One of the things I enjoy most about my role at MusicFirst is talking with music educators. Whether it is at a conference, during a webinar, or while visiting schools, I always come away with ideas for how we can make our products better. Some of our best new features have come directly from conversations with teachers and district technology leaders. For the past few years, one request has come up again and again. Teachers told us they love MusicFirst Classroom because it was built specifically for music education. It brings together high quality curriculum, method books, assessments, and the industry's leading music education software in one place. From PracticeFirst and Sight Reading Factory to Auralia, Musition, DAWs, Moises, and our ever growing MusicFirst Content Library, everything teachers need is available in a single platform.

By now, your school year is either winding down or over. When I was still teaching, I spent the last days of school figuring out the program for my winter concerts. My method? I always just went on the JW Pepper website, searched for repertoire for each ensemble, filtered down to the level of difficulty of each piece, and tried to find a balance of music so that there was something for everyone. An easy opener, a piece that stretched their abilities, one that I knew the students would love playing, and a piece or two to balance out the program. It’s really quite an important and challenging responsibility for any music educator: pick music that is too easy and the students get bored. Pick music that is too difficult and you may have to cut it (and waste your precious budget), and select music that might be controversial and you might get into a situation where you have to defend your selections. Because we are often the only music teacher in the building that teaches a specific ensemble, this process is left completely to us, and it can be a daunting task. With thousands of titles available through publishers and music retailers, finding the right piece can often feel overwhelming.

For years now I've had conversations with music teachers, technology directors, curriculum leaders, and district administrators about what they love most about MusicFirst Classroom. The answer is usually the same: the combination of high-quality music curriculum, assessment tools, practice technology, creativity tools, and classroom management features all in one place. But there has also been one consistent request. "Can MusicFirst Classroom work directly inside our Learning Management System?" I'm really proud to say that the answer is now yes. Beginning this summer, the MusicFirst Classroom will support native LTI 1.3 integration, allowing districts to connect their MusicFirst Classroom implementation directly with popular learning management systems such as Canvas, Schoology, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, and others. This has been one of the most requested enhancements to our platform, and we're excited to deliver it for the 2026–27 school year..

When a music publisher announces that their content will be exclusively available on one company’s platform, it’s often marketed as a “win” for teachers and students. A win for who? Do they really think that teachers and students care about exclusivity? When a music teacher reads a press release announcing an exclusive partnership, do they celebrate? Absolutely not. They probably don’t even care. The idea of a music publisher exclusively licensing their content to a single interactive platform can be dressed up with all sorts of marketing babble about saving time, providing instant feedback, and enhancing the practice experience for students. But that deceptive marketing approach really only covers up the obvious truth: exclusivity really only benefits the corporation that owns the exclusive rights far more than the educators and learners in schools. Making resources available only through one platform fundamentally restricts choice, inflates costs, and ultimately limits what teachers can do for their students. One of the most important parts of running an ed tech company focused on such a unique market as music education is that you provide the best tools and content possible at the most affordable price. Dealing with competitors that think otherwise is always part of the game, but I think that only teachers and students suffer the consequences. Exclusive contracts are nothing new, but in my opinion, the parties that enter into exclusive licensing deals are only in it for one thing: the money.

The Texas Incentive Allotment, known as TIA, is a program that helps school districts recognize and reward outstanding teachers. Through TIA, educators can earn additional compensation based on their effectiveness in the classroom and the growth of their students. You read that correctly! Bonuses for being an exemplary music or arts educator!! While many people associate TIA with tested subjects such as math and reading, Fine Arts teachers can also participate. Music, art, theatre, and dance educators can demonstrate student growth through performance assessments, portfolios, and other approved measures that reflect the unique nature of their subjects. As more districts include Fine Arts in their TIA plans, exceptional arts educators have new opportunities to be recognized for their impact on students while helping their schools access additional funding to support teaching and learning. For the past few years, MusicFirst has been partnering with districts around the state of Texas to create custom assessments to measure student growth over time in their music and arts education - a topic near and dear to my heart. Yesterday we ran a webinar, hosted by Frank Coachman, with several Fine Arts Directors across the state to see how this novel program is going, and how their partnership with MusicFirst has helped them implement this initiative. ICYMI - here’s that webinar:

Over the past few years, generative AI has dominated nearly every conversation in and around education. How teaching and learning will radically change - customized curriculum, individual tutoring, the whole nine yards. The hype is real. So many of the conference sessions, webinars, podcasts, and school board meetings all seem to carry the same message that generative AI is about to completely transform teaching and learning. I have spent these past few years giving keynotes and sessions myself about Generative AI, and I have noticed that not only are the sessions always jam packed - I often see two distinct reactions to what I show: complete awe for any tool that makes teaching a little bit easier, and complete disdain for any tool that threatens the creative process and assessment for students. I always emphasize that music teachers must be in control of how or even if generative AI tools get introduced into their instruction. But lately though, especially in the media, I am seeing something very clearly. The students in our classrooms are rejecting generative AI altogether. Sure they may be using it to homework assignments that they think are busy work, but I think that there is a real shift in the way students think about it. Perhaps it is because it is a direct threat to the careers that they would someday like to have, or maybe they are looking at these tech companies as perpetrators of the greatest threat to society and their childhoods. Perhaps it is because the servers required to power this technology are having a tremendously bad impact on the environment. My own kids certainly feel that way. In my opinion, the AI backlash has officially begun, and it is being led not by teachers or administrators, but by the students.

We recently partnered with FFlat Books, an amazing publisher in the music education space, to bring their lesson plans from the wildly popular podcast Switched On Pop to the MusicFirst Classroom Content Library. This Unit of Study includes 5 new lesson plans that help bring the wonderful insights of musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding to chart topping hits that the students will really enjoy learning about. This collection of lesson plans is the perfect way to incorporate pop music into any middle school or high school music curriculum.

This past Tuesday, MusicFirst presented a webinar titled Creating Music and Soundtracks with Middle School Students hosted by Max Wheeler (YuStudio Product Owner) and Jason Panucci (YuStudio Product Specialist). The webinar included two fantastic music educators, James Doyle and Jamison Fox, who both currently use YuStudio with their students. As someone who spends a great deal of time speaking with music educators about student engagement, I really enjoy seeing practical examples of classroom projects that genuinely connect with students. I think that this webinar did an excellent job of showing how music technology and creative work can help teachers reach students in meaningful ways.

I interviewed a wonderful elementary music educator yesterday for my podcast and the subject of student use of technology came up in our conversation. Specifically, the teacher referenced her music classroom as a refuge at the school - a place that she has designed where students can move, sing, perform, and experience music. As a part of her design, she purposely tries to have her students use as little technology as possible. This stems from the fact that her students often use Chromebooks during almost every other class during the day. Unless it is for a very specific purpose - like composing or taking a quiz - she tries to make her music classroom as analog as possible. While it may sound heretical coming from me - I completely agree with her. The question of how young is too young for technology in the music classroom often comes up when I speak with elementary music educators. How early should we introduce technology to our students? Kindergarten? Elementary school? Or should we wait until they are older and more independent? The answer depends on who we are talking about, as well as why are we using it? I thought I would take this opportunity to write down my thoughts on this essential question. Here goes…

Tonight in the town of Colchester, Vermont, one of my all-time favorite musical events is taking place - the annual Opus Concert presented by Music COMP - and this concert is their 40th - an extremely impressive feat. While I cannot be there in person this year, MusicFirst continues to serve as the Program Sponsor. I have said it before, and I’ll continue to say it to anyone who will listen - this organization and this event is hands down my favorite example of the use of technology in music education. Students from around the state, and around the country, go through an iterative draft>edit>revise process of music composition with an assigned mentor to learn how to compose. The Opus Concert is an annual event where a specific musical group - this year it’s a music ensemble named TURNmusic- with a specific instrumentation - will perform compositions by those same students in Grades 3 through 12. While the mentoring all takes place online using tools offered by MusicFirst, the culminating event is a LIVE performance of the student work. It is truly magical to see when students hear their pieces played by real musicians for the first time. I have been to many of these concerts in the past and they always renew my enthusiasm for music education, music students, and our future.

Yesterday, I read the sad news about the passing of one of the all-time great conductors, Michael Tilson Thomas, affectionately known as MTT. It is a huge loss for the musical world - specifically classical music. When I read about his passing, I immediately thought back to one of the numerous times I saw him conduct. It was a concert at Carnegie Hall that happened almost exactly 17 years ago. It was billed as the YouTube Symphony, and it was one of the most memorable concerts that I ever attended. I remembered that I was so inspired by the event that when I got home, I immediately wrote a review of it on my blog. This morning I looked through the Wayback Machine to see if I could find it, and lo and behold, I did! In memory of MTT, I thought I would repost it here, along with videos of the complete performance, many years later. Rest in peace, Maestro.

Back when I was teaching instrumental music at the middle school level, I had the pleasure of teaching a Jazz Ensemble. It was the most fun aspect of my job - hands down. The students in the ensemble were among the best and brightest in the school, the music we played was engaging and exciting to perform, and I even ran a series of Jazz Night concerts for 10 years, inviting some of NYC’s finest jazz musicians to perform on our middle school stage, with my ensemble serving as the opening act. The very first of those concerts featured a dear friend of mine, and exceptional musician, Erik Lawrence. Erik is the son of famed jazz saxophonist, Arnie Lawrence - who founded the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in 1986. My only real weakness as a jazz ensemble director was that I had a very difficult time teaching improvisation. My students simply read the written solos rather than even trying to improvise. The main reason for this was that I, as a tuba player, knew how to improvise bass lines from playing tons of gigs that had no music to read off of, but melodic improvisation was something that I simply didn’t do. Might sound crazy, but it’s true. When I was creating content for the MusicFirst Classroom, I tried to help out other music educators who might be experiencing the same difficulty, so I commissioned Erik to write a course on how to teach students to improvise - from the very first note.

I am always on the lookout for high quality resources for music educators - especially when they are either free or low-cost. One such resource that I recently stumbled upon is an amazing YouTube channel titled Dr. Selfridge Music: Learn How to Band, created by a music educator from Pennsylvania, Dr. Steve Selfridge. If you have spent any time looking for practical, student-friendly content online, you know how rare it is to find something that is both high-quality and immediately usable in a band classroom. That’s why I’ve decided to highlight this incredible FREE resource

There’s a lot being said about Generative AI right now, and if you’re a music teacher, it can feel like you’re being told you need to figure it all out immediately. Most of the conversations I hear are either too technical or too abstract to be useful in a real classroom. That’s why I created my new course, AI in Music Education: An Overview of GenAI for Music Teacher, on the newly relaunched MusicFirst Academy. It’s an online, asynchronous course with 5 ½ hours of video content that I created just for music teachers. I didn’t design this course for tech experts, so you won’t find lots of confusing jargon and boring code-speak. I designed it for music teachers who are curious, and maybe a little skeptical, and want to understand what this actually means for their students and their teaching. The focus of this course is simple. What is AI, what can it do, and how can it help you?

Today I am SO proud to announce the relaunch of the MusicFirst Academy. We originally created this online professional development site for music teachers about 10 years ago, and with this relaunch, we are taking a BIG step forward in how music teachers can access meaningful, practical professional development. We brought on an amazing music educator, customer success expert and experienced online learning designer, Dr. Giovanna Cruz Pifano, this past Fall, and she has been building this amazing new platform ever since. It is built on the same philosophy that drives MusicFirst - tools created by music educators for music educators. The MusicFirst Academy focuses on helping teachers improve what they do every day in the classroom, not just explore ideas in theory. There are numerous courses on the various software titles we offer through the MusicFirst Classroom, as well as a course that I authored on Generative AI. Most of our courses are FREE! Many more courses are in the works, and we hope to become the go-to online platform for all aspects of music education.

Each April, Jazz Appreciation Month gives us a chance to introduce students to a style of truly American music that is rich with creativity, history, and personality. With music students in particular, the challenge is making that history feel real and engaging. One resource that can help do exactly that is the Jazz Map by Village Preservation. Believe it or not, I found out about this wonderful resource on my TV local news. After clicking through the map and finding out lots of new things about the city I’ve grown up in, I think its a great resource for all music teachers and their students.

Sometimes the simplest tools are also the most useful. Perhaps the single most impactful thing that I ever did with my band students was to record them. Whenever I recorded a snippet of a rehearsal and then played it back for them, it was the easiest way to demonstrate things like balance, intonation, blend, tone, and more. I once took a lesson from the beloved tuba player, Sam Pilafian. At that lesson, Sam told me that the single most important thing that I could do to improve as a tuba player was to record myself. He took nearly the entire hour of my lesson to explain why it was so important. If you ever want to be instantly humbled as a musician - record yourself and listen back to it. For those of you who have, am I right? When dealing with students, the same principle applies. That’s why I designed a built-in audio recorder into every MusicFirst Classroom subscription. It is a very simple interface, and students can access and record into it at any time. To access the recorder, simply click on the Software tab at the top of any MusicFirst Classroom subscription, and select MusicFirst Recorder.

I recently read an article in the The New York Times article on “Chromebook remorse,” and it reinforces something that I’ve been predicting for a while one. The article - titled “Chromebook Remorse: Tech Backlash at Schools Extends Beyond Phones” written by Natasha Singer, illustrates that while schools are not abandoning technology, they are starting to rethink how often and in what ways it is used. Instead of devices being open and available all the time, many classrooms are shifting toward a more deliberate approach in which technology is used only when it directly supports the learning goal.

About a month ago, a good friend of mine asked whether I had checked out the new Claude Chrome Extension. He was so enthusiastic about it, I knew I had to check it out. I went to the Chrome Web Store and immediately downloaded and installed it. This extension is a perfect example of Agentic AI - the type of GenAI tool that helps you do tasks that you may not want to do. It does require a paid Claude account, which will cost you $20/month, so read on before you enter your credit card details. To get started, here’s a great video that demonstrates everything that the Claude Chrome extension can do. Brace yourself.

If you’ve been following the headlines lately, you’ve probably seen a shift in how people are talking about social media. With the recent lawsuits that revolve around Meta, TikTok, SnapChat and YouTube knowingly investing in and creating features that keep young students addicted to their products, I think it’s an important inflection point for all educational technologies used in schools. What used to be framed as engaging or fun is now being described in courtrooms and legislation as something far more concerning: addictive by design. These recent lawsuits have focused on design elements like infinite scroll and autoplay, features that were intentionally built to keep users on the platform for as long as possible . And now, the flood gates are open. Thousands of similar lawsuits are now in motion, and lawmakers are beginning to require warning labels for platforms that use these kinds of “predatory” features with minors . On a personal note, I couldn’t be happier about this turn of events. I know that I am addicted to my phone, and so is everyone else in my family. If you teach children, you know that they are too. I am SO thankful that my own children grew spent their first few years device free. It makes me so sad to see kids everywhere I go with their eyes glued to screens. I believe that this moment really matters for educators. But more importantly, it gives us a chance to step back and ask a simple question: What should educational technology be designed to do?