Per some requests on my last post, I have decided to talk about the online resources I use for my lessons. The Internet is a wonderful way to make life more simple for the modern music teacher. I especially love iTunes, musicnotes.com, and OF COURSE: Music Teacher’s Helper! You already knowhow to use MTH. I’ll tell you what to do with the other 2.
iTunes Store
The iTunes Store is a magic land of karaoke tracks for voice students. Does your student want to sing a showtune? iTunes has it. “Lovesong” by Sarah Bareilles? Well as a matter of fact they have both the acoustic AND full band karaoke tracks. I even found a beautiful arrangement of the 24 Italian songs that so many voice students learn to sing. Instead of just a piano, they can now sing along to classical guitars and cellos! (The arranger’s name is John Davies…just type it into the search.) If you don’t have a mac, you will have to go to the iTunes Store.
Most songs are only 99 cents, and I recommend using MTH to charge the student 99 cents plus $1 for the CDR you will put it on for your student. Just use the “Charge a fee” option in your MTH account and charge it to your student. This saves your student the headache of finding the song herself, and you know exactly what song she or he will be singing along too.If you do not teach voice students, these tracks are also fun for instrumentalists to play along with. Try finding a rock song for your guitarists to play along with. They could play the lead vocal line while the karaoke track plays. I imagine it could be beautiful with a violin, flute, trumpet, etc. I would love to hear any feedback from anyone who has tried this!
Musicnotes.com
Musicnotes.com is an online sheet music supply site. You can buy and print sheet music right off of your computer. I love this site. I use it as much as possible because I can save on shipping, and I get the sheet music immediately. They stay quite current with the pop hits, and they have an extensive collection of Jazz and Classical music as well. You will have to download and install some free software in order to view the sheet music, but it doesn’t seem to be too different from installing Flash in order to view many websites. Once again, I recommend using MTH to charge the student for whatever the sheet music costs.
Any other online music teacher resources out there that we could all benefit from? I am always looking for them and I’m sure many readers here are too, so send them over this way!
I also wanted to point out that sheetmusicplus.com has an incentive service for music teachers. You can e-mail your student book or CD recommendations, and if your student purchases the book from your recommendation, they give you 10%. Once you hit $20, you can chose to get cash back, or a gift card. This is much more cost effective than lending your music books (which will get lost) or paying to make copies (if that is something you do for your students)... and it really adds up!
by Sarah Luebke — Sun Jun 8, 2008 @ 7:26 pm