www.bands.army.mil/masterclass/default.asp

www.bands.army.mil/music/default.asp
We rarely hear anything about the musical side of the military, so I was surprised to find a wealth of resources on the U.S. Army Band Web site. The Master Classes page (see Fig. 1) contains 15 excellent articles of interest to band directors at any level. Do your woodwind students need help caring for their reeds? Do your trombone players need some practical guidance extending the range of their instruments? Is double-tonguing a mystery to your single-reed players? Do you need help translating your score-reading skills to jazz-band literature? These are just a few of the questions addressed by the Master Class articles.

I was even more surprised and delighted to find a nice collection of MP3 files available for download in the Listening Room. These are not merely 30-second samples to promote CD sales. Instead, there are complete performances of a range of marching-band literature, works for chorale, brass quintet pieces, and jazz-band arrangements. The U.S. Army grants permission to create CDs of these MP3 files, so you can introduce your students to great band performances without spending a cent.

http://imr.utsa.edu/ybrp/
Finding appropriate music for young bands is always a challenge for music teachers. Brian Harris of the University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA), directs the Young Band Repertoire Project (see Fig. 2), which provides repertoire lists, research, and analysis for middle and junior high school band directors.

The repertoire for school-band music in Texas is divided into five grades of difficulty. The Young Band Repertoire Project provides the lists for grades 1 and 2. Students at UTSA have posted a large number of analyses with detailed descriptions of these works to help band directors decide which pieces are best for their ensembles' needs.

The Repertoire Recordings section features three audio CDs by the UTSA Wind Ensemble, demonstrating the works most often performed by middle-school bands at Texas music contests. The Project Library section has PDF files of the full scores and parts of warm-up chorales for young band. You can also download blank staff paper and practice-record sheets to help your students document their practice habits. This very nice site is of great practical benefit to middle school and junior high school band directors.

http://astro.temple.edu/~swatson
Frequent MET contributor Scott Watson teaches grades 4 and 5 in the Parkland School district in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1998, Watson established this site to augment his classes in elementary band and strings. To help students practice at home, he and a few other teachers in his district created accompaniment MIDI files.

Today, the site has warm-up exercises and public-domain sheet music in transpositions for all the common band instruments (see Fig. 3). You can download and print drills, fingering charts, custom arrangements, original works for band, and tips for practicing. In the Faculty Room, you can download more than 120 Standard MIDI Files of elementary to intermediate band and orchestra selections. Watson has also created many original band and string arrangements that are available for download in both full score and parts. The latest addition to the site is a collection of instrument-care videos to show students how to clean, oil, and maintain their wind and brass instruments.

For additional resources, see www.stevenestrella.com/mused/websitings.html. Also, please contact me with your suggestions. If you know a great site for music education, write to me at steve@stevenestrella.com.

Steven Estrella, owner of Shearspire, Inc. (www.shearspire.com) as well as stevenestrella.com, creates interactive media for business and education. He served on the music-education faculty at Temple University for ten years and is the vice president of the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME).