Teachers Love SMART Boards

SMARTBoards and Every Good Boy Does Fine

I'm guessing that if you're a music teacher, you understand the title of this blog post. I learned this mnemonic for remembering the line notes of the Treble Clef and it definitely brings back a lot of memories from my once-a-week music class with Sister Katherine Mary in the 7th grade. Let's F.A.C.E. it, music classes in the 70's tended to be a little boring.

I found an incredible resource that uses much more exciting and engaging ways to learn and understand music theory. The site is called, appropriately enough,  MusicTheory.net and it contains a vast amount of interactive music resources including interactive lessons, activities, and even calculators. These activities work great on the SMART Board.

The creator of MusicTheory.net, Ricci Adams, has also developed a newer version of the site that you may also want to take a look at since it will replace the current version sometime this Summer.

I like the look and feel of the current version a little better than the newer one; however, the new one has the ability to create custom exercises. It's really quite brilliant! Once you create an exercise, you can just save the web address for that exercise to your Bookmarks.

I want to encourage anyone reading this blog to forward this post to your school's music teacher (if you have any) or anyone else who may be interested in this incredible collection of music resources.

By the way, you are free to save and distribute the resources following the rules of the Creative Commons - Attribution 3.0 license. This is great since it would allow you to insert the flash activities directly into your Notebook files.

The creator of this site has even made an offline version of the resources available for download. 

Thank you Mr. Adams for all your hard work and for your willingness to share your resources with others. You really understand the concept of...

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SMARTBoards and Making Music with Kisstunes

Here's a really great tool for playing and recording music using your computer QWERTY keyboard, your mouse, or by touching your SMART Board. It's called Kisstunes.

It's incredibly simple to use and the really fun thing about this program is that you can record your songs and save them to your computer in the Kisstunes format. This allows you to load your recordings and play at anytime. You can also select from three different instruments: Grand Piano, Electric Guitar, or Acoustic Guitar.

There is also a new version of Kisstunes available that allows you to share your recordings with others and it also includes a few extra instruments.

This is really a fun little tool to add to your library of interactive music sites.

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SMART Boards and the Virtual Keyboard

Here's an great interactive keyboard application that was shared by one of my readers. It's a Virtual keyboard from the Birmingham Grid for Learning that can simulate nine different instruments (my favorite is definitely the electric guitar) and can even play back chords. It's a perfect companion for the SMART Board.

This application is so simple in design but so powerful in it's ability to help teach. Just a quick note for the music teachers, "the piano keyboard goes from ‘Middle C’ to ‘Upper F’ – one and a half octaves (18 different notes). The double bass is pitched lower but still tuned to ‘C’."

Thanks Alison for sharing this great resource!

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SMART Boards and Music to my Ears

Here's a fun collection of interactive websites related to Music that work great on your SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard. Please use the comment section to share your favorites.

Classics for Kids: Compose Your Own Music

PBS Kids: Thumb Piano Tunes

Pauly's Playhouse: Freaky Frank's Music Machine

Sphinx Kids: Classical Music Interactive Learning & Games

Classics for Kids: The Note Name Game

ArtsAlive: Activities and Games

Dallas Symphony Orchestra: DSO Kids Games

Please share these wonderful resources with the other teachers in your school.

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