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2024 Show Best Tools for Schools!
Gillian Desmarais | April 8, 2024This year’s NAMM Show hosted over 62,000 attendees, welcoming 16,000 more visitors than last year. Alongside the rise of attendees came an increased presence in small businesses. Two steps in the showroom, and you’d see dozens more small booths filling up the empty spaces left over from nine months ago. The sound was immense too, […] Read More... -
Five Reasons Why You Should Use Practice First with Your Ensembles
SBO Staff | March 30, 2024PracticeFirst, powered by the amazing assessment algorithm created by MatchMySound, is a music learning application that gives teachers and students the tools they need to improve their performance skills. It is perfect for ANY performance ensemble: band, chorus, orchestra, modern band, jazz ensemble, Mariachi band, and more. PracticeFirst uses AI to provide immediate and intuitive […] Read More... -
Is Carbon Fiber the Solution for Class Ukulele and Guitar?
Richard McCready | March 30, 2024Many schools in the US offer music instruction in class ukulele and class guitar. Fretted string instruments allow students to start playing songs quite quickly after learning two or three chords. Children begin a journey of musical discovery together playing simple songs, and many continue to play ukulele and/or guitar their whole lives. When teachers […] Read More... -
You’ll Not See Nothing Like The Mighty JamStik MIDI Guitar for the Classroom
Richard McCready | March 30, 2024It’s safe to say the invention of MIDI changed the way we perform music. By sending signals down a cable connecting two instruments, you can use one instrument to produce sounds on the other. As the first MIDI instruments were keyboards, this meant a keyboardist on stage could use the keys on his digital piano, […] Read More... -
Level Up! Intermediate Techniques for Soundtrap, Bandlab, and GarageBand Creation
Gillian Desmarais | March 30, 2024As beginner digital audio workstations (DAWs) start to mimic the look and feel of professional DAWs, and it’s both exciting and daunting to dive into all the new features. Thanks to the influence of viral social media, kids are highly motivated to produce professional mixes. Assuming your students have a basic knowledge of how to […] Read More... -
Flat for Education: The Classroom Assistant That Never Sleeps
SBO Staff | March 30, 2024With digital tools now a central part of the classroom experience, teachers want to make sure those tools are truly helping them rather than creating additional hassles. That’s why Flat for Education has been built as an intelligent, customizable assistant that can improve the music learning and teaching experience both inside and outside of the […] Read More... -
Sweetwater’s First Year in B&O
Mike Lawson | February 19, 2024It has been a little over a year since Sweetwater launched their band and orchestra (B&O) initiative. When the news hit, I thought, “Wow! Game-changer. If Sweetwater can do for the local band director and students what they have done so well for other musicians, that’s a big deal.” A year ago, we did an […] Read More... -
The NAMM Show Highlights the Latest for Music Educators and Students
Mike Lawson | January 8, 2024The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) has an annual show. Now, you may think this is only for music industry insiders, but you’d be wrong. Yes, there are mind-blowing exhibits featuring everything under the sun connected with making music. But did you know NAMM has made you a priority? Check out these ongoing programs […] Read More... -
See What JEN Has Planned for Us!
SBO Staff | November 1, 2023SBO+: I recently looked at the schedule for the Jazz Education Network (JEN) convention, to be held in New Orleans at the beginning of the New Year. I was absolutely blown away with the quality and quantity of the offerings. There are jazz instrumental groups from middle schools, high schools, universities, and the highest level […] Read More... -
The 77th Annual Midwest Clinic
Thomas Palmatier | October 15, 2023From the basics of teaching strings to refining your pedagogical string knowledge, this four-hour immersive session will provide non-string specialists with the information, tools, and resources needed to teach any string player. This informational and practical session will focus on the foundational principles of string playing and teaching. Instrument position, tone production, articulation, bowings, and […] Read More... -
The Duke was Right: Things Ain’t What They Used to Be
Tom Merrill | September 10, 2023My first new car cost me $10,000. It was a Chevy Cavalier. (Yes, I got it because I was really into drum corps at the time. Don’t judge.) It was also 1991. I would have loved to have paid only ten grand for the used car we recently bought for our son. But over the […] Read More... -
Effective Parent Leadership in a Music Program Orchestrating Success
Grissom High School BPA | August 20, 2023SBO+: In this issue we discuss many aspects of leadership in successful music programs. One of these is parent leadership. This spring I had the honor or being a clinician for the long-running Grissom Band Festival and saw an incredible parent organization at work. Here is their advice. Athriving music program relies not only on […] Read More...
