MusTech.Net!

I’ve been writing (blogging) for awhile now.  I have made a concerted effort to understand SEO, write great articles and provide a “killer” site here at http://mustech.net for all my visitors and friends.

It did not take long for me to find out who the big bloggers in Music Education were.  Take it from me, there are not many of us!  In my journey to get the message out about music, technology and education, I found out that there aren’t many music educators using the technologies that are available to them, such as this GREAT SITE! (A little self promotion, ;D). How many of the music educators and musicians reading this have any clue what RSS is?  No? Click this link.

I am going to list a number of sites and provide some link love to my fellow bloggers.  Every person or site I list here are ones that I personally visit, comment about or on, write articles about on mustech.net or have found very enriching. 

IN ORDER TO START A DIALOG ABOUT THESE SITES, THEIR CONTENT, AND OTHER SITES THAT I MAY NOT BE AWARE OF, I’M ASKING YOU ALL TO JOIN IN ON THE DIALOG, START A GLOBAL CONVERSATION WITH US HERE OR AT THE SITES I’M WRITING ABOUT IN THIS ARTICLE. START BY LEAVING A COMMENT HERE TODAY!

Let me know about the music BLOG sites (the great music education blogs of today) you find interesting, OWN or.. feel free to disagree with me about something, anything!;) .

1. James Frankel- http://jamesfrankel.musiced.net/
A great site by Dr. Frankel, he has wonderful articles about technology, copyright and his experience as a music teacher and technology expert.  He writes almost daily.

2. Owen Bradley- http://digitalmusiceducator.wordpress.com/
Owen writes about his experiences as a band director and music teacher in the sunny state of Florida! (Wish I was there now!) He is the “digitalmusiceducator” and he has a lot to say about incorporating music technology into the classroom.

3. Evan Tobias- http://etobiasblog.musiced.net/
Evan writes far-reaching and “deep thought” articles about the state of music education.  He was a general-music school teacher for some years and now is in post-graduate school.

4. Espie Estrella- http://musiced.about.com/
Espie is prolific! She writes non-stop about music education, music history, music theory and music “everything”.  I just recently awarded her the 3rd NOTEWORTY SITE award. You can read the Noteworthy article here: http://www.mustech.net/2007/03/noteworthy-site-3/ 
You can read about all the noteworthy sites here:
http://www.mustech.net/noteworthy-sites/

5. Jason Heath- http://jasonheath.blogspot.com/
Jason has an incredible site about Double Basses, stringed instruments and the “traveling musician”.  His posts are full of great information for the on-the-road musician and advice for anyone thinking about doing it.

6. Audrey Podmore- http://fullpitcher.wordpress.com/about/
Audrey Podmore, composer, music teacher and facilitator, has long been a pioneering user of music technology to improve access to music. Her posts are great, many, and very informative.

7. Miikka Salvo- http://weblog.siba.fi/msalavuo/
Even though I’m a Finale Clinician, I can’t help but love Miikka’s Blog! And, I do think Sibelius is a Great Product by the way! Miikka talks about online learning, music-notation and just about everything “technical” in “music technology”.  His articles are timely and insightful.

8,9. Chad Criswell- http://musicedmagic.com
& http://musicappreciation.suite101.com/
Chad Has the coolest RSS fed music education site on the planet- musicedmagic.com.  He is pulling in information about music and education from everywhere, these sites included.  He also resides as the music appreciation expert over at suite101, check it out!

10. Joseph Pisano- http://www.mustech.net 
Well, last not but not least, I write about stuff like this!  mustech.net is mostly about Music, Education and Technology topics but I write off-topic things from time to time.  I like to have fun!  I also have a podcast with Radio Engineer and Expert, Darren Morton; you can listen to it here: http://mustech.podomatic.com  We also have a totally under-used tech forum, ask a question today: http://www.mustech.net/tech-forum

Epilogue:
It’s hard for music educators to be heard in the big world of the web.  We are but a little voice in the great big wide world of the web, but, getting stronger.  I find it fascinating that there are hundred of thousands of sites about “music” on the web, but very little about music, music education and music technology (in our sense). So many people are blogging about the latest “tune”, “song” or “music gadget”, but they aren’t looking at these from the “educational sense”, only the “enterainment sense”  I’m beginning to think the music educators are ”hold up”, “out there” hiding under a rock.  We may be the last “teaching” group to embrace many of these new WEB 2.0 technologies and use them to the betterment of our profession.

A Proposal:

If you have a great BLOG about music, music education, or music technology, I want to know about it! If you are writing great material and are serious about music, music education and music technology, I would be happy to link this site to yours (link love). Of course, I’d like some harmonius love, in return as well! Write a review about this site, or any other site on this list. I’m sure they would appreciate it as well!

Post Epilogue:

A little SEO, goes a long way.  I’ve currently worked my way up to Google PageRank3 and will soon be PageRank4or5 (some sources indicate 4, some indicate 5!). I’m 1 step away from making the technorati 100,000 and have made it under 500,000 in Alexa, finally! If someone links to you with a high page (or higher than yours and YES, links from those lower help as well!), you will be boosted accordingly.  This is why we not not to be “link stingy” and try to keep everthing to ourselves, after all isn’t education about spreading the word and teaching others…
Why all of this talk about PageRank and SEO for Music Education Sites?

Because it’s the reason that somebody who types in “music” and “singing” will be sent to your site rather than some other not so “enlightened” place on the web.  It’s how we can be heard and people can find us! By sharing the “link love” we can all be heard just a little better and start to squash all the noise that is out on the web about our profession! Despite the many, great articles that we “collectively” are making available (on the web), if no one reads them; what good are they? 

As music educators we need a bigger voice on the internet, after all, there are almost 100,000,000 blogs out there, some of them have to be Good…and… about music education!

                          ~J. Pisano

[tags]music, music education, music technology, blogs, web logs, mustech.net, seo, tips, top ten[/tags]

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