David N. Bower
The American Guild of Organists National Committee on The New Organist (CONO): Opportunities for Pianists to Acquire Basic Proficiency on the Pipe Organ

Organists may well be one of the most sought-after musicians in any community from small towns to large cities. Churches, temples and other religious institutions seek the services of trained organists. The resources offered by The Committee on the New Organist (CONO) of The American Guild of Organists can assist pianists and other keyboardists to acquire the basic organ skills necessary to serve as a church organist.

Kristin Cahill
bitKlavier: Reimagining the Piano

Imagine a piano that can generate a crescendo rather than decay following a note, create a malleable metronome pulse and retune itself on the fly. bitKlavier, a digital piano built by Dan Trueman at Princeton University, challenges pianists to learn and listen in innovative ways. Discover how bitKlavier assists with re-imagining traditional repertoire, motivates composing unique pieces not possible on a keyboard and contains tools that expand possibilities in piano technique and practice.

Amy Chaplin
Evernote for the Independent Music Teacher

Learn how Evernote can help manage the vast amount of information, communication, and content that comes to us on a daily basis as Independent Music Teachers and professionals

Barbara Fast
Keep Your Cell Phone Out: Technology that Transforms Traditional Practicing and Teaching

Rather than telling students to put their cell phone away, this session will present easy to use functions within phones to assist teachers in the lesson and to assist students in their practice. Specific assignments, useful in both group teaching and private lessons, will be shared.

Rachel D. Hahn
Do You Validate? Parking National Core Arts Standards in Elementary Piano

Pedagogy expertise and research have continually informed method and repertoire books for elementary piano students. However, these materials can only be effective when confident teachers use them to ensure students’ lifelong music fluency. This session will empower teachers to go beyond the books to validate and evaluate elementary piano lesson objectives through existing National Core Arts Standards for Music Education (NCAS). The NCAS was developed for K-12 music educators, but is readily adaptable to piano.

Ivan Hurd
1-2-Ready-Go!: Applying Group Teaching Skills in the Private Lesson

Want to increase the pacing and effectiveness of your private lessons? Group piano teaching skills can be used to help increase efficiency and engage students in the private studio. Play more and talk less by using verbal cues and musical direction!

Charlene Shelzi Jarvis
Dogfooding - An Essential Staple in Your Studio Diet

What is dogfooding, and why do piano teachers need it? In this session Charlene will explore the crucial process of doing your own assignments. She will offer doable solutions to find and fix problems in our lesson assignments, BEFORE giving them to our students.

Nicolas Lira
All Blues | Blues for All: Composing Contrafacts with Young Improvisers

Composing contrafacts is a great assignment even when students have just begun improvising over simple tunes. Nicolas will outline why and how composing contrafacts is an important tool to continue the development of melodic language and familiarity with chord changes. Nicolas will demonstrate with “All Blues” from Miles Davis’s album Kind of Blue.

McKenzie Pausch
Game-Based Learning: Mundane Tasks Transformed

Game-based learning is teaching that involves fun and lots of laughter. This does not mean it has to take all of your time or break the bank though! We will discuss ways you can be the best teacher for your students, spurring them on to excitement when learning even the most mundane tasks in music. If you are excited and passionate about what and how you are teaching, the students will be also!