Music and Art Education Articles

I have been busy writing articles for Associated Content. Here are some useful articles about music and art education.

Fun Theater Improv Games for Kids
Dramatic play has always been an excellent way to encourage creativity in children and teens. Try some of these fun games at your next party, on a rainy afternoon, or in your classroom.
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How Music Helps Your Child's Development
Whether playing a musical instrument, singing in the church choir, or plucking out an original tune on a guitar, music helps children develop valuable skills that will help them succeed later in life.
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How Art Improves Your Child's Development
Art improves a child's development on several different levels, not least of which is the encouraging of creativity and problem-solving.
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Art and Kids: Making a Collage
Children love creating art. Using recyclables, magazines, knick-knacks, and glue, your child or class can create amazing collage projects.
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Kids and Art - Fun and Easy Watercolor Skills
Try some of these easy and fun watercolor skills in the classroom or home.
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Kids and Art - Teaching Elements of a Landscape
Simple ways to teach landscapes to children of any age in art class.
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Percussion 101: How to Play Hand Crash Cymbols

Young Girl Plays Cymbals The hand cymbals (or crash cymbals ) are extremely versatile percussion instruments . The hand cymbals are used in the military, drum and bugle corps , the orchestra, and wind ensembles. Proper percussion hand cymbal technique takes many years of practice and hard work, as well as stamina and upper body strength. The most common use of the hand cymbals is in the drum line, whether in a high school band or a professional drum and bugle corps. Two cymbals are held by straps to the cymbal player's hands. In marching band and drum and bugle corps, the cymbal player often will loop their own hand in the strap, then grab the strap. Protect Your Hands Tape, strap pads, and gloves are often used to protect the cymbal player's hands from blisters and the slow grinding away of skin during a lengthy band show. In the orchestra setting, where the crash cymbal is often reserved for music accents and shorter music passages, the percussion player does...

Top 5 Music Theory Websites for Music Students and Teachers

Music theory students and teachers can benefit from additional learning from online resources. Today's student is used to interactivity and multimedia, and these music websites can help augment the usual classroom fair, whether you are teaching elementary music or basic theory for college freshman. Most of these theory websites provide user-friendly lessons with colorful illustrations, and a few even provide online exercises. Musical U Musical U is an online community that provides ear training and music theory expertise, detailed lesson plans, examples, free practice audio, and more. Ricci Adam's Music Theory.Net Ricci Adam's Music Theory.net is my favorite online music website. Not only does the online music site provide lessons in everything from basic intervals to Neapolitan chords, there are also a large number of exercises. Additional utilities include a chord calculator and a matrix calculator for serialism lessons. Additionally, there are basic exercis...

Machinima Magic using Moviestorm, Final Cut, and Photoshop

For those who have been wondering about the hiatus here at the New Music Resource, wonder no more! The past six months I have been working on a sci-fi machinima musical Libertaria: The Virtual Opera . Created almost entirely in the machinima software platform Moviestorm and scored with a catchy combo of electronic music, film scores, and dramatic vocals, Libertaria has been an incredible collaborative project. Moviestorm has been an excellent and inexpensive way to create an entire epic sci-fi tale for a minimal amount of resources. Almost three years ago I started using Moviestorm for a variety of video projects, and then decided to make an entire feature length musical using only machinima. The project proved challenging, involved a couple of dozen singers, animators, and other artistic professionals volunteering their talent and resources to create an incredible feature. W atch a the lo-res version of the song Pilar of the Underground from Libertaria: The Virtual Opera : ...

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