about copyright law and what the Recording Industry Association of America is doing to stop illegal downloading. As part of my lecture, I pressent the other side to the story and some of the amazing cases involving students, parents and the fines they incur when they are caught. Teachers need to realize that there is a strong argument being made by people like Lawrence Lessig, author of my favorite book on the topic of copyright law: Free Culture. His work with the organization Creative Commons is trying to create opportunities for students to work with copyright protected materials that does not violate copyright law. Teachers should not only use the lesson plans from the MENC website but should also consider Lessig’s arguments and give the students a broad view of the issue. I am a firm advocate against piracy, as is Lessig, but when teachers and students are worrying about violating the law when they use literary and musical works as inspiration in their classrooms - it’s a problem. I strongly recommend you read Free Culture for yourself. It is a powerful book. I also recommend MENC’s Copyright Guide, also on their site.
I welcome your comments and suggestions.

As I was driving home from Teachers College last night I happened to be listening to WNYC, which shifts from being an NPR station during the day to an all classical music station at night. Normally I switch to WBGO for the ride home - my favorite jazz station - but I was caught up in a performance by the Hanover Band and kept listening. After the piece was over I heard a commercial about a new feature of the Carnegie Hall website - a free bi-weekly podcast featuring interviews and music from a wide variety of performers.

There are six podcasts so far, including interviews with Steve Reich, Roswell Rudd, Daniel Barenboim, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The podcasts are very well put together and can easily be used in a classroom setting to give students an idea about what it is like to be a musician and insights into their creative processes. Users can subscribe to these free podcasts via iTunes so that every time there is a new podcast posted you can download it automatically. Have a listen and see what you think. I believe that many other arts organizations will follow Carnegie Halls lead - trying to connect Classical Music with the iPod Generation.

I welcome your comments and suggestions.