Podcasts

Aileen’s Music Room features The Music Room podcast and blogs that focus primarily on elementary classroom music. These tools are helpful for elementary music lesson planning and contain ideas and resources for online learning. The Aileen’s Music Room website also features a plethora of K-5 general music lesson plans in a variety of formats.

Price: Free and paid resources

Link: Aileen’s Music Room

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: Paid subscription

Link: In Tune Monthly

Choir Baton is an Instagram page that promotes choral music education, and general musicianship tips. Featuring podcast episodes, warm-up ideas, and other teaching resources, Choir Baton is a one-stop-shop for all things choir.

Price: Free

Link: Choir Baton

This website is ideal for orchestra directors in need of lesson plans and ideas. It features podcasts, blogs, video lesson plans, and worksheets in a wide range of subject areas. Subject matter ranges from practice videos to specific musical concepts, and is great for all things string!

Price: Free

Link: OrchestraTeacher.net

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 free podcasts, playlists, games, and lesson plans about world music for K-12 with four different levels.

Price: Free

Link: Smithsonian Music 

This an incredibly comprehensive website in music for students grades K-5. Having won many awards, the contents of this site include lesson plans for teachers, games for kids, guides for parents, and book reviews among many other resources. All lesson plans link National Standards and use a variety of teaching methodologies including Orff, Dalcroze and Kodaly.  The website also provides links to their podcast and radio broadcasts.

From the website:

“90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati’s classical music radio station, created Classics for Kids® as an entertaining, informative introduction to classical music for elementary school children. The six-minute radio program, also available as a podcast, explains classical music, composers, and terminology in easy-to-understand language that’s designed to appeal to audiences of all ages. The interactive multimedia website classicsforkids.com is a fun, engaging tool for teachers, parents, and kids. It’s full of information about music, including composer biographies, a dictionary of terms, guides to instruments from around the world, games, archives of all the Classics for Kids® podcasts, and much, much more.

The website also provides free, user-friendly materials to integrate music education into the curriculum. In addition to lesson plans, there are pages to explore rhythm, history, composition, and other aspects of music. All of that makes classicsforkids.com a valuable resource for classroom teachers and homeschoolers.”

Price: Free

Link: Classics for Kids

These podcasts are designed for classroom choir directors as well as composers. Chris Munce is a composer and private voice teacher with choral classroom experience and shares his  thoughts about the world of choir, keeping quality of music education at the forefront of his discussions. A recent episode addresses COVID-19 and serves as encouragement for everyone quickly adapting to distance learning. Links to access PDF site licenses of arrangements and compositions are also included.

Price: Always Free

Link: Choralosophy Podcast

Talking Up Music Education is perfect for all music educators as well as for interested secondary students. Each podcast features a guest; Vanessa Carlton speaks about being a singer-songwriter, and Eric Whitacre speaks on being a composer. The host, Executive Director of The NAMM Foundation, Mary Luehrsen, speaks with music advocates, parents, teachers, students, and leaders in business and communities to share what they are doing to support the arts.

Price: Always Free

Link: Talking Up Music Education Podcast

This podcast is great for Elementary Music Teachers looking for advice and wisdom. Seasoned music educator, Jessica Peresta, shares experience from years of teaching and mentoring music teachers. Topics such as burnout, planning, teaching at a new school, and teaching during COVID-19 are all covered. You will love Jessica’s down-to-earth style and conversational feel.

Price: Free Always

Link: The Elementary Music Teachers Podcast