Over the last couple of years of presenting to teachers a handful of times I’ve realized that I absolutely love presenting Workshops and Professional Development to other music teachers. Most recently, I had a ton of fun presenting on live and from source sound at the PEIMEA Professional Learning Day earlier this month. I am by no means an expert on sound tech but I feel like I was able to present it such a way as to help those who are completely flabbergasted by sound, to begin to understand it. For someone used to Elementary teaching It is something different presenting in front of people who, at the very least, seem like they’re interested in what you are talking about. It is so refreshing and really brings the joy back into teaching. Also, like teaching kids, there were a wide range of abilities, some were more experienced than I was, while others had zero experience with it. So, I began with how to turn everything on and advanced from there and if there were questions that I could not answer, I put it to those in the room to try and answer it for me. There are a few tweaks I would make for next time to make it more interactive and hands-on but I was very happy with how it went. If you missed it, I have the handout in PDF format for you to download at your leisure. It contains the basics for successful sound, the difference between powered and unpowered mixers, and things I wish I knew when I was learning how to do my own sound.
You may have noticed a new Workshops page on the site. I want to do more workshops like these with more music teachers from around North America. If you are interested in having me present at your next Professional Learning Day or conference on any of the topics on that page please contact me. Topics are:
Rock Bands in the Elementary School Setting (Part 1 and 2)
Basics of Live and From Source Sound
Creativity in the Music Classroom
Song Writing for Performance
The By-Ear-Learning Process
Basics of Playing Guitar
Check the Workshops page for more info!