Fabulous flute warmups from Jen Cluff, free downloads!
9 essential skills kids should learn
Highlights from this week’s ArtsJournal:
- 31 categories Grammy organizers cut
- Pittsburgh symphony looks for concerto soloist via YouTube
- Why is it so hard for new musical instruments to catch on?
- Reinventing classical music, in pubs
- Benjamin Zander on his firing from NEC
- Meryl Streep on her opera training
The latest from Astrid Baumgardner, Why You Need to Plan and and Why The Result Isn’t Important!
And the latest from the Savvy Musician, the mistake that topples careers and industries
Seth Godin being clever on Spouting and Scouting (talking about what we care about and looking at what others are talking about)
From Angela Beeching’s Monday Bytes: check out author Brad Meltzer and this inspirational 16 minute video and consider writing your own obituary
Want to be more creative? Be nice to yourself
So you think you know? More on Alexander Technique at Cello Bello
Some upcoming professional development opportunities:
- Global Learning Studio Summer Professional Development Workshop at the American School in London, June 18-22
- Americans for the Arts 2012 Annual Convention, June 8-10 in San Antonio, TX, earlybird reg. is Fri, April 27
- CMS Film-Music Pedagogy Institute, May 14-17, 2012, The University of Miami, Frost School of Music
- Your Body is Your Strad: Feldenkrais for Musicians (In conjunction with the 2012 National Summer Cello Institute), June 1-16, 2012, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Music
- Road of Creativity’s Music Entrepreneurship Retreat, June 3-9, 2012, University of South Carolina School of Music
Columbia, South Carolina - Summerflute, What Every Flutist Needs to Know About the Body, the Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method®, June 25-29, 2012, Columbus, Georgia
Quote of the week, from Improv Insights:
Removing the musician’s eyes from the process of making music can produce truly astonishing results. You can use a blindfold, turn off the lights, play by candlelight, or ask everyone to close their eyes. Whichever method you use, you will hear a dramatic increase in the group’s musicianship almost immediately. Members of the ensemble will listen more carefully and be more aware of how they use their bodies to produce sound.
Learning by ear, rather than by eye, utilizes the brain in a completely different manner: one that is more consistent with the mental hierarchy we need to be truly great musicians.
–Julie Lyonn Lieberman, The Creative Band & Orchestra
And, speaking of learning by ear…Read about an innovative project with Grade 7 beginning band students at Southridge School in British Columbia (Canada). They worked collaboratively in groups, learned songs by ear and arranged them for performances, based on Musical Futures out of the UK.
Students at Southridge School in British Columbia
Images from
http://www.pianomother.com/assets/images/17-Music-by-ear-PG17-978×1024.jpg
Innovative Ideas in Performance and Pedagogy (IPAP) 
