Announcements, Conferences

Upcoming Programs in Ohio and Beyond

ohio mta logoSome months back, I submitted a proposal to speak at the Ohio Music Teachers Association (affiliated with MTNA) 2014 state conference.  I was thrill to learn it was accepted!  

If you live in Ohio, you may want to consider attending this conference even if you are not a member of OhioMTA / MTNA.  This year, it is being held in Wilmington College on October 16-18, 2014.  The main speakers will be Louis Nagel and Julie Jaffee Nagel.  It’s going to be a great conference!  Learn more here

Here is the info about my session:

Albums for the Young: A History & Overview of the Genre

Influenced by the emergence of children’s literature in the 18th century, Robert Schumann composed the groundbreaking Album for the Young Op. 68, a set of piano pieces intended for children to play. This presentation will discuss the circumstances that influenced Schumann to publish his Album for the Young and the extent of his influence on later composers who composed in this new genre. Attendees will hear samples from well-known and little-known collections of music for children and will receive a handout with a list of Albums for the Young by various composers.


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On November 14, I will be giving the same session for the Cleveland Piano Teachers’ Organization.  CPTO is an independent association that sponsors monthly meetings and other events for the benefit of the member teachers and their students.

CPTO has let me know that they welcome non-member teachers to attend their meetings as guests if desired — they only ask for a $10 donation to help defray the cost of sponsoring the meetings.  If you want to learn more about attending as a guest, please contact me and I will connect you with the folks behind CPTO.  I would be thrilled to see you there!


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One more piece of news: I was recently asked to give a presentation during the the 2015 MTNA National Conference in Las Vegas!   The conference runs March 21-25.  My session is part of the “Young Professionals Track” on Pedagogy Saturday (which is the best day of the conference, IMO, albeit optional).  Here is the title and 35-word description of my session:

Harnessing the Power of the Internet: Blogging and Social Media for the Musician

Joy Morin shares her story about starting a blog at ColorInMyPiano.com. Learn how you can harness the power of the internet to promote connection, interaction, and engagement for your cause.

I would be thrilled to see you at any of these events!  Please let me know if you will be there because I would love to meet you afterwards.

Looking for programs for your local association?  Learn more about my workshops on my personal website here.

Technology

Studio Trailer Video

If you are like me, you are beginning a new school year of teaching this week!  I enjoyed a two-week break prior to this week, which provided some much-needed time off as well as some time to focus on some fun side projects that have been on my to-do list.  Let me tell you about one of those projects.

One of my adult students has a background in video.  He sold me a used copy of Final Cut Pro, which is a program kind of like Photoshop except for video files.  There is a huge learning curve involved with learning how to use Final Cut Pro, as I discovered.  I decided to create a “studio trailer” video of sorts, showing various photos of my students to give a sense of what my studio is about.  It’s not a perfect video, but I am happy with the results and enjoyed learning the basics of video editing through this project.  I posted this video on my studio website and facebook page for my students/parents to enjoy.

Note: You might notice that this video shows my old house, before our recent move twenty minutes away.  I still need to collect more photos that show the new house/studio.  Maybe I’ll make another video a year from now.  I decided to think of this video as celebrating the past three years living and teaching in Ohio.  End of one era, beginning of the next! 

Interested in creating your own studio trailer?  You don’t have to learn Final Cut Pro.  Here are the steps:  Continue reading “Studio Trailer Video”

Technology

Google Hangout Episode #6

Before I talk about the Google Hangouts, I want to update you about the last giveaway:

Piano-Pronto-Prelude-book-300x300A couple of weeks ago, we had a giveaway for Jennifer Eklund’s Piano Pronto method and had a HUGE response of 138 entries!  I loved reading all your responses about the Piano Pronto method, and I know Jennifer did, too.  Here are the two randomly chosen winners: Lu and Anola.  Congrats, winners!  You will be hearing from Jennifer soon.

If you didn’t win, you can still get a great deal on the Piano Pronto books because Jennifer has extended her 20% off sale through the end of the month.  Now is the time to stock up for the next school year!  Visit PianoPronto.com and enter the “school20” promo code.

Last Friday, I held Google Hangout Episode #5 (I decided to start calling them episodes so I can keep them straight!), which was about choosing student repertoire.  Jennifer Eklund was a guest in the discussion as was Dr. Jason Sifford.  This discussion was so fun.  The topic is so appropriate, too, as we prepare for the next school year.

Jason, by the way, is one of the teachers behind the University of Iowa Piano Pedagogy Project: a project to record over 9000 piece of piano literature for students following the Iowa Music Teachers Association’s repertoire list for their events.  This project is so great because it provides teachers and students with a variety of excellent reference videos.  You can view and subscribe to the Piano Pedagogy Project’s YouTube channel here and visit their Facebook page here.

Below, I’ve embedded the video recording of Episode #5.

I have scheduled Google Hangout Episode #6 for this Friday at 11am Eastern time.  Check out the event page here on Google+ and add it to your calendar.  Please join us live or watch the recording afterwards!

Here is a link to all of the Google Hangouts so far.

Technology

Google Hangout and other Internet Happenings

Hello, readers!  A few random updates:

Over the weekend, I made a brief appearance at MTNA’s GP3 2014 conference via Skype.  (Thanks to Courtney Crappel and Andrea McAlister for asking me to share my thoughts about using apps in the piano lesson!)  GP3 is a conference geared towards group piano professors and piano pedagogy professors.

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The main message I shared was this: Apps are just another helpful teaching tool for our toolkit.  In order to be able to use the tools properly and effectively, we have to first figure out exactly what that tool can accomplish for us and what role we want it to play in our lessons with our students.  Some apps make my life easier as a teacher, some apps are useful during the lessons, and other apps are strictly for students’ at-home use.

On Friday, I’m hosting another Google Hangout at 10am Eastern.  This time, the topic is choosing repertoire for students.  As usual, you can feel free to watch it LIVE or afterwards on YouTube.  I’ve embedded the player below.

I’m looking for another teacher interested in participating in the video chat — if you are interested, please contact me directly!

Here is a link to all of the previous Google Hangouts so far.

There is another (now past) Google Hangout (not sponsored by me) that you may be interested in watching: Irina Gorin (if you haven’t seen her YouTube channel‘s teaching videos, you HAVE to check it out) gave a presentation as part of conference held by Michigan State University and the Capital Area Music Teachers Association in Lansing, Michigan.  Here is the link.