Rehearsal strategies for preparing students. Helpful tools for music teachers in working with ensembles in everyday classroom settings.

Rock Canyon High School Band, under the direction of Zachary Fruits will serve as the demonstration group for this session.

Parents are busy and tired of fighting with their kids, students can't remember everything to practice and as a teacher, you know you can't move on until technique is correct. Sometimes technique feels like an uphill battle and can be very discouraging to students and parents. There are so many teaching aids, common and uncommon, to use to help with this exact scenario and this session will focus on what can be used to help the many different technique pitfalls our students succumb to. These teaching aids help the student focus on what's really fun about learning music: The Music!

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

It takes careful nurturing of your viola "seeds" but the rewards of a thriving viola section in all of your ensembles is worth the watering, pruning and reseeding. This session will give directors and teachers strategies for growing a great viola garden, from beginners through high school.

This session will provide you with 25 (or more!) best practices, tips, and hacks that you can use with your beginner and intermediate level bands right away. Topics will include percussion, administration, email, sheet music, planning, classroom culture and more!

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

How can you and your students elevate your performances from accurate to artistic? This session seeks to answer this relevant and vital question by providing alternative strategies that will enhance your listening skills and empower your students to engage with the rehearsal process. We will explore new methods to create your personal aural image and heighten your expectation for student performance. By using examples from a variety of scores, we will examine how to quickly process and study the printed score to make informed decisions that will determine your performance expectation. Most importantly, we will explore ways to energize your rehearsals and empower your students’ listening. It will be our goal to turn ensemble rehearsals into exciting and creative spaces where students take risks, explore the unknown, and become collaborators in the artistic pursuit.

This session explores the concepts of how embouchure compression, air volume, mouth/throat shape, and rolling affect intonation on the flute. Once educators know the four main influences of flute intonation, they can more readily empower their flutists with the tools to adjust their intonation based on each student’s individual tendencies. At the conclusion of this session, attendees will come away with the skills to create a "prescription" for each flute student's intonation while maintaining tonal integrity.

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

• Megan Lanz's Educator Resources

This performance is limited to 75 registered attendees, due to Health & Safety Protocols. Be sure to select "attending" (or click the + symbol) for this session to ensure your spot! Note: Additional seating will be made available on a first-come-first-serve basis after the start time of the session.

This session is sponsored by Music and Arts.

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Handout

• 2022 Jazz Reading Band Roster

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

This session will be a review of the successful 2021 CBA marching season as well as a preview of the 2022 season.  Topics from the December 2021 Marching Affairs meeting will be presented in an effort to inform directors as they begin preparation for 2022 programming.

Are you happy with your school music program? Is it moving toward your vision of success? None of us creates great programs alone. This clinic will give you strategies to communicate and involve your school administration, techniques help grow your program, and pathways to improve school culture in your building.

This session is limited to 75 registered attendees, due to Health & Safety Protocols. Be sure to select "attending" (or click the + symbol) for this session to ensure your spot! Note: Additional seating will be made available on a first-come-first-serve basis after the start time of the session.

Come join us for the Orchestra New Music Reading Session and preview great new music for string orchestra, grades one-five, with diverse genres and styles represented. Attendees are invited to bring and instrument and join along with the orchestra, or sit and listen.

In this session, I will provide further insight into the creation of, as well as intended performance practices for, some of my most popular works.

Orchestra is a performance-based class, so let’s perform well! Come experience specific strategies for transforming the sound of your orchestra in just one rehearsal! This clinic will be filled with reminders for experienced teachers and is a must-see for young string teachers who need rehearsal ideas ready for Monday!

Dr. Stanley Curtis, trumpet professor at Colorado State University, will discuss six different ways, or "axes," that tone can be changed on brass instruments. Curtis will discuss each axis in theory and then show how to change each one. Volunteers from the audience, young and old, who play a brass instrument, will be welcomed. The audience will be encouraged to weigh in on each demonstration. Strategies for optimizing tone in a band class will be discussed.

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

• Handout

This session will dive into programming for our ensembles today, taking into account the challenges we have faced in the past year. It will address literature choices that help with the education and mental health of the student, focusing on quality, inspiring works that will help our programs flourish!

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

• A QR code will be given for any additional information.

This session will introduce practical and efficient approaches to help your clarinet players sound better immediately, regardless of age or skill level. You will gain the tools to provide incoming band students with a successful instrument tryout experience on the clarinet, and the knowledge to set them up for success in their early years of clarinet playing. I will also discuss what judges look and listen for in honor band auditions and demonstrate methods to help students get over the break, have greater overall technical facility, and develop good tone in the altissimo register.

Andrew Holcombe, session presider

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

Experience specific strategies for transforming middle school orchestra rehearsals. This clinic will be filled with reminders for experienced teachers and is a must-see for young string teachers. Walk away with effective ideas you can implement on Monday!

This session will provide content and techniques to better teach the fundamentals of bassoon pedagogy to beginning and intermediate bassoon students, including common pitfalls and misconceptions. The session will address posture and holding the bassoon, embouchure, tone production, air velocity and air pressure, intonation, articulation, acceptable and necessary alternate fingerings, vibrato, reeds, and switching students from other instruments.

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

Completely revolutionize your orchestra in the first ten minutes of each rehearsal! Warm ups are easy to implement, fun, and save rehearsal time! A must-see session for middle school and high school orchestra directors.

Our conducting gestures are the most efficient tools we have to communicate musically with our students. Our gestures are the main influencers of the sound we receive on the podium.

Using the methods of dancer Rudolf Laban and his principles of body movement as a springboard, this session is designed to help educators of all levels think differently about their conducting. This will be a hands-on experiential session that will build upon the Laban method in order to arrive at more effective musical communication.

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Handout

• Slide Deck

Are you a small school band director? Do you have limited resources at your disposal? Are you in need of some percussion help? Then this is the clinic for you. We will discuss everything from basic percussion playing techniques to repair on those many instruments. This crash course will give you tons of ideas on how to utilize your percussion equipment in ways you never thought plus bring life back to that broken cymbal stand hiding in the corner.

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides

Would you be surprised to learn that within one short year, 60% of beginning students are no longer playing? You've worked hard to recruit—and even re-recruit—beginners into your instrumental music program so this year, more than ever before, it’s all about RETAINING them! Actionable steps that can be taken by parents, administrators, and the students themselves will make all the difference whether in an urban, suburban or rural setting. In this on-target session, directors of all experience and expertise levels will learn about the role they can play in these 5 S.M.A.R.T. Steps to RETAINING Our Beginners.

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• Session Materials

Many instrumental music programs turned to flexible/adaptable compositions as a tool to maintain programs while facing the many challenged of the past year associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, many composers responded to the needs of music organizations by composing works for flexible or adaptable instrumentation. While this music is well suited to meet the challenges of the past year’s hardships, there are many opportunities in flexible/adaptable music beyond the circumstances of the pandemic. This session will focus on how instrumental programs can use these works in a wide variety of teaching and performing situations. Dr.’s Townsend and Winter will offer an overview of the history and recent development in flexible music, a variety of applications, misconceptions about the genre, practical applications, and the genre as a tool to bridge gaps of access and equity.

Looking to dive deeper into the content of the session? Check out these supporting materials:

• Session Presentation Slides