The countdown is nearing its end – the MTNA Conference will begin in only a couple of days! I opted not to participate in either of the special Saturday sessions this year, but I plan to attend the opening keynote address by Van Cliburn on Saturday evening. I copied the Daily Schedule from the MTNA Conference page and have been scrutinizing the 30 pages on my computer screen, trying to determine which sessions I want to attend. 🙂 I’m glad that there are so many fabulous options, but it sure does make for some difficult decisions!
Here are some of the sessions that look especially interesting to me:
1. TCW Resources: How to Make Music Lessons the Highlight of Your Students’ Week
Come see innovative games and materials to liven up and organize your studio. Compete for prizes in this energetic workshop! You’ll be amazed at the fun you and your students are missing!
2. Recharge Your Studio: Fresh Ideas to Jump-Start Group Teaching
This session will present new ideas in a variety of group teaching formats including games, performance practice, music appreciation and music theory. Video clips and live demonstrations will be used to illustrate each segment.
3. FJH Music Company: Balancing Your Students’ Repertoire Portfolio for Success in the Studio
Helen Marlais and Kevin Olson will present the tools and the materials for selecting repertoire. The session will introduce Marlais’s new series The Festival Collection. Olson and Marlais will also present their new Sight Reading & Rhythm Every Day series.
4. What Students are Doing When You are Not Looking: Evaluation of Effectiveness in Student Practice
This session will explore what students do in their personal practice session. It will focus on how effectively students use the practice tools they’re given and how teachers might help students make better decisions.
5. A Conceptual Approach to Memorizing and Improvising
Transform a student’s memory by an engaging process that utilizes improvisation at each of four memorization steps. Patterns and analysis come alive! View student demos and try out the process that develops aural, analytic and motor memories.
6. Who’s in Charge Here: The Left Brain, the Right Brain and Making Music
Different aspects of musical skill reside in each brain hemisphere. Each of us has a dominant hemisphere. What does this mean for the study of music? How do we integrate the two hemispheres to become better musicians?
7. Podcasting: A New Way to Put Lessons, Performances and Lectures into the Ears of a Worldwide, Mobile Audience
Podcasting offers educators and students opportunities to be heard by their peers and by audiences around the world. Learn how to host your own podcast and give your students and their performances global exposure.
There are plenty more great looking sessions, so I know I won’t be able to attend everything that looks appealing…but I plan to post notes from each of the sessions I attend, so check back throughout the conference for more details and little nuggets of teaching wisdom!
Also, if any of you are attending the conference and would be interested in writing a review of the sessions you attend to be included here on Music Matters Blog, just send me an e-mail and let me know. I’m sure those who are unable to attend would enjoy reading some of the highlights from the conference.
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