Music Education = Amy's Heaven!

You may think I'm crazy, but this video still embodies the topic of this post. So, enjoy! =)

So this past weekend I was lucky enough to attend the MENC Northwest conference. For those of you that don't speak musical jargon, MENC stands for "Music Educators National Conference," and each region hosts an annual conference. Last year our conference was about 3 hours away, but this year we were lucky to have it in Bellevue, WA...only about 45 min. away. So the troops and I commuted both days rather than paying for a hotel room! Score on money saved!

Essentially, this conference is like putting kids in a candy shop...but really the kids are music educators. And the candy shop is...well...I don't really have a simile for that one. Just got with it.

Each day there are more performances and workshops than you know what to do with, and so many choices often makes it VERY difficult to choose which presentation you want to go to! Last year was rather simple for me as I was really only interested in topics related to high school choir, but now that I'm pretty gung-ho about elementary education, I found myself torn between many different topics!

The presentations I chose to attend were as follows:

Friday

- "Man Time" : Women Conducting Male Choirs

- Vocal Development in the Early Years 

(presented by my new idol...Dr. John Feierabend. More on him later)

- Job Search and Interview Skills (geared toward all of the college students there)

- General Session (for everyone) : Performances by Male Ensemble Northwest, The Navy Band Brass Choir, and a keynote address by John Feierabend.

- Movement Development in the Early Years (also Feierabend)

Saturday

- 12 Steps to Music Literacy Part 1 (Feierabend)

- 12 Steps to Music Literacy Part 2 (Feierabend...again! See a trend here?)

- Choral Offerings for High School (I got at least $30 bucks worth of free music!)

- General Music Resources (I got free tools to use for elementary music)

- Trinidadian Music for General Music Classrooms

So, I learned a LOT. But I learned the most from that amazing man I mentioned quite a few times...Dr. John Feierabend. He presented such AMAZING material that blew me out of the water. He impressed me so much that I'm seriously looking at how I can study with him for a Masters of Music Education later in my career. He teaches at The Hartt School at the University of Hartford, so it's a very prestigious university. I'll have to really concentrate and apply myself fully to try and compete for acceptance! Studying with him would mean the WORLD to me because I would learn SO SO much. More than I could possibly imagine! (Also, during his first session, he demonstrated awesome teaching methods through the song 'The Green Grass Grows All Around,' hence the video/song I posted!)

Once we finished the conference on Friday, our group went out to a delicious dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. See?

Laura and I split their newest cheesecake, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Cake Cheesecake. It was TO DIE FOR! YUMMMMM!

In an effort to learn more about teaching through hands-on experience and build my resume, I'm looking high and low for potential music education jobs for the summer. All I want is to be able to teach little kids some camp songs or something along those lines --- is that too much to ask? Honestly! But I'm looking all over in the hopes that something will work out with my needs this summer (a.k.a. my brother's wedding in July and wanting to be back in Tacoma by August...that is, if I'm not working in Tacoma). I have an appointment with our Career and Employment Services on Thursday to have them edit my resume, cover letter, and to help me look for jobs in general! I hope it proves to be helpful! =)