Ah-Hah Moments

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to the local Quad City Mother of Twins group.  One of the moms brings her boys to my early childhood music classes offered through our local community college. When she asked me to speak, I was thrilled.  It was a great way to start out my new year!

 It was such a beautiful, sunny, winter day to go set up at the Deere Wiman Center in Moline, IL.

I always get nervous before any speaking engagement and worry I won't have enough to talk about.  Then I start setting up and realize, I could speak for days lol.  So, I really need to start working on my small presentations...the 1 hour and 1 1/2 hour presentations.  The 3 hour and 6 hour presentations are no problem for me but breaking my programs down in small segments is something necessary since there aren't as many all day conferences available.

Getting up in front of anyone freaks most out. Speaking for that long to a group might give them anxiety attacks at the mere thought.  I remember when I was in high school, I was terrified of speech class!  But that all changed when I decided in my early 20's to face that fear and walked into a local community theater and auditioned for the lead role in the upcoming play.  I got the part and realized I was about to act in front of live audiences. I loved it! Mainly because the feedback was immediate.

 

Being a keynote, capstone, or guest speaker is basically the same thing. What a wonderful feeling to look out and see the collective Ah-Hah light bulb go off, heads nodding yes in unison, and smiles stretching across faces.  It's when I see this, I know that I'm connecting with people... teaching... inspiring...and guess who benefits from all that warm & fuzzy stuff?  The children in our lives.  Yep.  That's incentive enough for me to continue promoting music in early childhood programs.

I mean really...how can you not be completely mesmerized by a thunder tube!

 

or love to play with a parachute :)

 

What a wonderful way to teach PITCH!

 

So thank you again, ladies for a fun evening.  I'm so glad you smiled, laughed, took something away with you that will help you bring music into your kid's lives and make their spirits sing.  Afterall, "The whole idea of music, from the beginning of time, was for people to be happy."

 --Robert Plant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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New Beginnings

Happy New Year Everyone!  This first day of January 2014, I have found myself curled up in front of the fire with my laptop, tablets, and notebook beside me.  I have renewed my yearly conviction to bring rich musical experiences to the lives of children and adults around me...a commitment I hope you all share along with me.  I have decided to take the plunge this year and put everything on the line to begin a new business venture.  Well, not new, exactly, but more of a growing presence in the immediate community once again.  I will take my educator workshops (which have been mostly regional) and I will branch out...not just in the immediate tri-state area, but beyond with goals of speaking at national conferences within the next year as well as booking several keynote engagements.  I need to build my piano studio once more seeing as how many of the kids have become busy with high school and other extra curricular activities.  I also need to find a location to hold my group classes in for those that are looking for Saturday availabilities.  For these reasons and many others, this blog was born out of necessity.

As I sit working on my upcoming semester's early music education curriculum, I am excited to put into action a handful or a lot of great ideas I've found on Pinterest.  What a wonderful resource for any educator! I joined this site about a year ago and have been blown away with everything from Kodaly and Orff to outdoor music environments.  I can't help leaving the site completely inspired. I have found that I look forward to the few quiet, late night moments after the hustle and bustle of the day has been put to bed.  I love hunting for useful extensions I may be able to use for the upcoming week's classes. My pin board alone boasts over 1350 pins and grows daily.  However, what once brought me such pleasure is now bringing me a modicum of anxiety knowing that, at some point, I really should subcategorize in order to find things I go back to look for once again.  Lol. 

I hope this new year's fresh start will give all of you a renewed outlook to re-energize your curriculums and dust them off as well.  There are some truly creative, out-of-the-box, ideas floating around.  There are new takes on old ideas out there as well.  Open yourself up to learning new ways of doing things.  We all know that each child learns differently and we need to tap into each child's learning style.  That requires us to become the student.  In order to truly teach, we must be open to learning ourselves.  Raise the bar once again.  It's a clean slate...starting today.  :)