I have one last conference-related photo to share that I nearly forgot about. During the last day’s lunch period, they were giving out door prizes. I won a beautiful set of Frederick Harris books!
Each book retails at about $24 each, so I more than made my conference fee back. It was a nice surprise bonus! 🙂
The Anderson & Roe Piano Duo gave a performance and a masterclass at the 2011 OhioMTA Conference. Greg and Liz, in addition to being marvelous performers, are such genuine, down-to-earth people. They had great insight for the students who performed during the masterclass. If you ever have the opportunity to hear them live, I highly recommend it!
Photo: me with Anderson & Roe!!!
This wraps up my series of posts on the 2011 OhioMTA Conference! I just wanted to also let you all know too that I am going to be revising some of my conference note posts to make sure that they are indeed just summaries of the sessions. I want to make sure that I am respecting the presenters’ material and hard work. While I do feel that my notes are my possession, I do not want to publish too much detail about entire sessions because it might open the possibility for others to take credit for the presenters’ work. If you ever want more detail about a session I write about, please don’t be afraid to email the presenters and ask them if they’d be willing to share more information or even a copy of their handout with you.
Stay tuned for a new printable tomorrow! Cheers!
Here’s another session given by the well-loved pedagogue Marvin Blickenstaff from the 2011 OhioMTA Conference:
Piano Pedagogy 101: Reviewing the Basics
Mr. Blickenstaff introduced this session by commenting that at conferences and workshops, we often hear ideas for teaching intermediate and advanced students, but we don’t very often hear ideas for teaching beginners during that first year of piano lessons. The purpose of this session to give a refresher of sorts and to provide new ideas for teaching beginners, particularly in groups.
Mr. Blickenstaff basically led us through a series of short activities that he uses during group classes with beginners. He begins the first few classes with some icebreaker activities that all students can succeed doing. These initial successes set the tone for the entire year!
Here are a few examples of some of the beginner-level icebreaker activities Mr. Blickenstaff likes to use with his students:
Continue reading “2011 OhioMTA Conference (4): Piano Pedagogy 101, by Marvin Blickenstaff”
The next session was given by the fabulous Marvin Blickenstaff:
Performance Practice Made Easy: Rules of Thumb for the Piano Student
As teachers, we are always interested in fostering independence in our students — perhaps most importantly in the aspect of interpretation (making music musical and artistic). This is an elusive thing to teach. It’s about getting beyond the notes. It’s taking the dots on the page and transforming them into something that can change our lives.
Mr. Blickenstaff then told us about the Repertoire Classes he holds each week with his private students. Students must announce their piece, the composer, and give some kind of explanation as to why the composer wrote the piece. The students listening must take notes on what the performing student said, and also write down how the piece made them feel. Continue reading “OhioMTA Conference (3): Performance Practice Made Easy, by Marvin Blickenstaff”
The next session at the OhioMTA Conference was given by Dr. Nicole Biggs, the new piano professor at Bowling Green State University in my town:
Toxic or Terrific Teaching: Exploring the Strategies that Bring out the Best in our Students
Dr. Biggs began by pointing out that our goal as teachers is to inspire and motivate our students in such a way that they can go on independently without us. Our goal in effect is to teach ourselves out of a job.
A potential problem for some of us as teachers is that we may unintentionally emulate the teaching models we experienced, whether good or bad. It’s a challenge, but if we perhaps experienced “toxic teaching” during our own studies, we need to find ways to ensure these teaching strategies don’t filter into our own teaching. We need to transform any toxic teaching strategies into terrific teaching strategies. Continue reading “OhioMTA Conference 2011 (2): Toxic or Terrific Teaching by Nicole Biggs”
The recent Ohio Music Teachers Association conference I attended was wonderful. I had the opportunity to meet other teachers both near and far from where I am in Ohio, and I also learned a lot!
The first session I attended was an informative presentation by Dr. Margaret Young. Dr. Young cited a large number of research studies throughout the session and had a two-page bibliography in the handout (!). I will not be providing those facts and citations here, but rather presenting a summary of some of the points Dr. Young made. If anyone is interested in more in-depth information about Dr. Young’s session, I’m sure you could contact her and see if she’s willing to share a copy of the handout. 🙂
Learn at First Sight: A Review of the Current Research Literature on Sight-Reading
Dr. Young went through a number of questions, each time answering in detail what the research says about each issue. Some of the questions were: What does sight-reading involve? What factors influence or predict sight-reading success? Continue reading “OhioMTA Conference 2011 (1): Learn at First Sight by Margaret Young”
Any fellow Ohioans out there? The Ohio Music Teachers Association (affiliated with MTNA) 2011 State Conference will be taking place October 9-11. It’s occurring in my hometown, which will be very convenient for me. I’m very excited about meeting some of the other teachers in my area and hearing some great speakers and music. Among the presenters and performers this year are Marvin Blickenstaff and the Anderson & Roe piano duo. It’s going to be a great conference!
Speaking of Marvin Blickenstaff, Marvin is going to be hosting the NCKP’s facebook page today, answering questions from teachers. It should be interesting to follow throughout the day! Click here to visit their facebook page and see what’s going on.
Yesterday, I attend a Teacher Information Session for The Achievement Program (TAP) held in Ann Arbor, Michigan (about an hour-and-a-half north of where I live). Ever since TAP was first announced in March at the 2011 MTNA Conference as a collaboration between the Royal Conservatory and Carnegie Hall, I’ve been interested in learning more about the program and what it has to offer. The sessions I attended at the MTNA Conference and the NCKP were helpful, but I have to say that attending this 3-hour workshop provided much more insight into the program. Today, I’m sharing my notes with everything I learned about TAP!
Dr. Andrew Hisey was our presentor. He began the workshop by giving a brief look at the history of TAP and how this collaboration came about. Then he talked about the goal of TAP: to connect people coast-to-coast with a common language and share the celebration of accomplishments. TAP can help people (non-musical or not) recognize certain levels of achievement that our students have reached. TAP in this way can also help unite independent music teachers across the nation.
The syllabuses for TAP are available as a free download on their website as pdfs. The Piano Syllabus normally costs $20, but they gave away free hard copies at this session to all attendees. The current syllabus was revised in 2006. They revise the syllabus every 7 years to vary the repertoire (about 70% of it stays the same). Continue reading “The Achievement Program Teacher Information Session”
I don’t normally post on Saturdays, but I’m so close to having all my conference notes posted that I decided to finish up today with the last one rather than wait until Monday! Whew, thanks for bearing with me through the long haul! Lucky for us, the last one is a good one. 🙂
I’ve always wanted to hear Dr. Faber speak since I am a huge fan of the Faber Piano Adventures method, and I’ve heard such good things about their sessions. At the NCKP, I had the privilege of attending their publisher showcase and this session on student-centered teaching, which provided a lot of insight into the Fabers’ research on human learning and their teaching philosophy in general. It was fascinating!
Student Centered Teaching: The Process, by Randall Faber. F @ 11:15am.
Dr. Faber began by talking about the teacher perspective. He shared a wonderful photo of a child sitting on the piano bench, eager and excited to learn, looking up into the camera (or into the teacher’s eyes). The next photo was of a stern looking teacher, looking over his reading glasses from his chair alongside the piano. Everybody laughed when they saw this photo! This is the student perspective!
Joking aside, though, sometimes we aren’t always doing the job we think. Sometimes we simply tend to teach the way we were taught because that’s what we know. Dr. Faber made an argument that in order to be the most effective as teachers, we need to be as student-centered as possible. Continue reading “NCKP 2011 | (13) Student-Centered Teaching, by Randall Faber”
If you’ve never heard of the TED talks, please take a moment to check out this link! According to the “About” page on their website…
“TED is a non-profit devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual TED conferences, in Long Beach/Palm Springs and Edinburgh, bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less).”
Many of the TED talks are available for free viewing on their website and on YouTube. The one I linked to above was sent to me by one of my adult students — and it is quite an interesting one that talks about the value of classical music.
The NCKP’s “PEDxi” sessions are inspired by the TED talks. They are short 25-minute talks that are focused on keyboard pedagogy and technology.
In my last post, I mentioned the MiniMusic kit by Paula Manwaring (Kjos Publishing) that I purchased while I was at the NCKP conference. You might remember that I also briefly spoke about the first musical opera concert I attended, and how much that concert has helped me. The photos and description of this curriculum on the Kjos Publishing website do not do it justice! So I decided to show you some photos I took myself. I think many of the materials included in the kit are great resources for group lessons and games with students of ANY age.
Here’s a list of what is included: Continue reading “MiniMusic Kit for Early Childhood Music Classes”
Each morning and afternoon at the NCKP, there are publisher showcases to choose from where you can learn about method books or supplementary materials. Often, you will receive free books at these showcases, as you’ve already seen in my first NCKP post showing off my “loot!”
Below is more about four of the showcases I attended:
1. FJH Music Publishing Company: Succeeding at the Piano — a Method for Everyone!, by Helen Marlais.
Dr. Marlais is a professor at Grand Valley State University, a college near my hometown. In fact, I auditioned to be a music major at GVSU after I completed my first two years at Grand Rapids Community College (but decided to go to Hope College instead)! 🙂 The two colleagues who accompanied me to the NCKP have had Dr. Marlais as their teachers at GVSU. Small world.
Dr. Marlais has such a vibrant personality. In this session, she led us through levels 2A and 2B of her new method called “Succeeding at the Piano.” I just love the illustrations used in this method. I also really like the “composer friends” characters who learn with the student throughout the books. Continue reading “NCKP 2011 | (11) Publisher Showcases”
Your Cart is Empty
