05/18/12

REMINDER: Midwest LiveBlog Starts Today

Just a quick reminder that this morning starts our live coverage of the 2010 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic from McCormick Place in Chicago, IL! Stay tuned for the latest news and updates from the conference by following @Zweibz7 and @MusicEdMajor on Twitter, and follow along with our LiveBlog from conference sessions by visiting the Midwest Clinic 2010 Landing Page here at MusicEdMajor.net!

Also, don’t forget about the Midwest 2010 Tweetup that’s happening on Thursday night at the Mx Lounge in the Hyatt McCormick Place! It’s “Martini Mayhem” on special this week during the Tweetup, so feel free to come by, have a few drinks, and enjoy the company of some other Twittering Music Educators!

If you’re going to the conference and would like to meet up, feel free to leave a comment here on the blog, in the Live-Blog interface, or by sending a tweet to @Zweibz7 or @MusicEdMajor!

Midwest Clinic Live-Blog and Tweetup

I am very pleased to announce that for the second year in a row, MusicEdMajor.net will be providing live coverage from the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic next week in Chicago! This initiative is one I undertook for the first time last year at Music Education Week, and I have since liveblogged four conferences: Midwest 2009, FMEA 2010, Music Ed Week 2010, and METOS 2010. I look forward to providing up-to-the-minute news and updates from the conference for those of you who will be unable to attend. Additionally, I am excited to announce that the Midwest Clinic will be having its’ first tweetup this year! Here are the details on both the Live-Blog and the Tweetup: [Read more...]

Happy Birthday!

Happy BirthdayWhile on a Skype Call with my dynamic and enthusiastic co-editor Andy Ritenour, I noticed that today is a very special day in MusicEdMajor.net’s life. Today marks MusiscEdMajor.net’s first birthday! That’s right, it was one year ago today that I launched the site and welcomed everyone with the first post. Back then, I was scrambling to get things in order for my live-blog of MENC’s Music Education Week. Now? Well, things aren’t much different now, and we’re still getting ready to cover Music Ed Week (stay tuned for more info soon!). Over the course of the year, however, we’ve had some great milestones: [Read more...]

The “Conference Effect”

Flickr Photo by Gaelic ArtsThis is a re-post of an article I wrote on my personal website a while ago. In light of some recent discussions I’ve had, I felt it had merit here. Stay tuned for a few other posts from the andyzweibel.com archives in the coming weeks!

I just recently was talking to a close friend, who is a graduate student in the Frost School of Music at UM, pursuing a DMA in Instrumental Conducting. She is also a graduate assistant with the marching band, and a TA for the Frost Symphonic Winds and Wind Ensemble. As a future band director, she recently went to the College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA) convention in Austin, Texas. She came back with a new found inspiration, and attributed it to the experiences she had at CBDNA, which made me think abut my experiences after returning from conferences. I’ve realized that what my friend is experiencing is similar to what we all tend to experience after an event such as CBDNA-something I have come to call “the conference effect.”

On the most basic level, “the conference effect” is the sense of inspiration and excitement for the profession that many people (in this case music educators) tend to feel after spending a day/weekend/week immersing themselves in what they love at a conference. I know the feeling myself, and I know that many of the music educators reading this know it as well. When you return from a conference, you feel revitalized-almost like a new person, and ready to take on whatever challenges may approach you. In my case as a student, conferences are the times when I find myself wishing I could actually be out in the field, teaching, right away. However you react specifically, this heightened level of inspiration motivates us all to be our best in the days and weeks following the conference.

It is important, though, to keep in mind the effect that timing has on this inspiration. I have only ever been to three different music education conferences: the Midwest clinic in Chicago in mid-December, the FMEA conference in Tampa in early-January, and MENC’s Music Education Week in June. Midwest, while extremely enjoyable, comes just at the end of the semester and the beginning of the holidays, so when the conference is over, I tend to find myself extremely inspired, but with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs for the rest of December. Music Ed Week, while also enjoyable, runs into the same problem, as it takes place during the summer holiday. FMEA, on the other hand, occurs just before the spring semester begins, and I find myself beginning each spring semester with a renewed excitement for what I am doing, in part because of the lasting effects of this inspiration I get from the conference. This has been even more obvious the past two Januaries, when I had the opportunity to spend the week in between FMEA and the beginning of classes working with a high school band in LaBelle, FL at a school where a close friend (and recent UM alum) teaches. By the time the conference was over and my week of working in a real-life situation was through, I was prepared to do whatever it took to get myself teaching right away.

I’m sure any person who has been to a conference in their field has had experiences like mine, where they have felt a renewed excitement for their profession in the days and weeks following the conference. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it’s likely that we are more productive in this period than we are in any other, as a result of this excitement. So the real question is-how do we artificially create this “conference effect,” and the productivity that comes with it, when there is not a conference to inspire us? If we can somehow trigger this motivation without actually going to a conference, we can increase the caliber of the work we do throughout the entire year, instead of just for a few select weeks after conferences.

Let’s examine what types of activities take place at these conferences. For music education, specifically, we can narrow it into three main activities: learning, networking, and concert-going. Generally, any music education conference will include each of these three aspects. Attendees go to sessions where they learn about a specific subject, they speak to other professionals in their field and network with them, and they attend concerts put on by performing ensembles over the course of the conference.

So, how can we recreate each of these in our daily lives to artificially create the “concert effect”?

  1. Learning-Now that the Internet has improved the way we share information, there have been tons of blogs set up in which educators share their thoughts and ideas on the field. By subscribing to these blogs and reading the new entries, we can stay informed and continue to learn even when we’re not at a conference. For a great place to start looking for music education blogs to subscribe to, check out the 100 ME Bloggers, organized by Dr. Joseph Pisano.
  2. Networking-Networking can be difficult when you’re the only music teacher in your school, but the advent of Web 2.0 technologies and Social Networking tools have changed that. Dr. Pisano has a great list of music educators to follow on Twitter, and if you’re interested in more discussion, consider participating in our weekly #MusEdChat on Monday nights!
  3. Attending Concerts-There’s really not a great techie-answer to this one, but my only suggestion is: go see concerts! Whether it’s a school band in your area, the local community band, or the symphony orchestra in your closest city, continue to expose yourself to music performances, and listen to them critically!

Hopefully these tips will help everyone be able to re-create “the conference effect” in their every day lives. Do you have an experience with this effect? Do you have a great story from a conference you’ve been to? Thoughts on my ideas? Leave a comment!

Session Recap: Empowering Students for Productive Practice

This is a recap of a session that was presented at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago, IL on December 17, 2009. The session was live-blogged on MusicEdMajor.net, and you can view a replay of the live-blog by visiting the Midwest landing page.

As music education students, we spend a large number of hours of our life practicing our instruments. However, we also recognize that this will likely not be the case for our future students, may of whom will not be planning on pursuing music as a career. This, however, does not mean that their practice habits should be ignored; these students are just as capable of performing great music as those who want to pursue music as a career. This presentation focused on strategies for increasing the productivity of student practice time. [Read more...]

REMINDER: Updates From Midwest

Hey all, don’t forget that I’ll be updating from the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic tomorrow and Friday as often as I can! Unfortunately, Midwest doesn’t offer wireless internet in all areas of McCormick Place, so I may not be able to update as often as I want, but I’ll do my best.

You can find the live-stream at the special Midwest landing page that I created here on the site. If you have any comments/questions, feel free to post them, as well; I’ll do my best to bring you answers!

Conference Season

It’s been quiet here at MusicEdMajor.net since the school year got into full-swing! I have a good amount of posts that I would love to write, and am just struggling to find the time to get them up! However, that does not mean that this website is going to turn out to be a flop; there’s plenty left to talk about, and what better a time/place to start than in everyone’s favorite season, conference season!

That’s right, with a few major Music Educator’s conferences coming up in the next month or so, I am back to bring you all the information I possibly can (which may not be much, depending on my ability to get a wireless signal in the conference centers!). I will be attending the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic from December 17th through the 19th in Chicago, and the Florida Music Educators’ Association (FMEA) conference from January 6th-9th in Tampa. Both of these events look to be great experiences, and I look forward to sharing the wealth of information I come across with all of you!

I have created special landing pages here on the website for Midwest and FMEA, where I will have a live-blog going. For now, the live-blogs are both open and live, and are pulling in data from the Twitter hashtags associated with the events. Comments are moderated, but I’ll check back frequently to publish anything you have to add, and I will be checking by the minute once the events begin!

Additinally, stay tuned for updates on the collegiate component of MENC’s Anaheim Conference in March; more details on this should be available in the near future!

It’s an exciting time of year! Will you be attending Midwest or FMEA? Leave a comment in this post or in the appropriate live-blog, and we can organize a meet-up!

Front Page Photo Credit: JoshC