About Us

Supporting + Inspiring YOU

as you teach music

What We Value

Folk songs

We place a high value on folk songs! You have 100% access to all folk songs and other songs in the public domain on our site.

Organization

We value your time, so we help you find what you’re looking for by searching our website – organized by musical concepts and lesson objectives!

Making Music

We believe providing active music-making experiences (not just learning about music) are the best way to engage learners and provide them with skills and appreciation, which will last a lifetime!

Flexibility

Our lesson ideas can be used with any curriculums around the world!

Improvement

We are always trying to make things better, so we value your feedback!

Collaboration

As we bounce ideas off each other, we end up with better results!

Singing

Our voices are our natural instruments, so we value teaching students to match pitch and feel comfortable singing.

World

We continue to add songs from various cultures to honor people and their cultures.

Who We Are

2021-08 Beth Mengel Lukey2

Beth Thompson + Lukey
Founder + CEO

Beth is an educator at heart. Sit still long enough, and she’ll try to teach or organize you! Beth has spent the last 35-ish years teaching music to children, ages 6 weeks to 6th grade in different settings: public schools, daycare, piano lessons, and a private children’s chorus.

With a Bachelor’s in Music Ed and a Master’s in Administration, Beth loves to combine both into making this website rich in musical content in an organized way. She started blogging in 2009, and presently, bethsnotes.com has thousands of subscribers from 133 countries who represent music students from early childhood to adults!

Beth, unfortunately recently widowed, lives in Chicago with her 3 cats and celebrates her grown children, one who is expecting her first baby, and the other, who just got engaged!

Erin

Erin Nowicki + Cannoli
Research Associate

Erin is a talented singer-songwriter, who also has a passion for diving deep into research, fact-checking, and content sourcing. With a Bachelor’s in Music, she excels in people-centered roles where compassion meets structure.

When not working, you can usually find her traveling, hiking, experimenting with herbalism, cooking something new, or exploring a creative passion—whether that’s music, photography, or writing. She is happiest when curiosity and creativity collide.

Erin lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her husband, Jon, and their two beloved fur babies, Macaroni and Cannoli—the true CEOs of their household.

Kristopher Brown

Kristopher Brown
Developer at Large

Veteran Educator – Kristopher completed his Kodaly Certification program at Texas State University under Dr. Houlahan and Dr. Tacka and was announced as teacher of the year in 2013.  His experience in fine art pedagogies makes Kristopher uniquely qualified in researching and implementing worthwhile content that is culturally relevant, socio-economically informed and tailored to the specific needs of the target audience. 
 
Curriculum Designer – Kristopher Brown is accredited in Dr. Tacka and Houlahan’s “Kodály in the Classroom” Lesson books, and helped write a majority of the 3rd, 4th & 5th grade pedagogy lesson plans. In 2018, Kristopher won a Google scholarship to attend Udacity’s Front End Developer Program where he learned HTML, Javascript, and other technical skills that he applied to his career as an educator in addition to earning both Google Educator Certifications.   
 
Clinician – Kristopher Brown has built a following online as “The Kodaly Viking”, developing Body Warm-ups, Listening Maps, Technical Trainings, and best practices for Restorative Behavioral Management Videos. He now works as an independent education consultant, providing professional development, curriculum content creation, and behavioral management sessions and is currently developing supplemental curriculum resources for “Kodaly Today” with Dr. Houlahan & Dr. Tacka.  
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