My presentation

Yay! I finished my two-week long workshop of Music Learning Theory! This is a huge accomplishment for me, so I'm going to relish it.

Yesterday, I had to do a 15-minute presentation. I had to teach 4 different classroom activities that emphasized different tonalities and rhythms. I chose to do a song in Lydian (that focused on rhythm), a song in harmonic minor (which emphasized the resting tone, or tonic), a song in Mixolydian (again, the rhythm), and a major song in 7/8. Sweet!

I was so nervous about it, because this whole form of teaching was completely new to me. I've never worked in depth with MLT - I got only a passing glance at it during college - but this was complete immersion in the theory and practice.

I chose to go first, because that way, I get it done and over with. Only problem - I was going before lunch, which meant that Ed Gordon, the CREATOR of this whole theory, was watching! (Well, he would say that he wasn't the creator - he's just the guy who did the research on how children learn music and published it. But it's his baby, it's his thing. We wouldn't have it without him. How many people have done research on 10,000 kids???)

So I had to do my whole presentation with Ed Gordon watching. Oh man, that made it worse! But I got through it all, even though I sang one of the songs wrong (Angela helped me out, thanks!, and completely lost the Mixolydian tonality. And at the end of it, Ed Gordon - the CREATOR - walked over to me, gave me a hug, cradled my face in his hands, and told me that it was wonderful teaching, that I had done a great job. It brought tears to my eyes!

Later on, my professor told me that he really loved it and was surprised that I had never done anything like this before. Yay!

It feels good to be doing what God wants me to be doing. And because it's what God wants me to do, I can do it well. I know I sound like I'm bragging in here, but I'm really proud of my accomplishments these two weeks. As my friends Ali and Angela said, I stretched myself, and it went well.

Yay!!!

(By the way, for this picture, Ed "charged" me two kisses on the cheek. I gave it to him, because it was either that, or $10. Whatever!)