S7: E150 Virtual Xylophones with Brent Geyer

Season Seven

Episode 150

Virtual Xylophones with Brent Geyer

Vandercook FREE Zoom Music Webinar - Brent is presenting one on Virtual Xylophones using Scratch on Thursday, April 29! Sign up here!

Brent Geyer has been teaching in the Westfield Public Schools since 2007 as both a general vocal music teacher for grades 1-5 and a strings specialist. During this time he has directed the All City Orchestra and All City Chorus and also directs the high school Men's Chorus. Brent's 5th grade choirs have sung with the NJ Festival Orchestra and were chosen twice to be aired on NJ 101.5 for their Christmas Choir contest, in which they won first place in 2015. Brent holds both a Bachelors in Music Education and Piano Performance from West Chester University, a Masters in Music Education from the University of the Arts, and completed his Orff levels at Villanova. He is also the creator of the virtual xylophones found on the coding site Scratch.

On the American Orff Schulwerk Teacher Group in Facebook I saw a post by Brent Geyer that contained a link to virtual xylophones he had created to use with his students. They are so fantastic and easy to use - switching from diatonic to C,F, and G pentatonic scales and back - and there’s even a Blues xylophone that is so much fun!! Brent is full of joy and was a delight to talk with. Listen in to hear about how he created the xylophones using Scratch and get a few lesson ideas to use in your classroom! If you want to know more, check out the link in the Shownotes and the blog for the webinar he’s presenting on Thursday, April 29 through Vandercook School of music. It’s free and would be a fabulous opportunity to learn more!

Geyer Music on Scratch

Virtual Alto Xylophone

Virtual Blues Xylophone

Book: Charlie Parker Played Be-Bop by Chris Raschka

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