Songwriting Tips, Tools & Free Printables!

Write for the NAfME Blog SEARCH & FILTER Search Category Subscribe to NAfME Notes Subscribe to NAfME Notes, our biweekly e-newsletter, to receive highlights from the blog and other NAfME news in your inbox. Subscribe Now Write for the NAfME Blog Interested in sharing your experience with the music education…

Here’s an easy to play piano solo for You Raise Me Up, made popular by Josh Groban. It would be a great selection for students that have studied piano for at least four years. Download and Pr…

Your song catalog is sacred. It's the record if your work, darlin! Here's how to build a song catalog that's nice and organized.

Have You Seen the Ghost of John, now in the key of Em for beginning violin & fiddle players. Despite its strange lyrics, this is among the most beautiful short singing rounds in the world.

When you like someone, you seek a way to express your feelings. Here are some songs to tell someone you like them and help manage your emotions.

So here’s the low down when it comes to the right breathing for singing. It’s NOT intuitive. That’s right. It’s not something people tend to do naturally - you really have to learn how to do it because the way you breathe for singing is the opposite to how you naturally breathe. Normal breathi

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Ira Gershwin knew the power of rhythm when he wrote these words to the musical, Girl Crazy . Teaching rhythm to students is one of my favorite things because after all, if you have rhythm, " who could ask for anything more "?! Enjoy these songs for teaching quarter and eighth

Are you looking for a fun and simple rhythm stick routine set to a viral TikTok song that will also help you introduce your students to Vietnamese culture, traditions, and music? Then I have the routine for you! I've created a rhythm stick routine to the song See Tinh (Cukak Remix) by Vietnamese pop star, Hoàng Thùy Linh. This earworm will have you and your students bopping along in no time! This activity can work beautifully as a gateway to introducing your students to important Vietnamese holidays (Lunar New Year - Tết Nguyên Đán, Mid-Autumn Festival - Tết Trung Thu), music, traditions, and dance styles (hat dance and fan dance to name a few)! In this product you will find: full stickography written out for easy teacher learning, visual cues for student learning of all the stickography, a video of me doing the full stickography to help you learn the routine as well, and lesson extension ideas. Formats included: PDF, PPT, and Google Slides I truly hope you and your students enjoy this! Please let me know down below! Your feedback is important! Please leave a review :) Follow me for product updates and more fun activities to add to your music classroom! Visit my instagram, holmessweetmusichome, to see some of these products in action and to get even more inspiration for the music classroom! Email me at [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.

Now that winter is well and truly in the air, chances are you’re struggling to get out of bed in the morning. We know the feeling all too well, and while there’s no one solution to changing up your morning routine, we think having an epic playlist is a good first step. Whether you need […]

Please read entire description before purchase :) Goodbye Sign: Perfect for the entryway, nursery, child's room, playroom, or classroom! Two versions included! OPTIONS: This high resolution instant download printable scales to print in the 8" x 12", 12" x 18", 16" x 24", 20" x 30", and 24" x 36" sizes. Both the black background version and the white background version are available with this download as shown. DELIVERY & PRINTING: Little Life Designs instant download printables are high resolution digital .jpg files. Once the printable is purchased, you will be taken to the digital downloads page. Just download it, save it to your computer, and you can print it anytime :) Simply print at home or at any print shop, office supply store, or photo retailer. Printing suggestions can be found under the Policies tab. If you have specific questions, just send me a message! ***Please note: NOTHING is physically MAILED to you***

Have you ever taken a yoga class without music? When I first started practicing, my teacher didn’t use music of any kind during our practice. Since I hadn’t practiced yoga before, I didn’t know any difference and actually, since I was just learning and focusing completely on the teacher, it might have been a good […]

Ever heard of music therapy? It can have an amazing effect on learning and the body. Find out more in this infographic.

These 35+ lesbian songs / wlw songs by queer, bi, pan, and lesbian artists are so gay, that you have to listen to them right away.

I have been on a quest the last couple of years to find new songs for practicing eighth note / sixteenth note combination rhythms, and today I want to share a couple of my latest favorites. Both of these songs include both types of combinations in the same song, so they are best to use for practicing these rhythms after students have been introduced to them separately. Has anyone else found it difficult to find solid resources for teaching eighth / sixteenth note combination rhythms ( and )? We have these rhythms in our 5th grade general music curriculum and I've never been truly happy with the songs I had for practicing them. But I now have two songs that I've found have worked well with my students that I can't wait to share with you: Let Her Go, and Bim Bum. Bim Bum I found Bim Bum a couple of years ago, just before the pandemic hit, and it has been a crowd favorite. This is perfect for those "too cool to sing in class" upper elementary students because it has a challenging game to go with it. I first show them the body percussion pattern while I sing it and have them try to do just the body percussion, which goes like this: Once they get the hang of it I start gradually speeding up and tell them they have to sit down if they make a mistake. Once they are good enough at the body percussion, I challenge them to sing while doing it to make it harder, and I end with a showdown contest to see who can go the fastest without messing up (I tell them every year the true story of one student who beat me, and that nobody has been able to beat me since, and that gets them excited for the challenge). I seriously catch them every year singing the song and doing the game at recess and their homeroom teachers tell me they practice in their rooms too! Once they have internalized the song I have them decode the rhythms in the melody to find the "1-e-and" and "1-and-a" rhythm patterns and practice counting and clapping the melodic rhythm. Let Her Go I've been searching for a more modern song that uses these rhythms for several years and this fall I finally found Let Her Go by Passenger. I'm still on the hunt for a more recent song to use as an example (this one was released in 2012), but this one was a good addition this year to give students an example of music that uses these rhythms in a more relatable genre. I just played the first section of the song, had students sing along while patting the beat, and had them decode the rhythms in the first line to identify the two eighth / sixteenth note combinations. This is a good one to use as students are first learning both rhythms because both combinations are right there in the very beginning of the melody! Do you have other favorite songs for practicing both sets of sixteenth / eighth note combination rhythms with elementary students? I'd love to hear your other ideas, especially if you have any more recent songs that you've found! Let me know in the comments what other songs you use that include both combinations. If you want to see my favorite lessons for teaching other specific rhythmic elements, you'll find them all in this post:

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If you have never heard any Pentatonix performance, this is the one to start with. If you are a fan, this will blow you away!