Ensembles Catalog

A Brief History of Mariachi Music | Featured Blog

This article explains a brief history of this beloved musical genre, introduces the instrumentation that gives mariachi music its distinctive sound, and explores the characteristics of a typical Mexican mariachi band.

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ALFRED MUSIC

Alfred Music is a music publishing company that supports music education by providing quality method books, performance sheet music, and reference materials for teachers, students, and professionals, spanning every musical instrument, style, and difficulty level. Check out their Music Blog revolving around all kinds of topics and tips for teachers.

BANDLAB FOR EDUCATION

BandLab for Education is a free, easy-to-use cloud-based platform where teachers and students can collaborate to assign and fulfill coursework in an online classroom space. The platform features an online music studio and virtual instruments to help students create their own music.

BOSTON MUSIC PROJECT

Boston Music Project is a creative youth development program committed to ensuring the long-term social and musical success of students. The program is inspired by El Sistema, the Venezuelan initiative that uses music education as a vehicle for social change.

Boston Music Project has made available their orchestra portals which contain a collection of music apps, video tutorials on tuning, instrument care, and music techniques. The portals also contain literacy worksheets and learning objectives for string students.

CARNEGIE HALL

Carnegie Hall produces educational programs like Musical Explorers and Link Up that include lesson plans, professional development and full concert videos for teachers and K-5 students that focus on music from around the world and introducing young people to the symphony orchestra.

COLLABRA

Collabra is a video-based, remote learning and practice management platform for K-16 music and performing arts education. The platform helps teachers manage students and motivate practice by adding increased engagement, accountability, and feedback. Collabra’s asynchronous video platform enables efficient split-screen scaling of lessons, adds accountability and affirmation to the process of practice, and empowers timed-assessments, blind auditions, and district-wide remote collaborations.​

CONN-SELMER

Conn-Selmer’s Division of Education has a specialized team of Educational Support Managers (ESMs) committed to providing personalized solutions and practical educational knowledge to help organizations and schools sustain and grow their instrumental music programs. See their Educational Support Resources for articles and a library of teaching and learning videos.

DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA – DSO KIDS

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra offers a free collection of musical lessons, games, and activities that engage students in the magical world of the orchestra – instruments, conductors, composers, and more! Resources are adaptable for the classroom, virtual learning, or family time.

EDPUZZLE

An easy-to-use platform where a teacher can make any video a lesson.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS INTERACTIVE

Published by Hal Leonard, Essential Elements instrumental method books are supplemented by interactive, online content that is free and easy to use for Essential Elements band, jazz and orchestra students.

Essential Elements Interactive (EEi) offers an easy set of technology tools for online learning, teaching, assessment, and communication, ideal for teaching today’s band and string students. The EEi Music Studio features demonstrations, multiple accompaniment styles, video and audio recording, practice tools, and more to make learning a new instrument fun and engaging for your students.

FLAT

Use this cloud-based software on any device to create and access your musical compositions or music education activities.

FLIP

Flipgrid is now FLIP! Flip is a video discussion app, free from Microsoft, where curious minds connect in safe, small groups to share videos, build community, and learn together. Flip is a place where learning happens anywhere, anytime, through video discussions. Families, friends, teachers, students, classrooms, and creators of all kinds are using Flip to learn, connect, and explore.

FORTE

Forte is the first online platform built specifically for live, online music lessons. It is currently being used by institutions such as Curtis Institute, The Royal College of Music, Aspen Music Festival and School, and Berklee College of Music. Forte is completely free to use. To create your Forte studio, go to fortelessons.com and click “Start Teaching Today” or go straight to their registration page.

INSTITUTE FOR COMPOSER DIVERSITY

The Institute for Composer Diversity, housed at the State University of New York at Fredonia, is dedicated to the celebration, education, and advocacy of music created by composers from historically underrepresented groups through online tools, research-based resources, and sponsored initiatives. You can search the database by composer name, living or deceased, specifically for women or non-binary composers, common large and small ensemble genres, racial, ethnic, or cultural demographics, and by location (city, state, and country).

JAZZ ACADEMY

The Jazz Academy is the home of the educational initiatives of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Jazz at Lincoln Center’s (JALC) jazz education programs drive the organization’s efforts to advance the appreciation, understanding, and performance of jazz. Check out classes, the video library, and more!

KHS AMERICA ACADEMIC ALLIANCE

KHS America is dedicated to the enrichment of lives through music performance and education by providing high-quality musical instruments and services designed to support musicians, educators, and our retail partners. Learn more about their artists, membership opportunities, and check out their multitude of free resources.

MAKEMUSIC, INC.

MakeMusic, Inc. is an online platform that enhances music practice and provides user-friendly assessments for student musicians. The site brings together all the tools needed to teach, practice, perform, explore, and create music with MakeMusic Cloud (SmartMusic), and products like Finale and Garritan.

MAKING MUSIC FUN

Fun and affordable sheet music, worksheets, and lessons kids love and teachers trust. A wide variety of music and lessons are available for all kinds of instruments and voices, for all ages.

MEET THE INSTRUMENTS

Meet the Instruments of the Orchestra! This incredible, award-winning, music education series combines the popular Nirks® puppets with professional musicians from Portland Columbia Symphony to introduce young listeners to the instruments of the orchestra. Meet the Instruments is FREE to watch on: theNirks.com, Youtube.com/InAWorldMusicKids, and Kidoodle.TV. Each episode includes entertaining stories, cool duets, musical demos, and in the final episode you’ll hear a stunning orchestral piece with the Nirks and Portland Columbia Symphony playing together! Meet the Instruments is a fun and educational introduction to musical instruments, and a wonderful way to get kids excited about playing music!

MIDNIGHT MUSIC

Midnight Music is a friendly and easy-to-use professional development website that helps music teachers use technology to foster creativity, increase productivity and enhance learning outcomes. Check out the tips and tricks for teaching instrumental and choral ensembles online through distance learning or virtual lessons.

MUSIC SERVICE LEARNING

F-flat Books teamed up with Marci Major from West Chester University to pair people and organizations with musical need to graduate and undergraduate music education students would could benefit from a service-learning opportunity. They created MSL as a FREE resource curation platform that’s open to all people needing help through and with music including teachers, community program directors, parents, public service employees, etc.

MUSIC TO YOUR HOME

Music To Your Home is a “one-stop-shop” of highly trained, professional music instructors in NYC and the surrounding areas. They provide both online and in-home lessons, in addition to a plethora of musical resources for students interested in piano, voice, guitar, drums, and more. Musical couple Vincent and Tracy Reina started this venture together in 2003, relying on their extensive musical background and knowledge. They’ve continued to develop the innovative concept that top-quality music teachers and music education should be accessible to all students, all in one place. With Music To Your Home, you can be sure to find the best instruction to develop your skills and cultivate your music education.

MUSIC WILL

Music Will (formerly Little Kids Rock) is a nonprofit music program serving schools across the country. Resources available include teacher courses at Music Will Academy and music lessons for students with videos and songs – learn a song, take a lesson, and practice!

MUSIC WORKSHOP

Music Workshop creates and delivers a free of charge, inspirational K-8 online music education program that any school can access and teach regardless of their means, location or musical expertise.

MUSICFIRST

MusicFirst was founded with one mission: to offer music teachers and their students easy-to-use, affordable, cloud-based solutions that enable music learning, creation, assessment, sharing, and exploration on any device, at any time, anywhere. To access cloud-based software, all you need is a web browser. This affords teachers and students to utilize state-of-the-art software tools on any computer at any time.

MUSICIAN’S TOOLKIT

Professional video music courses taught by industry professionals, from cello playing posture to advanced guitar technique.

MUSICPROFESSOR

MusicProfessor is an online library that contains bite-sized applied lessons in tone and technique presented by world-class instructors. Whether teaching beginners or more advanced high school students, MusicProfessor can support students’ learning objectives in a fun and accessible environment. MusicProfessor also allows teachers to easily provide differentiated instruction so that students can work at their own pace. Setting students up with MusicProfessor gives them the tools to learn instrument-specific techniques outside of the classroom so teachers may focus on rehearsal and repertoire.

MUSICTHEORY.NET

Fundamental music lessons, exercises, and tools you can use and share for free. Good for teaching and practicing beginning to intermediate knowledge and skills, especially when learning from home.

NOTEFLIGHT LEARN

Noteflight Learn is an application that seamlessly combines music composition and performance assessment while directly integrating with your own learning management system. With Noteflight Learn, you can organize classes and easily create assignments with your students.

You can also use SoundCheck™ performance assessment and all six content libraries of the most popular repertoire for Band, Choir, Orchestra, Piano, Guitar, and Pop! Plus, access Essential Elements Band and String Method Exercises.

Try a free 60-day demo!

NOTYSING

Notysing is an app helping students learn the basics of reading music in a fun, musical way: by singing. A digital song coach, Noty, gives students feedback on what they do, on their level, all the way through, allowing everyone to be able to follow its lead, starting with imitating just a few single notes in interactive lessons. Music teachers can use Notysing with students and track progress. Each has their own development path; teachers can give relevant feedback and get a basis for assessment.

Tested with more than 200 middle and high school music students and teachers. Developed by Doremir Music Research, developers of ScoreCloud, the app for instant notation, together with the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. Available for PCs, Chromebooks and Macs and for Apple and Android tablets and smartphones in the App Store and Google Play.

NYSSMA BEST PRACTICES

New York State School Music Association has created an easy-to-navigate website after reviewing and collecting a database of lesson activities and resources that have been tested and vetted with the goal of supporting K-12 decision makers and music educators. The information has been compiled using current, developed practices of music educators. This resource list is ever growing and should be considered a fluid resource. Educators may also submit their own lesson activities and resources to be included in the collection.

Find lessons and activities for elementary, middle, and high school in all kinds of musical subjects as well as resources for technology and social emotional learning.

OPUSYOU

Immerse your students in 360-degree curriculum through broadcast of musical works, structured lesson plans, and interactive online courses. Designed to meet the ever-increasing and changing demands of 21st-century music education, OpusYou believes it will change the way that you teach music, offering you a degree of flexibility that is backed up with extensive lesson suggestions and a diverse and active community support facility.

PLAYSCORE 2 – The App That Sight Reads Sheet Music

PlayScore 2 plays back any printed music, straight from a photo/PDF score – with full part separation. You can also export music from IMSLP into the app. Snap or download your score into PlayScore 2 for instant playback, hear the music as PlayScore 2 follows measure by measure, tap anywhere to adjust tempo and volume, create loops, share the playing score with others for free (no subscription needed), and more! Get started!

PLAYTUNES

The PlayTunes App is a tool for beginning band students that measures the quality of their practice time. It gives the student musician personalized performance feedback in smart videos with 150 practice sessions all laid out. Guided practice has effects on students to become more advanced musicians.

Watch a demo of the PlayTunes: Concert Band App!

PRACTICING MUSICIAN

PRESERVATION HALL LESSONS

This free online resource for teachers is a collection of lesson plans developed by Preservation Hall musicians for all grade levels aligned with national arts and common core standards. Lessons are designed for all K-12 teachers or educational professionals that want to foster the culture and history of New Orleans music genres. The lessons can be integrated into general content areas like Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, and Science, or beginning to advanced Music Education studies.

Preservation Hall is a historic music venue in the French Quarter working to protect, preserve and perpetuate the spirit of traditional New Orleans jazz.

QUARANTUNES

QuaranTunes connects hundreds of teen musicians with children across the globe to provide free music lessons in over 20 instruments including piano, guitar, voice, violin, flute, and many more, as well as on topics such as songwriting and music production. All teachers are high school or college aged and highly experienced and devoted musicians. QuaranTunes believes there’s no better way to learn music from a fun teacher (for free!) from the comfort of your own house, so sign up for your first lesson now.

REVERB

Reverb is a leading online marketplace for buying and selling new, used, and vintage musical instruments. Check out their online guide of Tips and How-To’s for all kinds of musicians.

Reverb’s Lesson Extravaganza– Videos by professional musicians teaching guitar, keyboard, drums, and audio recording.

THE SHED

Free audio, video, and PDF class resources in music technology, guitar method, band method, and music theory for all grades.

SOLFEG.IO

An app for teachers and musicians of all ages that makes it easy to practice and understand how music works by playing well known songs together in school and at home.

SOUND INNOVATIONS ONLINE

Published by Alfred Music, Sound Innovations instrumental method books are enriched by free and exclusive supplemental online content, providing differentiated instruction and assessment to meet the unique needs within your band and orchestra classroom. Teachers and students who use Sound Innovations book have access to this online content supplemental resources!

TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS

Resource marketplace of classroom worksheets, posters, and lessons for grades K-12.

TONESTRO

With over 6 million registered users, tonestro is one of the world’s leading and most popular learning apps for wind and string instruments. tonestro is designed to be integrated as a supplementary learning method in traditional music education. The platform merges conventional teaching methods with digital technologies, creating a synergistic learning environment that is more efficient and engaging for both students and teachers. Contact tonestro, if interested in their institutional partner program.

TOTAL CHOIR RESOURCES

Total Choir Resources is the online home for choral leaders, helping people all over the world start, grow and inspire successful, happy choirs. Explore blogs, podcasts, and resources targeted to enhance choral music programs.

uTHEORY

Clefs, scales, keys, intervals, chords, ear training & rhythm made easy through video tutorials & interactive exercises. Use the free set of lessons and exercises for a students learning at home.

WURRLYEDU

Teaching platform with creation tools for student learning, including standards-aligned lesson plans for K-12, an extensive popular music catalogue for schools, a personal recording studio, and a suite of mobile music games.

Get started with a free 30-day trial to WURRLYedu today!

YOUSICIAN

Learn how to play the guitar, bass, ukulele, piano and voice on this interactive and engaging online platform.

YOUSICPLAY

YousicPlay is transforming the way music is learned. YousicPlay combines the best of pre-recorded celebrity music instruction and real-time AI performance feedback. The app delivers a personalized roadmap of instruction designed around individual goals. YousicPlay’s courses are currently designed primarily for intermediate to advanced music learners.