Essential Elements Digital

New from Hal Leonard Corporation is “Essential Elements Digital,” a new accompaniment to the Essential Elements 2000 (book 1) band and orchestra series method book.

The DVD-ROM includes some tools that may come in handy.  First and foremost, the disc includes a PDF of the entire teacher’s manual!  For me, it allows me to forget about the thick and heavy spiral bound manual by loading the PDF onto my iPad and MacBook Pro.  I no longer have to lug a teachers manual home or from school to school.

The PDF looks great on screen and all images are crystal clear.  I uploaded the PDF file to my Dropbox.  (If you don’t have Dropbox, sign up here!)  From there, I launched Goodreader on my iPad and then loaded the PDF manual from my Dropbox.

I found it very simple to browse through the manual on my iPad and Mac and now I don’t have to lug the huge book from school to school.

There are several other great features of the disk.  All of the instrument (start-up) videos are included in Quicktime format and all play-along files are included, tagged, in MP3 format!  Last there are some excellent supplemental materials including the teacher resource kits.  No more photocopying those playing evaluation templates, simply print from the PDF!

EE Digital retails for $39.99, but contact your music retailer to see if they are offering some type of discount.  It never hurts to ask!