Musical Fresh Ideas from TMEA for the iPad

Post #2 today is all music related technology. I attended the Texas Music Educators Conference in San Antonio recently and although most of the conference sessions for elementary are geared toward singing, dancing, playing instruments, there were a few that talked about iPads in the music classroom. After attending TMEA, I realize I need to be presenting there about integrating the iPad in the classroom. Ah well, another post for another day.

Back to my TMEA ideas. One of the sessions I attended was led by Dr. Lynn Basinger. This would have been really great if I could have just sat down to dinner or lunch with her and shared ideas back and forth. But it was a good session and I have some new apps to try. I'm big on free apps so most of what I mention here will be free.

JoyTunes Recorder Master (apparently only for iPad2)
I downloaded this on my iPad and found it fun but a bit challenging to play. Pretty cool but I do like my successes to come quicker and I was ready to quit after the second game! I tend to get frustrated easily with video game but I think kids would find it fun and easy to play. They seem to have more patience than I do!

Pluto Learns Piano HD is an app for both iPad and iPhone. Cute little app for note recognition. And it's FREE.










She mentioned some other apps I would like to try, but they are paid apps and I don't have the freedom to purchase apps on my iPad (it belongs to the school). But here are a few that intrigued me:

The History of Jazz looks really cool and the price really is good. Looks worth the purchase.

The one app I would really love to buy and try, but it lists for $14.99 is Notion. Dr. Basinger said that this app is the closest she has found to a good notation app. Would really like to see this one in action and know more about it.








Here is a link to Dr. Basinger's blog for iPads4MusicEd. She welcomes your thoughts on apps and the use of iPads in the music classroom.