The 2016 MTNA National Conference in San Antonio will go down in the books! The location was perfect, the weather was perfect, and the sessions were, as always, applicable and rejuvenating.
The long days (generally up by 5:45 am and not back until 10:30 pm!) were made more manageable by walking outside and soaking up some vitamin D3 at any given moment.
In this post, I will share a quick rundown of all the sessions I attended each day. However, more than sharing my notes and information, I especially wanted to share the people I came into contact with and the memories that impacted me the most. I always walk away with tons of extra applicable knowledge, but I feel even more blessed to walk away with more colleagues whom I can now call friends.
Also, because good food brings me joy, you’ll have to put up with seeing photos of all the food I ate!
Friday, April 1
My friend Joy and I were blessed to be able to stay with Susan Hong, a teacher in San Antonio, for the week. Getting to know her and seeing her experience an MTNA conference for the first time was fun! She was an excellent host and knew all the hot spots!
Susan Paradis wrote a nice reviewon the new G. Henle Verlag iPad App.
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To go right along with my Wednesday post on my first FaceTime Lesson, Melody Payne of The Plucky Pianista has a Training video series Getting Started with Online Lessons.
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Published on February 8, I just this week got around to listening to A Musical Life with Hugh Sung as he talks with Patrick Kavanaugh, founder, conductor, and artistic director of the Masterworks Festival. What a delightful conversation. I especially enjoyed hearing them talk about Kavanaugh’s compositional focus on microtonality and its future in the world of classical music as well as how his life as a Christian enhanced and influenced his life in Classical Music and vice versa. He is also the author of the book The Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers – a book that is already on my “to-read” list.
Around 11:45 today, I received a call from the mother of my 1:00 student. She wanted to check with me as “M” had been complaining of a sore throat and said she was feeling a little achy. Although she didn’t have a temperature or seem sick otherwise, the mother wanted to see what I wanted to do. Thank you! I was grateful to her for being considerate of my health. She knew I would be traveling for the next week and wanted to be especially cautious.
At first, I suggested I would do a video lesson for her; I have been trying this for the first time this year and have had good feedback from parents. (I still need to figure out a better way to record videos other than with my iPhone but that’s another conversation). It then dawned on me that I had not yet replenished my Piano Adventures 3A studio copy. It makes it hard to do a video lesson without the music they are working on!
Then I remembered I updated my policy this year to read:
Students who are ill should not come to piano lessons. I reserve the right to send a student home if they arrive sick. If students are only mildly ill, please contact me and we can do a FaceTime lesson or I can record a short video assignment for them during their regularly schedule lesson time.
I had yet to try FaceTime with a student so we decided to go for it and I’m so glad we did – we all agreed it was a great success! The mom held the phone and was able to maneuver around as I needed. We were able to cover all the material we normally do during her 45-minute lesson. Mom dropped by the studio about 30 minutes later on her way to Walmart to pick up new sight-reading cards, a fresh assignment sheet and a few other things.
I’m headed to beautiful San Antonio Friday morning for the MTNA National Conference. This will be my fourth conference with MTNA. I attended 2010 Albuquerque, 2011 Milwaukee, and 2014 Chicago. Baltimore is up next!
As always, the conference is jam-packed!
Indiana Events
The Hoosier state especially has lots of events to be excited about. Both our state President and President-Elect (me!) will be presenting.
My session The Wild West of Marketing: How Do You Know What Really Works, will be Sunday afternoon at 2:15pm. If you’re attending, I would love to see your face! I have lots of ideas and tons of resources to share with you on how to grow your studio. If you’re unable to come, please feel free to download the handout.
Our state President, Christina Whitlock, NCTM will present her session The Varsity Musician’s Playbook: Commitment-Building Strategies from Team Sports to the Studio Monday at 9:55am. I’m super excited for this session in hearing ways I can continue to build community within my studio! Her handout is available on the MTNA website.
Indiana student, Maya Kilburn will be competing in the Junior Strings competition. Her parents, Ray and Yoko Kilburn will be her collaborators. How special! Dr. Ray Kilburn is also a professor at Ball State University where I did my masters work and is an incredible teacher!
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever and current resident ensemble, Time for Three will be giving the opening recital Saturday at 7:30pm.
Masterclasses with Seymore Bernstein and Bruce Berr (I absolutely love reading his “ad-lib” column in the American Music Teacher MagazineI get with my MTNA membership.
One of the tracks on Pedagogy Saturday is called Music Learning Theory: Exploring How We Learn Music. This track is especially important to me as I will be attending training at the Gordon Institute for Musical Learning for two weeks in August. Robert Duke will be presenting If We Learn Like That, Why Do We Teach Like This? I’m currently working on his bookIntelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction – a book I would highly recommend to ALL music educators whether you’re a band teacher or a private violin instructor.
More than any of that, though, I am simply looking forward to five days amongst colleagues and friends, many of whom I only get to spend with in person a few times a year!
The iconic spiral-bound piano lessons notebook. Is there a piano student in all the world who can be found without one?
One of the first, if not THE first one I had was small (approximately 3″ x 5″) with a red cover and side spiral. I kept it for years but cannot seem to find it in my old memorabilia. Knowing me, I probably threw it away during one of my “reduce and minimize” streaks.
As a teacher, I used notebooks for years, but in my effort to grow and manage the structure of lessons better I started making my own assignment sheets. I distinctly remember this as a period of intense growth and scrutiny of myself as a teacher.
During this time, I was trying to figure out how to be a piano teacher as opposed to a classroom music teacher. Although I had been teaching piano part-time for years, it felt like a whole new world as I learned about true piano pedagogy. I had no idea there was so much that should be incorporated into the lesson!
In this post I’ll share the story of how and why designing assignment sheets became an important part of my growth as a teacher. You’ll also get access to a bundle of more than 20 of these assignment sheets for FREE.
Methods are to Recipes…
I’m an avid cook. I grew up watching and helping mom out in the kitchen. Mom is a good country cook who raised her family through the 80 and 90s – a time of Campbell’s soup and casseroles. Although she had her trusty favorite recipes, we often called her MacGyver in the kitchen as she could make a meal out of nothing.
When I was first married, I used all her recipes, but when the poundage began to add up for both my husband and me, I realized I needed to learn to cook healthier and incorporate flavor through herbs and spices instead of butter and sour cream. Thus, I embarked on the world of cooking shows and an endless recipe obsession.
Stick with me…
When we lived in Australia, one of my favorite shows was Chef at Home, hosted by the Canadian chef from Prince Edward Island, Michael Smith. He advocates using your instincts and what you have at home to create simple, easy, and delicious meals. At the time, I thought, “Yeah, right!” I can follow a recipe and make a fantastic meal, but I don’t have a deep enough understanding of food to come up with something on my own – I’m no MacGyver.
Stick with me…
A few years down the road, one day, it suddenly dawned on me that I was cooking something for dinner with complete confidence—no recipe in front of me! What an intense and rewarding feeling that was!
Do you see where I’m going with this? Method books are recipes. They help us know what musical concept to introduce in what order. However, when we understand pedagogy, how children learn music, the foundations of healthy technique, and more, we understand the flavor of the ingredients and how those ingredients come together to make a pianist. It’s kind of like knowing how the ratio of flour, sugar, butter, and egg makes a cookie as opposed to a cake.
There is a connection to my assignment sheet addiction, I promise…
While I still regularly use and rely on the sound progression and solid pedagogy of several methods, I was freed the day I realized I could teach a student without a method in front of me if I wanted.
Why the Addiction?
My assignment sheet obsession started somewhat as a way for me to write out my own “recipe instructions.” Their role became a way for me to help guide my lessons and remind me of what I needed to incorporate. Each one tells a different story of the goals I had at the time and the things I was focused on as a teacher.
I create new assignment sheets at least once a year, sometimes twice, dare I say sometimes even three times? Often, I have different sheets for my school-age students than I have for my preschools or adults, so I could have three different sheets going on at once, though not always. Summer always proved a good time to try a new sheet before launching it with my full studio in the fall.
Over the past 5-8 years, I’ve created more than 20 different sheets. At first, I was going to pick my favorites to share, but I realized that each one was, at one point, a wonderful, new, and perfect solution to a fresh assignment sheet. Who am I to say which one will work best for you?
There were times in the early days when it almost felt that if I could just make the perfect assignment sheet, I would be a perfect teacher. Bahahaha, yes, we’re all laughing—I know! Looking back now, I realize that is ridiculous.
I’ve learned to let it go, and honestly, the main reason I switch assignment sheets now is that I am completely out of boredom. I get tired of looking at the same sheet day in and day out. Plus, I start thinking, “Gee, maybe if I add a new joke or quote to the sheet each week, I’ll get some of them to fill it out more regularly.” Bahahaha, it’s a laughing matter once again, I know!
There are always students who fill it out diligently and others who don’t bother, no matter what I do. I’ve called them anything from “Weekly Learning Guide” to “Assignment Sheet” to “Assignments for the week of…,” to “Piano Homework” to “Daily Practice Steps” and more. Does the title make a difference or inspire them more? Nope, not one bit.
I have a few students who hate it when I switch in the middle of the year, so I just use the same assignment sheet for them all year. Others find the switch refreshing, as I do, and some don’t care either way. There have been times when I’ve used the same sheet for everyone and times when I’ve used a different sheet for adults, preschoolers, elementary schoolers, and high schoolers.
They’re kept in color-coded hanging files next to the piano, and I just pull a fresh one out and place it in the front of their binder on top of last week’s sheet. Most have been designed in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Publisher, but I’ve also experimented with designing in Canva.
Get these assignment Sheets.
Preview and download the bundle of these sheets on Assignment Sheet Central. Take your pick! You name it, I probably have it.
Do you still have or remember your first notebook? What did it look like? Do you use a spiral notebook for assignments, binders with printable assignment sheets, or are you 100% digital? Share your memories in the comments!
It’s Friday morning of Spring Break here, and because I will be attending the MTNA National Conference in San Antonio the first week of April, I’ve been teaching all week although with a much lighter schedule, which has been refreshing.
Last night I played for a Maundy Thursday service. I’m sad to say it was the first time I’ve ever attended one! Some Christian denominations observe this as an integral part of Holy Week, but growing up in the Church of Christ, we didn’t observe it as we did Good Friday and Easter.
The independent Churches of Christ don’t focus on the liturgy of the church year as do our Lutheran and Catholic brothers and sisters so when I accepted a job playing at the Lutheran Church in our town, it was quite an experience. It took me several months to get used to the layout of the service and to be comfortable with the liturgy (simply knowing when to play in the service).
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After exhausting much of my piano solo music, I purchased What Can I Play on Sunday the Complete Collectionand just in time for Lent! What a great resource this has been and at a Late Intermediate level the repertoire is “meaty” (if you can call repertoire “meaty” that is…), but I can easily sight-read the pieces or master them with just one or two run-throughs. Alfred’s Sacred Collection is amazing. You can purchase this book in smaller volumes but why? Go for the complete set!
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An interesting timeline of what happened on Good Friday.
Some great Easter Brunch ideas. I love brunch, but it never happens for me on Sunday as I play for one church at 9:30 and then attend our home church service with my husband at 11:00. This post stole my heart because she talks about some of my favorite breakfast foods: quiche, french toast, eggs benedict, a good cup of coffee, and of course, bacon (except use THIS recipe – Maple-Candied Bacon it’s my favorite and is to DIE for!). Just make sure you put parchment paper on the bottom of your baking sheet to bake the bacon on, or it will be a nightmare to clean up!
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I just discovered Doug’s Portland Piano Lab blog about six months ago and am enjoying his clear and fresh writing style. A nice short post on the theory of Why Some Chords are More Stable than Others.
Like Leila, I too have toyed with using different terms for my theory lab/computer lab/music lab, whatever you want to call it. It may seem silly but picking the right term is important and so is highlighting the uniqueness of the lab time in your studio in making you stand out!
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I can’t wait to make Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic. Don’t be scared, garlic turns sweet and caramelizes when roasted, so it sounds bad but is oh, so good!
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Looking for some more Easter food ideas? Check out my Pinterest “Spring-Easter”board for lots of eye-candy and inspiration.
Have you ever had moments when you feel like banging your head against the wall during a lesson with a student? Those moments seem to happen to me most often with musical terms and symbols.
I’m not shy to say there are times I’m screaming in my head, “Seriously, how many times have we used this term during lessons? It’s called a ‘staccato!'” While my more experienced and sensible teacher side calmly says“Ssssttttaaaa” trying to draw the word out of them with a verbal cue or gives them multiple choice.
When asked what “Andante” means, the student looks at you sideways, eyes squinting slightly in uncertainty as if they had just eaten a piece of sour candy, hands twisting, and mind whirling. “It means…it means like slow….or well, maybe fast?”
At this moment, my teacher conviction takes over, and I remember:
In January, I applied for a grant for the first time in my teaching career.
MTNA (Music Teacher’s National Association) offers a Teacher Enrichment Grant, which can be awarded for up to $1,000 for professional study, whether private study, college-level coursework, or anything that contributes to the development and enhancement of teaching and/or performing skills.
I’m thrilled to have been awarded the grant. I look forward to two weeks of intensive study in August 2016 at the Gordon Institute for Musical Learning with Marilyn Lowe (author of Music Moves for Piano), held at the Brookline Music School in the Boston area.
If you would like to apply for this grant, applications are generally due at the beginning of May. Visit the grant page for more details.
The MTNA Foundation Fund is committed to keeping America’s musical future alive for future generations through the Grants program. Various grants are available to MTNA members and non-members alike, as well as affiliate organizations.
My baby, my life, my dream, my passion, oh yeah, it’s also my place of work!
I GET to come here every day.
I remember my undergrad professors telling us repeatedly that being in this profession is amazing because we don’t just get to do a job; we get to “do” our art, which happens to be our profession.
