Australian Song Lyrics Analysis

Two questions. Who is Australia’s most erudite lyricist? And how can you embed the General Capabilities in secondary music lessons? Aussie Song Lyric Readability In answer to the first (but no spoliers here, let me tell you) you’ll need to read all the way to the bottom of  How complex are Aussie song lyrics? Analysis shows

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Music Scale Posters featured on TES

My set of free Music Scale Charts was featured on TES, just in time for back-to-school. Each pages features a different key signature, with additional sharps and flats being highlighted and named. Looks great when displayed as the circle of fifths! You can download it at TES or below.

Free Music Resources

Matthew Hindson, Composer. Deputy Dean at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and Curator, Australian Music Program has a number of useful free music resources on his blog. Free Manuscript Paper: Five different styles including a compact 18 stave version. Free Music Fonts: There are 14 different fonts including a recorder fingering font, a guitar strings font,

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Music Alphabet Cards

“Music Mind Games” (Michiko Yurko, Warner Bros Publications) is an outstanding resource for any music educator, especially so if you’re planning on teaching any aspect of music theory. With its emphasis on cooperative learning, hands-on games and ‘joyful learning’ the simple, focused and fun games can be used to teach everything from the basic music alphabet

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Printable Paper

Printable Paper is a top resource for teachers – and students – with a huge range (1300+ and counting) of paper templates, graph paper, lined paper and music paper. It’s all free, it’s all organised beautifully (just don’t click on the occasional ‘Start Download’ ad links) and there’s no registration needed. Try these pages: Graph

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Erols Singers Studio

As a music teacher, it’s a bit embarrassing to admit that my singing voice is most definitely not up to scratch. In fact ‘scratch’ is probably a fair assessment of the tonal range and pitch qualities! I’ve tried a few iPad apps in the hope they might – at the very least – provide me

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Finale Songbook

Woo hoo! There’s now an official Finale music notation app – Finale Songbook – and for a (free) first go, it’s not bad – not bad at all. Now I’ve used the Finale notation program ever since it was available on Windows, and I have all the disks to prove it! Back in the day,

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Music Essentials – Arranging

Arranging is one of two creative secondary music titles I’ve written for Blake Education. It was written with Year 9-10 in mind, but could be readily adpated for younger students with more music experience. It’s fully photocopiable, so you can make your own arranging booklets or cherry-pick the material for inclusion in your own courses.

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