Instrumental Music

This magazine for teenage students incorporates popular music and classical music and also includes a podcast. Each edition contains a listening list, guitar chords for a song, articles about a modern artist and more. There is also a teacher edition that explores these topics in more detail.

Price: Free During COVID-19

Link: In Tune Monthly

The NAMM Foundation provides resource lists, blog articles, virtual events, webinars, and more for both parents and educators. NAMM is a nonprofit organization with a goal of promoting music education for students of all levels and abilities. The website provides help on distance learning from ways to create virtual ensembles to helpful classroom tips.

Price: Always Free

Link: NAMM Foundation

“Jazz Lesson Videos” is an instagram page run by Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, a saxophone professor from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His page is centered around jazz improvisation. Chad provides video demonstrations of techniques, scales, licks, and exercises for students to practice. He includes links to websites, videos, and practice books for students to review, purchase, or practice.

Price: Always Free

Link: Jazz Lesson Videos by Chad Lefkowitz-Brown

This website is ideal for orchestra directors in need of lesson plans and ideas. This site provides podcasts, blogs, video lesson plans, and worksheets in a wide range of subject areas. Through this resource, teachers are able to find guidance on distance learning activities. The subject matter ranges from practice videos to specific musical concepts. This site is always free to the public.

Price: Always Free

Link: OrchestraTeacher.net

Noteflight Learn is an extension of Noteflight Premium where students can create scores as well as play/sing along to a library of digital scores for Choir, Band, Orchestra, Guitar, Piano, and Pop ensembles. Students can record themselves and embed their recordings into the scores through midi. Students can share their recordings with their teacher and other students through a Noteflight Learn personal website. Additionally, this program offers lessons for students.

Price: $69 per 10 students (minimum)

Link: Noteflight Learn

This video offers a sample elementary-level french horn masterclass. If you want a customized masterclass series for your band students, fill out the request form on this site. As always, MSL helpers are available to fill any need or vision you have for elementary through secondary videos on all instruments.

Price: Free Always

Link: Music Service Learning Sample Masterclass Video 

The Shed is a website with online music classes that contain free audio, video, and PDF resources. Classes are provided in music technology, guitar, band and music theory. The site also has PDF worksheets, lead sheets, quizzes, and videos covering subject including harmony, melody, rhythm, and jazz.

Price: Free during COVID-19

Link: The Shed

Smithsonian Music provides general music teachers an online museum of World Music. Teachers can browse lesson plans, playlists, albums, and more by genre, geography, or artist. They also provide podcasts and playlists online for free. There are also free lesson plans about world music for every grade level with four different levels from k-12, and free interactive games for students. Subscribe to a Smithsonian Folkways Membership and get a discount on Smithsonian merchandise and free downloads each year.

Price: Free with upgrades available

Link: Smithsonian Music 

Sound Innovations Online by Alfred Music provides an online platform for instrumental students of all ages to access practice resources.  SI lesson books are the virtual companion. Within SI Online, there are play-along tracks, masterclasses, supplemental pages, and extra repertoire for students so they can engage with their practicing at home in different ways. Students can access SI Online by entering a product code from their physical book. This site can be accessed via computer, tablet, and mobile device.

Price: Free through Smart Music during COVID-19

Link: Sound Innovations Online

This facebook group provides a space for higher education studio teachers to share work. Teachers discuss strategies, successes, failures, platforms, lesson plans, etc. It is open to all high ed studio teachers.

Price: Free Always

Link: Higher Ed Music Lessons Facebook Group

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz Academy YouTube posts jazz lessons and videos on developing a practice routine. These are led by members of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. In addition, the JALC YouTube posts full concerts performed by the ensemble.

Price: Always Free

Link: JALC Jazz Academy on YouTube

Elementary and middle school instrumental teachers can use this guide from NAMM to learn about recruitment. This focuses on instrumental music programs while going into great detail about how to communicate with parents and how to bolster retention rates in programs. Additional materials such as interest questionnaires, grading sheets, and exit surveys are included.

Price: Always Free

Link: A Practical Guide for Recruitment and Retention

These videos are great for beginning players. They do a great job at covering all bases, from how to take your instrument out of the case and assembling, to how to make a good sound, and working on different articulations. The videos express each topic in words and by demonstrating. They move at a great pace for students to follow along and play.

Price: Always Free

Link: FJH Music Playlist

These videos are perfect for all wind instrument players to learn how to clean their instruments at home. They do a great job of explaining the cleaning and maintenance of most wind instruments in a short, but meaningful way. They ensure the instruments won’t get damaged in the process by also stating what to avoid at each step of the cleaning process.

Price: Always Free

Link: YouTube Playlist

“The Shed” Rudiments videos are perfect for percussionists with some experience with rudiments at the elementary or secondary level. They do a great job at efficiently explaining and breaking down each rudiment. They also ensure they start with good technique from the beginning. It starts slow and speeds up throughout the video. This YouTube playlist is perfect for learning new rudiments or reviewing previously taught rudiments.

Free

Link: The Shed – Rudiments

Little Kids Rock is a great organization that promotes the inclusion of modern band in the music classroom. Their YouTube channel provides free video lessons on drums, guitar, bass, keyboard and ukulele. There are also some inspiring performance videos and professional development videos for classroom music teachers. The lessons are pop music based and would be helpful for students of any age to practice, learn, and review at home. Navigate through the playlists tab to find the material you need.

Free

Link: Little Kids Rock Channel

Good for listening assignments or daily inspiration, the US Army Field Band offers free live concerts over their YouTube channel at 1 PM ET every day. Performers include the Concert Band, Soldiers’ Chorus, Jazz Ambassadors, and Six-String Soldiers. The channel also contains several videos on the history and fundamentals of various instruments performed by members of the military band. The channel also includes a playlist on instrument repair.

Free

Link: US Army Field Band YouTube Channel

This is an ideal resource for string players looking to take or give online lessons. This program allows you to schedule and participate in lessons online or use professional tools for in-person lessons, as well as capture notes and record assignments. You may also record and revisit all lessons at any time.

Price: Free during COVID-19 (normally $12/month for students and $45/month for institutions)

Link: String Masters

This video tutorial is perfect for secondary students to work on their intonation and air usage. Students will need a device to play the YouTube video, their major instrument, and a device to use as a drone. The video is only 8 minutes long, but students can practice something like this for an extended period of time, or add it to their daily warm-up routine. Intonation drills are something that build upon many different focus areas, especially for brass players!

Price: Free always

Link: Target Note Intonation Drill

This is an ideal resource for keyboard or piano teachers looking for online learning resources. This app is designed for building successful sight-reading skills on piano, including different exercises to build skills without the presence of a teacher. The provided lessons and supplemental books work on memory, speed, accuracy, tempo, and continuity.

Price: Free always (Four supplemental books for $14.99 each)

Link: Read Ahead App

Vic Firth’s rudiment page provides the fundamentals for percussionists of all levels. This resource includes information on standard rudiments, playing techniques, video lessons, drum set play along tracks, and more.

Free

Link: Vic Firth Website

This interactive orchestra website allows students to explore the different sections of the ensemble. Students can click through each section to read about the instrument families and complete fill-in-the-blank activities.

Price: Always Free

Link: Interactive Orchestra

WCSD provides an excellent daily guide for distance learning. Students will navigate the chart to select resources from categories such as music theory, performance, maintenance, and just for fun. The columns are sorted by category, with links directly labeled for ease of access. Teachers can adapt the categories and reflections to align with their class needs. The document also provides a chart for daily student reflections.

Price: Always Free

For access to the Google Doc (make a COPY for yourself to edit), click here.

Quadio Media is an Instagram account where college musicians can post/ upload their own songs, arrangements, etc. One simply needs a college email address to upload and post songs/arrangements. This is a wonderful place for college musicians to connect with one another!

Price: Always Free

Link: Quadio Media

This resource is ideal for elementary and secondary instrumental teachers but would require some modification for use in online/distance instruction. One can use this board game-like spinner to randomly select an option to play a passage a certain way (staccato, quietly, loudly, and more). There is lots of room to modify this for different musical selections and instructional situations.

Price: Always Free

Link: Wheel Decide | The Playing Challenge

This resource is suitable for students in performing classes such as chorus, band, or orchestra but can be expanded to a general music class.This project is in the form of a Google Slideshow. It begins with a description of the project for the director followed by a presentation for the students. In this project, students are writing program notes for a piece. This project also works very well as a cross-curricular exercise, as students are practicing writing skills while interacting with the music. This can be downloaded as a PDF or Google Slideshow. Author: Danielle Larrick

Price: Free during COVID-19

Link: Click here to access this resource on the F-flat website!

In this easily adaptable activity for all music classes, students make choir memes. This activity works nicely as enrichment and/or extra credit. Students can easily collaborate in Google Classroom and make memes via Google Slides. This activity encourages student creativity and new ways of relating to material covered in choir rehearsal all in a lighthearted way.

Price: Free Always

Link: Choir Meme War

This resource is ideal for elementary and secondary instrumental teachers but would require some modification for use in online/distance instruction. One can use this board game-like spinner to randomly select an option to play a passage a certain way (staccato, quietly, loudly, and more). There is lots of room to modify this for different musical selections and instructional situations.

Price: Always Free

Link: Wheel Decide | The Playing Challenge

This introduction to composition is perfect for theory classes, online band and orchestra, and secondary general music! Clear directions on how to compose a basic melody for different instruments are provided. Students need access to notation software and the knowledge to create at least 2 levels of harmony to complete this assignment. This is already formatted for an online class setting. A grading rubric is provided, and teachers would be able to modify this flexible lesson for inclusion in a larger unit. Author: Sarah Gulish

Cost: FREE during COVID-19

Link: COMP-1_-Melody-Recall

Click here to access a google drive file. You must “Make a Copy” first and then you can edit. 

This is an ideal resource for keyboard or piano teachers looking for online learning resources. Students can use this to build successful sight-reading skills on piano without the presence of a teacher. Lessons and books work on memory, speed, accuracy, tempo, and continuity.

Price: Free always (Four supplemental books for $14.99 each)

Link: Read Ahead App

This video tutorial is perfect for secondary students to work on their intonation and air usage. Students will need a device to play the YouTube video, their major instrument, and a device to use as a drone. The video is only 8 minutes long, but students can practice something like this for an extended period of time, or add it to their daily warm-up routine. Intonation drills are something that build upon many different focus areas, especially for brass players!

Price: Free always

Link: Target Note Intonation Drill

F-flat author, Meghan Cabral, has offered a ton of flipped classroom materials for band directors looking to engage their students in remote learning. This bundle of materials includes PDF assignments with links to pre-created YouTube videos and TED talks that engage students in active listening and active music making. This is great for elementary and secondary instrumental classrooms.

Price: Free during COVID-19

Click on any of the links below to access the accompanying PDF:

Whole-vs.-Half-Steps

Major-Scales-creation

Enharmonic-Lesson

Flipped-Learning-Resources

TED-talks-sub-plans-a-different-way-to-visualize

ted-talk-on-music-as-a-language

ted-talk-on-how-playing-instrument-benefits-brain

ted-talk-on-earworms

constructive-constraints-TED-ed-sub-plan

This website is a PowerPoint explaining how to use SmartMusic for students. This PowerPoint gives a visual on how to sign up for the program itself. The website is very helpful in showing a step-by-step process with arrows and clear directions.

Price: Free during COVID-19

Link: How to Sign Up for Smart Music (for students)

This is a Zoom tutorial that shows how to change the audio settings to preserve the sound. Having access to the Zoom software is required, but this tutorial is a free resource. Overall, it’s perfect for instrumentalists, vocalists, and any music teachers who use Zoom and wish to avoid audio modification that occurs automatically and may distort the music. The how-to video is easy to follow and user-friendly.

Price: Always Free

This video explains how to create chamber music through the free app, Acapella. Through this app, individuals can all perform their part of a song and can layer it with others to produce the piece as it would sound if they were playing together. Perfect for vocalists and instrumentalists who want to perform chamber music with others, but cannot due to distance. The video tutorial is always free, the Acapella app is free with upgrades available.

Price: Always Free

This resource is best suited for secondary instrumental, but it is easily adaptable for a variety of ages & experience levels. Students complete a variety of music-related social media tasks on the bingo sheet including performing, listening to music, composing, and more. The resource requires students to have a few of the following free social media accounts (Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, Spotify, email, Noteflight). This resource can be downloaded as a Google Drive file and edited to suit your needs. Author: Sarah Gulish

Price: Free Always

Link: Music-Ensembles-Social-Media-BINGO

Click on this link to access a Google doc that you can copy and edit!

Students who may be practicing on their own for the first time can utilize this Google Doc, which gives tips and techniques on how to practice effectively. The tips include having supplies nearby, starting with a warm-up, have a goal, etc. This list can also serve to help those who are already advanced to improve their practice sessions. The Doc is open to edit and be added to.

Price: Free always

Link: Strategies for Effective Practice Time

This is an ideal resource for keyboard or piano teachers looking for online learning resources. This app is designed for building successful sight-reading skills on piano, including different exercises to build skills without the presence of a teacher. The provided lessons and supplemental books work on memory, speed, accuracy, tempo, and continuity.

Price: Free always (Four supplemental books for $14.99 each)

Link: Read Ahead App

This video tutorial is perfect for secondary students to work on their intonation and air usage. Students will need a device to play the YouTube video, their major instrument, and a device to use as a drone. The video is only 8 minutes long, but students can practice something like this for an extended period of time, or add it to their daily warm-up routine. Intonation drills are great for any level of brass player!

Price: Free always

Link: Target Note Intonation Drill

This is an ideal resource for string players looking to take or give online lessons. This program allows you to schedule and participate in lessons online or use professional tools for in-person lessons, as well as capture notes and record assignments. You may also record and revisit all lessons at any time.

Price: Free during COVID-19 (normally $12/month for students and $45/month for institutions)

Link: String Masters

This resource is ideal for students who need to keep track of their practice. The document has columns that allow the students to write down what they practice and how long. The document also has a column that allows an open-ended response asking the specifics of what they practiced. The student can also write down any questions they have. The educator can elect to include in a link to have their students submit their practice sessions.

Price: Always Free

Link: Practice Log

Be sure to make a COPY before editing this Google Doc.

In this unit lesson, advanced music students demonstrate their knowledge of the Baroque period by performing a song. Teachers can assess both the performers and audience members (classmates) on their behavior and character as if they were living in the Baroque Era. The plan provides strategies for both assessment and differentiation. Teachers can easily adapt this lesson for online instruction.

Price: Free always

Link: If It’s Not Baroque, Don’t Fix It

Ideal for students who may be practicing on their own for the first time, this Google Doc gives tips and techniques on how to practice effectively. Tips include having supplies nearby, starting with a warm-up, have a goal, etc. This list can also serve to help those who are already advanced to improve their practice sessions. The Doc is open to edit and be added to.

Price: Free always

Link: Strategies for Effective Practice Time