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Buying Used Musical Instruments
New musical instruments are shiny and cool, but most decent instruments can easily equal the cost of a month or two of mortgage. The good news is that there are many places to get quality used musical instruments at a steep discount. For keyboards, guitars, and drums, Guitar Center is a good place to start,…
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Open School Music Karate Resources
For the second year in a row, students in Open School clusters that include 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades have the opportunity to participate in Music Karate! Here are some great resources to help you continue the learning experience at home.
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Free Xylophone / Glockenspiel App to Practice Without an Instrument
Update (3/17/20): It seems the app reviewed below is no longer available for Android. Not to worry, it is still available for iOS and there are plenty of xylophone apps for Android. I will be testing the other Android apps soon and I will then update this article with my recommendations. In the meantime, here…
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Best Glockenspiels for Beginner Home Practice
This year at Open School, Red and Silver Clusters are learning basic keyboard percussion, mostly on glockenspiels. And, Yellow Cluster is learning more advanced percussion on glockenspiels, xylophones, metallophones, bass bars, hand drums, and other percussion instruments. Students are not in any way required to have a mallet percussion instrument for home practice. However, students…
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Live Looping Fun with Percussion and a Single Ukulele
For the first week of music class this year, I chose two great videos to share with the classes as motivation for the coming year. Both videos involved a concept called “live looping”, which involves the use of a electronic pedal or a computer to produce a loop or repetition of a sound. Live looping…
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The Basic Tools for Home Drum Practice
Though a full drum kit can be pricey, getting started practicing drums at home is a relatively inexpensive endeavor. There are really only two essentials: drum sticks and something to drum on. Below are some recommendations for drum sticks and a practice pad. However, if you want to be sure you are playing the correct…
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Small Group Music Lessons at Open School
In the spring of 2018, I made a significant shift in the nature of lessons offered in my after-school music program. Now, most all of the lessons I teach are some sort of “group” lesson. This came partially as an experiment because I simply had too many students interested in lessons and I did not…
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Recommended Soprano Ukuleles for Beginner Home Practice
As we are now beginning a new ukulele class after-school for the 2026-2027 school year, we have here some recommendations on ukuleles to purchase for home practice. In class, we are using soprano ukuleles, which are both the smallest size of the ukulele and the most commonly used ukuleles in Hawaii. Just as we have…
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Recommended Electric Guitars for Home Practice (Kid’s Edition)
It is true that electric guitar are generally easier to learn more quickly than acoustic guitars. But, few young students think about the possibility of getting a guitar appropriate for their size. Even electric guitars with full size fretboards can make it difficult for young students to reach the notes they wish to play. The…
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Using the MuseScore App to Learn Music Faster
I have wrote before about the amazing free MuseScore program for music notation. With it, you can write sheet music and advanced musical scores on your computer for absolutely no cost. It’s 100% free and incredibly rubust. For just $2, you can take MuseScore with you on your mobile device. It is currently available in…
