Amy M. Burns

Elementary Music Technology and Integration

Amy M. Burns has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for over 25 years at Far Hills Country Day School (FH) (https://www.fhcds.org/). She also teaches grade 5 instrumental class, directs the FH Modern Band, is the Performing Arts Department Manager, and teaches privately in the after-school conservatory, having served as director for over 20 years. She has authored four books and numerous articles on integrating technology into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including four keynote addresses in TX, IN, St. Maarten, and AU. She is the recipient of the 2005 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year, the 2016 New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) Master Music Teacher, the 2016 Governor’s Leader in Arts Education, the 2017 NJ Nonpublic School Teacher of the Year, and the 2026 NJMEA Distinguished Service Awards. Her most recent publication, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches (2020), is available from Oxford University Press (OUP) and Amazon. Burns is also the Community Coordinator for Midnight Music (MMC) at https://midnightmusic.com/, the General Music Chair for NJMEA Board of Directors, and the Elementary Music Consultant for MusicFirst (https://www.musicfirst.com/), a company built by music educators for music educators, dedicated to helping music teachers and their students make the most of technology in the classroom.

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Have You Checked Out Midnight Music's 2026-2027 Free Music Tech Resources Guide?

August 16, 2026  /  Amy M. Burns

My good friend Katie Argyle and her amazing crew at Midnight Music have just published the newest edition of the Ultimate Free Music Tech Resources Guide!

For more than a decade, Katie and her team have created this annual guide to help music educators discover some of the best free technology tools for music production, composition, creation, recording, assessment, lesson planning, and so much more. Instead of spending hours searching for resources and wondering whether they will work well in a music classroom, you can begin with a collection that has already been carefully organized with music educators in mind.

This year marks the 14th edition of the guide. It has grown and evolved tremendously over the years as technology—and the ways we use it in our music classrooms—has continued to change.

What Is Included in This Year’s Guide?

The newest edition features:

  • 122 pages of free music technology resources

  • 31 unique categories

  • More than 20 new listings

  • Online music games, including Solfa Sally

  • Additional AI tools

  • Helpful PDF utility tools for band, orchestra, and choir directors

  • Resources for composing, recording, creating, assessing, and more

For elementary music educators, this guide is especially helpful because it includes tools that can encourage students to explore, create, and demonstrate their musical understanding in a variety of ways. You might discover a new game for practicing solfa or rhythm, a simple composition tool for a classroom center, a recording resource for student performances, or a creative tool that gives your students another way to show what they know.

A Resource You Can Return to All Year

One of my favorite things about this guide is that you do not have to explore all 122 pages at once! Download it, save it, and return to it whenever you are planning a lesson or looking for a new way to teach a musical concept.

You might choose one resource to explore before the school year begins, bookmark a few tools that complement your current curriculum, or share the guide with the other music educators in your school or district. Since the resources are organized into categories, it is easy to go directly to the section that best matches what you and your students need.

Technology works best when it enhances the singing, playing, moving, listening, and creating that are already happening in our music classrooms. This guide can help you find tools that support those musical experiences while also providing students with opportunities for creativity, student choice, and musical exploration.

Thank you to Katie and the entire Midnight Music team for continuing to research, test, organize, and share these resources with music educators around the world!

Download your copy here.

Feel free to share the Guide with a friend! You can forward this email newsletter to them, or send this link in a message: https://ultimate-guide.midnightmusic.com/

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