I’m always looking for and listening to ideas about using popular websites as a part of an educational experience. Recently a music teacher shared with me how he is using Youtube as a part of the Music Appreciation course he teaches. Youtube is filled with videos of musical performances of all types. Often users can find multiple performances of the same song. What the music appreciation teacher I spoke with does is have his students select a jazz standard. Then he has the students find multiple performances of that jazz standard to compare and contrast based on a set of established criteria.

Here is a little jazz sampler from Maynard Ferguson.