Support the Arts!

Web Spotlight contains an annotated catalog of World Wide Web sites of interest to the arts education community. It offers these categories:

• Cultural Sites - Museums, Galleries, Art Centers
  
• Student Sites - For Students, By Students
  
• Educational Sites - Education, Schools K-8, Universities, Organizations
  
• Subject Areas — which include, music, theater, visual arts, film, literary arts, dance, and the like.

Focusing on the music section of the Web Spotlight, here are just a few of many resources that will be very helpful to the music educator.

One of the links on the "Web Spotlight" page is Auditory Perception. "In this pilot project they present you with interesting and fun demonstrations from Psychoacoustics. They illustrate some principles about the way they understand the sound world around us, and the way in which music makes use of these principles."

Composers in Electronic Residence for music teachers who use midi technology in their classrooms. It's a non-profit teacher-run community which gives the participants a way to link up with some experienced composers around the world. "Click on Kristi's Neat Scales to see (and hear!) an example of this interactive compositional process."

Dixieland, The Birth of Jazz is a glorious site. This will be a perfect site for preparing for Black History studies. Here you will find:

• Satin Dolls: The Women of Jazz — A historic look at female jazz vocalists.

• Big Bands — The big sound of the thirties and forties.

• Swing Kings — The exciting story of the legendary bandleaders and musicians of the Swing era, plus much more!

K8 Home Page is a wonderful resource. I have used some lessons from this site and they were superbly innovative ideas. Be sure and look at the lesson plans. You'll be glad that you did.

Kit Eakle's Virtual Music Classroom is very helpful and extensive too. There are sections on:

• Teaching a song, a strategy for teaching any song to elementary children

• How to begin a song all together on the same note!

• Keeping the Beat musical beat, keeping activities that integrate math and music (useful for Gr. K-6)

• A Paper on "Whole Language" and its lessons for teaching "Music Literacy," a research paper on the rationale for some of the methods used on this site.
• Using computers in the classroom.

Wynton Marsalis On-line is another great place to visit on the Internet. If you haven't treated yourself to Wynton, now is the time. This site is well worth the visit. There is info on blowing your horn, making music, and a link to Wynton's Home Page. Take the time to get to know Wynton.