Online Teaching Resources to use with Music Students
by Suzanne Solum
Use today as an Opportunity to take yourself and your music students into the future! That is what I have decided to with this present situation that we all face. Like other educators facing the Covid crisis in March 2020, all my piano students went to online lessons, which are continuing online for the fall semester. Going to all online piano lessons with my piano students started a search for more teaching resources. This spring, I started my search and my journey to become good at teaching online piano lessons and to find good online music resources to use with my students, now and for the future.
Online will be a part of the future of music education, even with in-studio lessons. I think we will see an explosion of online educational resources become available in the next few years because of experiencing the Covid crisis. In my search of the last few months, I found that there are many good online music resources available right now. Thank you to those who have created these resources and made them available to all of us! In this blog post, I have shared the online resources I found and that work for me. There are many others available. I am continuing my journey to educate myself, to become a better online music teacher, to inspire & equip all aspiring musicians to experience the joy of music in-studio and online…….
Create an Online Student Resource Center
Set it up to be a home music tutor for students to use during the week while having weekly online lessons using a LMS Learning Management System – Courseware
- Free – Google Classrooms – free to private Teachers, easy to learn – I created my online summer music camp in Google Classrooms that worked great!
- Purchase – LearnDash – I used LearnDash to create a Student Resource Center on my website
Create a Desktop Folder for Lessons
Your files will be easily accessible for screen sharing with students during online Zoom lessons
Get Good Tools for Online Lessons
- Classroom Maestro – extremely useful
- Better Practice App – engaging keyboard assignments for students that you create
- MusicEdCloud – online interactive games for rhythm, note reading, music terms, Music Around the Globe, etc.
- Quizlet – great for theory with many theory sets already available, including TMTA
- Entrada Piano Technique – a teacher account can assign up to 20 students videos/master classes to watch. Early Advanced students need their own account to access more difficult concepts/music.
- Canva – free for designing all kinds of certificates, backgrounds, documents, etc.
I made this certificate in Canva using a free template and inserting my own picture & layout, etc.
Get Good Music Apps
Choose carefully what will engage students, keep cost low/free, theory helps, etc.
- Piano Maestro App – students have free access under your teacher account
- SuperScore App – free app for iPad music reading
- MusicNotes App – free app for iPad music reading
- Super Metronome Groovebox App – Lite/free. Metronome + Rhythm Tracks
- RhythmLab App – $3.99 Rhythm Reading
- Tenuto App – $3.99. Theory Exercises & Tools
- TheoryLessons App – $2.99 and MusicTheory.net Teachers can customize lessons->Exercise Customizer
- Music Theory Pro App – $3.99 Music Theory to see & hear concepts
- Music Theory Professor – $.99. add-on to MusicTheoryPro for higher levels of theory
- MusiClock App – $8.99 great tool for all types of scales & improv with backing tracks
- GarageBand App – free and usually already on iPhone/iPads
- FlashnoteDerby App – $4.99 great note reading app for younger students
- RhythmCat App – Lite/free great rhythm reading app for younger students
- MostAddictingSheepGame App – $.99. the favorite app of all my students, any age! Steady Beat Keeper!
- ClassicalMusicMasters App – free, but can add more classical music for listening with in-app purchase
Get Good Online Theory
You can adapt these online theory programs to your choice of Apps
- Theory Make It Count – Texas Edition Levels 1 – 8 $30. Also, LeilaViss.com has great Blog articles and music resources to use in theory
- Music Theory App Map – Levels 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B. Keys To Imagination
- Primo Theory Books 1 – 12 – has online resources and many sets in Quizlet
Get Online Music
Digital music can be put onto iPads for playing or printed out for Music Binders. All music publishers have online music that can be purchased with the options of single use or studio licenses. A list of a few favorites:
- MusicNotes
- SuperScore in-App Store
- SheetMusic Plus
- David Hicken
- Piano Pronto
- ComposeCreate
- Leila Viss
- Bradley Sowash
Get Good Visual Lesson Aids
Music aids that are easily seen and heard over the internet. Some great websites for music items.
- Keys to Imagination
- Music in Motion
- Amazon – drumsticks for Bucket Drumming rhythms
Get Fun Music
There are many online resources for music to inspire, educate, & give students a vision for music fun!
- Cliburn for Kids – lots of interesting videos about music
- MPR Class Notes – engaging & educational videos about music
- Maestro Classics – great resource to have fun learning about composers & music
- PBS Passport “Now Hear This” Scott Yoo – the time & culture that influenced the great composers
- Bucket Drumming – YouTube bucket drumming, many helpful videos & some with music notation
- Get students composing their own music by screensharing, watching, & discussing interesting videos such as Composer Morricone’s “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly” music played by the Danish Symphony Orchestra
- For younger children screen share and watch MPR’s Class Notes video on Dvorak in the New World