Mingling With Musicians

Saint George is a great place to go in February. There is no snow, you don't even need to wear a coat, and you can drive with your windows rolled down. Depending on the weather and how fast I drive, I can get there in about 3 1/2 hours. I had the opportunity this past weekend to go to Saint George for the Utah Music Education Association conference.

I am not normally one who enjoys going to meetings and conferences. I find most of them boring and inapplicable to me. The good thing about this conference was that the classes were not boring and I found them all applicable. I have attended this annual music educator conference for the last two years.

I did feel that I had a disadvantage among the music educators out there. It seemed as if everyone else played at least one musical instrument and would be the next one most likely to be chosen for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Everyone had such beautiful voices and no one was afraid or timid to sing out. Everyone except me.

Several times at the conference the instructors would hand everyone sheets of music and tell us to start singing. I was reminded of the movie Nacho Libre when Ignacio was "singing at the party" with the musicians. I found myself in sort of the same situation.

I remember being taught how to sight read music while at BYU. I could do it, but it took me a long time to figure out a song and I was never really confident in my sight reading skills. The final for this class was to be able to sight read a song out of our music book. The teacher was going to choose a song randomly and we were supposed to sight read and sing it to him on the spot.

This final made me so nervous that I decided to learn all of the songs in the music book. There were about 40 songs in the book. I figured each of them out by playing them on my recorder. I played each one over and over again until I had all of the tunes memorized. My roommates just loved this! I got an A on the final exam and I felt pretty good about myself.

This weekend I regretted not knowing how to sight read better. There really was no place for lip syncing at the conference either. The good thing was that when I got to my recorder class, I could play along with everyone else. My only worry there was due to my lack of rhythm skills.

We did a lot of modern dance this weekend as well. I was exposed to this while at BYU in some of my education classes. I never really got into modern dance. I always felt a little funny about moving in my own way to however the music "moved" me. Sometimes the music moved me in stupid ways.

This weekend a few of the instructors asked us to "feel" the music and let it "move" us. We were to be in an imaginary bubble and move throughout the room. It was a good thing that my imaginary bubble included my huge boot and crutches and wouldn't let me move off of my chair. I sat and watched how the music "moved" everyone else. I am not sure that I will ever get into modern dance. I don't seem to be able to think up with the right answers when asked how I feel about the music. My answers include "the song was nice, or I liked it." Other people responded with, "the music moved me stand and then to lift my arms straight into the air while I skipped across the room."

I will try to inspire my students to "feel" and "move" to the music... at least in the younger grades. Throughout this weekend, I learned a lot of fun songs and picked up a lot of cute ideas that I want to try with my students. I have been inspired to learn more, and do more.

I did a few other things while I was in Saint George. I went to shopping at the outlet mall and even got a chance to go to the temple. Just before going home, I stopped at In and Out Burger. I drove home listening to all of my new children's music as I ate my cheeseburger and fries. I hope that I get to go next year!