APPS THAT MAKE BAND LIFE EASIER!: Vol.3

This is our third installment of “Apps That Make Band Life Easier“. The response to our previous write ups have been overwhelming! Thanks for the support and we are delighted that the information posted has been useful to so many. If you missed those articles they will be linked below. In this write up we have included some of your favorite apps and websites for others to take advantage of. Thanks for the suggestions and please continue to send them in. We will be including some of your app suggestions in this article and in future write-ups so continue to check back periodically!

wordpressWordPress (Free or Monthly Subscription) I absolutely love WordPress. How could I not include WordPress on this list of awesome apps? It’s actually the engine behind my own site! Yes, If you are reading this article you’re actually seeing WordPress in action. Their site states: “WordPress is open source software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app. Beautiful designs, powerful features, and the freedom to build anything you want. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” I wholeheartedly recommend WordPress to any music organization as the engine to create your own app or site. When I began the process for creating this site, I was looking for a provider that could handle the heavy lifting of build and design, while I focused my time and energy towards content. WordPress has yet to disappoint me in this regard. You don’t have to have knowledge of coding and web nerd jargon to build a beautiful site or app. They have thousands of “themes” that do most of the work with just one click.  The site starts off as free then increases to multi level subscription services depending upon your needs. I currently have a premium subscription ($8.25 per month, billed yearly), but I started at the free level. I increased to have more control over the design but the content was there with a nice design at the free level. Check it out…

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unnamedSlack
 (Free, with Subscriptions) Slack deems itself as “Team communication for the 21st century.” Its like “Remind” after Remind grew up, married a hot wife, landed a 100k a year job on Wall Street, and a luxury apartment in Manhattan. Yeah, it’s on another level basically. I found out about Slack through blogging. In addition to owning Block Us Up! I am also a writer for collegemarching.com. I was introduced to Slack, as a team member, through this company. As we communicated on this platform about articles, and passed ideas back and forth, I became impressed with how easy it was to share documents from my google drive and other services. Slack is well integrated into many apps and services which lends to a seamless integration across platforms. Slack for Teams is a single workspace for small to medium-sized companies or teams and perfect for bands and music organizations. You can communicate professionally with booster execs, and band leadership securely and confidentially. It really is a great platform for team communication, so if you are in the market for something a grade above Remind, with more control and security, then give this app a look. I used the free version of the app but it is also subscription based if you need even more control and power.


G Suite For Education Core Services (Completely Free)

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Everyone knows that google has their finger in our lives in some way… This suite of apps pushes that fact to insane levels. These are the tools that your entire school can use, together. G Suite for Education is free for schools with 24/7 support at no cost. These apps allow you to create, share, and edit files in real-time. Everyone is on the same page, and that page is stored in the cloud. For years I’ve been a microsoft office guy. You could not pry me away from my MSWord or MSExcel. On one occasion when I said “MSWord is better for document preparation.” my district’s tech guy basically laughed in my face. That was the beginning of my re-education on what was out there and how much google had improved. While my face was buried in microsoft land, google had built a suite of apps that were “better” than Microsoft Office and were totally free.  I could do a separate review of each of these apps as they are all powerful in their own right, but as a suite of apps there really isn’t a better and more seamless solution for today’s office needs. Check it out…

Published by Ernest Stackhouse

-Music Educator -Marching Band Show Design -Musical Arranger -Adjudicator -Fine Arts Administrator -Band Director -Writer

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