Composing Within Your Studio - Part 2

 We were so excited to get "Part 2" of this great presentation by Denise Frost.  As one of our members put it so well, "I've never had composing taught so easily...that I'm actually now teaching composing in my studio."  (See video at the bottom)

This sentiment echos loud and clear.  We have been given EASY tool to use to help our students explore the world of creating their compositions.

Some great suggestions included:

Open Triad - use the middle note of the LH chord, and put it an octave higher in the RH melody.

Question & Answer:  Use Mary Had A Little Lamb as an easy example of this.

Start with a chord progression, using the "pie" of 6 chords.  

In this case:

C  F   G  and Am  Dm  and Em.   

These chords are great "friends" and work well together.  Pick 4 to work with.  

*  You can use any adjacent wedges of the pie to create a composition in any key.

LH Accompaniment Ideas:

Add a 5th interval note

"Enya" style with LH 1-5-8-10-13  or any combination of these

Use cadences - I  IV - V - V7 etc

Make up lyrics to add a rhythm.  We came up with:

"Such a beau-ti-ful warm spring-day.

I like chew-ing bub-ble-gum in the hay."

Don't forget that repeating patterns can be very nice.

THANK YOU, DENISE, for a delightful presentation!

Learning from the Great Masters of the World

 Wow!!  What an inspiring and interesting zoom meeting we had today.  Paula Manwaring, UMTA President was our guest presenter and certainly gave us our "money's worth!"  If you missed the meeting, or would like to hear it again, please click the link below:

The book, "The Ignorant Maestro" by Itah Talgam was a great resource and has invaluable information.  Paula shared many excellent quotes and information about several great maestros, including Muti, Tuscanini, Strauss, Karajans, Kleiber and Bernstein.  It was extremely interesting to hear about these conductors and their different focuses...and how that can translate into our teaching.

So worth our investment of time to be at this meeting.  Hope to see everyone on March 2nd (date changed to the first Tuesday in March due to Spring Break!)  Denise Frost will be presenting Part 2 of  Composing in Your Studio.

COMPOSING WITHIN YOUR STUDIO

 Denise Frost, UMTA President-Elect, presented an inspiring workshop zoom meeting for our January chapter meeting.  Zoom has made it possible for more of our members to attend and it was wonderful to see so many there.

There were three handouts, but the "Ideas that Initiate" was covered the most.  There were excellent ideas and demonstrations about how to implement these composing ideas with our students.  It made "composing" seem so much easier to implement.  Everyone seemed to appreciate what they heard today!

If you need to contact Denise, her email is:  frostbyte@frontiernet.net

Her phone is:  four-three-five 459-one-six-seven-nine.

IDEAS THAT INITIATE

1. Person, Place, or Thing

2. Image, Painting, Sculpture

3. Write a little rhyme, choose a melody from a 5 finger pattern

4. Try rolling a dice (Mozart) or spelling your name (or your dog's name!)

(Use the Secret Alphabet Code!) 1 2 3 4 5 6

a b c d e f

g h i j k l

m n o p q r

s t u v w x

y z

1-do, 2-re, 3-mi, 4-fa, 5-so, 6-la

Example: “Patrice” would be 5 1 2 6 3 5

so do re la mi so

In the key of C Major: G C D A E G

5. Comic Strip, Cartoon, Story, TV Show, Super Hero, Video Game

6. Color, Weather, or Animal

7. A Feeling: Scared, Reverent, Confident, Lonely, Excited, Angry

8. Mode of Transportation: Train, Horse & Buggy, Car, Jet, Pirate Ship

9. Poem

10. Telephone number, Address (435 459 1679)

11. Familiar song with a different melody or rhythm

12. Create a rhythm first—use fruit or candy bar names, then add melody

13. Imitate sounds: Waterfall, Lightning, Thunder, Wind, Birds, Chimes

14. A season or holiday: Christmas, Spring, Halloween, Autumn, July 4th

15. An idea from another piece of music

16. A pattern, repeated or sequenced

17. A chord progression (Jon Schmidt style)

30 great chord progressions free @ timtopham.com/chords

18. 12 Bar Blues / “Andalusian” Chord Progression (Am, G, F, E)

19. How a conversation or argument might sound

20. Fiddle around!!! Have a happy accident!

21. EXPERIMENT EVERY DAY. RECORD EVERY TIME.

“In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune

that nobody else has thought of.” --Robert Schumann

December 2020's Zoom "Party"

 We normally have a Christmas gathering in December for UMTA where we share ideas and treats.  This year wasn't any different other than the way things were "delivered."

A few days before our meeting, Karen Baker, Chapter President, made up several batches of THE BEST molasses (ginger snap?) cookies and hand-delivered a darling Christmas box to each member of our chapter.  It was very sweet in more ways than one!!

On Tuesday we met via Zoom and enjoyed meeting new members and connecting with everyone!

 December 2020 Chapter Meeting Recording  (sorry I forgot to start the recording the first ten minutes!!)

We shared ideas gleaned from the 2020 Conference presentations, as well as other teaching tips.  It was a great time connecting with colleagues in spite of pandemic restraints!!

We hope everyone has a most wonderful and enjoyable Christmas!!  Let's be sure to count our blessings much more than we recount our problems!!  

We look forward to seeing everyone in January for our next chapter meeting.  Denice Frost, UMTA President-Elect will be presenting on Composing Within Your Studio.  She has a lot of experience, and great ideas to share!  January 12th at noon via Zoom.  Hope to see you then!!

Some of the great Conference Presentations that were mentioned included:

 Dr. Nancy Allred's Teaching Cross-Rhythms

Dr. Kevin Olson's Hymns and Practical Keyboard Skills

EL Lancaster's Creative Ways of Devloping Skills for a Lifetime

Dr. Christie Sowby's The Art of Asking Questions for Positive Motivation 

Emily Jorgenson's Pianist Without Fingertips

* * * * *

Here are some additional links to things mentioned in our meeting:

Motivation by Daniel Pink

Drive by Daniel Pink

Releasing the Music in Your Head by Tod Machover

Get Better Academically wsnapsith Music!

Last, but not least, here is the Cookie Recipe

Mrs. Thayer's (Karen's piano teacher from years ago!) Christmas Recital Gingersnaps

3/4 C salad oil 

1 C sugar

Creamed together.

Mix in:

1 egg

1 T cinnamon

3/4 tsp cloves

2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

4 T molasses

Stir in:

2 C flour

Chill the dough then form in small balls. Dip in sugar.  Place on greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 7-8 minutes.

Yield: 4 dozen

UMTA HISTORIC ONLINE CONFERENCE

The UMTA State Conference was held online this year, due to continued problems with the pandemic.  

However, there are some silver-linings to even Covid-19!  The conference is available for the next seven months!!  You can "rewind" something you missed, or want to write down!!  You can choose the time of day you "attend" a presentation!!

WATCH UMTA CONFERENCE HERE!!

You'll be glad you did!!

BRAIN BOOSTERS: Off the Bench Activities

What a great Zoom meeting we had today.  There was only one "down side" ~~ I forgot to hit the record button!!

It was wonderful to "see" so many of our chapter there!!  One of the great things about Covid19 is it has taught us the beauty of using technology to reach more of our chapter.  Many can't attend in person due to teaching in other places, but the Zoom option helps mitigate that problem.  We will definitely keep "Zooming" our meetings, even when we are able to be back in person!!

A few of the things Danielle Dallas, our fabulous presenter, touched on were:

• Brain activity is benefitted when we move.
• When we couple activity with music, it is even more beneficial
• These activities can be done in very short bursts of time and can be accomplished with the student or the student following directions
• Jumping jacks are great!  But so are "speed skater" movements, cross kicks and touching knees or toes...anything that gets the body moving!
• The tennis ball review game!!  The student bounces a tennis ball and catches it.  For each bounce, he says the next note of the scale (or chord, or arpeggio, etc.)  There's movement involved with music.  Add another element by putting some music on. 

Here is the link to the video Danielle talked about.  It's great!!

Move to Learn

Winning Rhythms is a free pdf or word.doc download that Danielle also recommended.

Lastly, we don't have a chapter meeting in November due to our UMTA Conference that is being held online this year due to Covid19.  It is FREE TO ALL, but you do need to register.  The deadline for registration is October 24th, 2020 at midnight.  Register now to avoid forgetting!!  There are a few live Zoom meeting on both Friday, November 6 and Saturday November 7th.  You'll want to check those out after November 5th on the UMTA website when the conference links go "live."   UMTA website 

Register for UMTA Conference

Utilizing Zoom in Group Classes

 We had a wonderful presentation from Laurisa Cope, NCTM!!

Utilizing Zoom in Group Classes

We had some great discussion on ways we have had to change due to the pandemic and the need to turn to online teaching and lessons; we also discussed things we have learned, and even some of the good things that have come about because of the "forced" learning curve.

Laurisa shared her slide show with us, so if you'd like to download it and utilize some of the tools there, you can.  This is a great resource!  Thank you, Laurisa!!  Powerpoint Presentation

**  Reminders:  Our next chapter presentation will be October 13th at noon, also via Zoom.  Danielle Dallas will present on Brain Boosters: Off the Bench Activities to Maximize Musical Learning.  The link will be sent out the day before.

       Caroline Jennings is our chapter's AIM chairman and ALSO the Southern Region Chair.  As such, she is helping work through more edits to the AIM program, and they are also creating training videos that will help us with our AIM program and teaching our students!  Exciting changes!!

COVID 19 and UMTA Chapter Meetings

 The pandemic that reared its ugly head mid-March was gracious enough to wait until after the wonderfully successful Southern Utah Piano Pedagogy Conference held at Dixie State University under the leadership of Dr. Nancy Allred (DSU) and Dr. Christian Bohnenstengel (SUU).

Since that time, our chapter meetings were curtailed.  We have learned a lot about Zoom meetings and the many benefits of technology.  Therefore, our first few meetings beginning with September 2020 will be held via Zoom.  Details will be coming later via email.  We all look forward to getting back to normal and enjoying the associations with have with our chapter!

Taking a snippet from the UMTA website, below are listed the meetings that will be held in September and October.

We hope you'll plan to join us from the comfort of wherever you may be!

Additional calendar information can always be found at: https://utahmta.org/cgi-bin/umta.cgi?action=chap_calendar&chp_code=STG