Midlife Meditation

Yes, I do need you to use that microphone. The presenter had just been handed a wireless microphone designed to fit around one of her ears. She held it in her hand for a moment, her expression bemused, then set it down on the table. Here we go again,  I thought to myself. Sure enough, with a smile on her face, and using excellent projection technique, the presenter proclaimed, "I won' be needing thi'. You can all hear me, can' you? I've go' a good 'rong voi', don' I?" At least, that's what I heard. Her vowels came through loud and clear. Her sibilants, though--consonants pronounced with the tongue and teeth--were almost inaudible, even with my hearing aids turned up all the way. If she'd been looking right at me--if, rather than being in a large conference room, we were having a face-to-face conversation (hopefully not in a noisy coffee shop, which presents a whole other level of difficulty)--I probably would've been fi...

Mourners in Sutherland Springs, Texas There is no conference like an Orff conference. When music educators who practice the Orff philosophy gather, we celebrate. We play, sing, dance, laugh, and rejoice in the incredible privilege of sharing our love of music with children. For three days last week, that's what we did, and in every way except one, it was exactly the conference we all needed in this Age of Trump. That one exception, though, was huge: this was the first time I've ever known a conference to begin with the host telling us what to do in the event of an active shooter. The announcement could very well have happened anywhere the conference was held. It came, after all, just weeks after the worst mass shooting in American history--and just days after the second-worst shooting. In each case, a white American used assault weapons to slaughter innocent people who had gathered to celebrate. In the first instance, they were attending a music festival in Las V...

Some music teachers teach classes larger than this closing ceremony at the AOSA National Conference. I've been whiny. I'm not going to apologize for it: this is my blog, a diary about my personal struggles and accomplishments. As a reflection of my life, it naturally is filled with both highs and lows. Since 2009, music education has handed me a lot of lows: layoff, unemployment, underemployment, competing with teachers who are younger (and, with less experience and education, less expensive) for the few positions available, and once I finally found that elusive full-time elementary job in a high-poverty district, having to contend with teaching in the gymnasiums of two schools, with ineptly applied "restorative justice" behavior management, and, this year, again losing my classroom, as well as having my instructional time cut by a third. Teaching music in the Portland area has not been a walk in the park. Administrators don't have time for such com...

Estevao Marques performs with Sandra Salcedo and Jackie Rago at the AOSA National Conference in San Diego. One does not go to a professional development conference for a philosophy lesson. And yet, that's the most important thing I brought back from San Diego. This was my third American Orff Schulwerk Association conference. After each of my previous conferences, I came home with a boatload of ideas which I eagerly transformed into lesson plans, some of them so productive that I got entire units. I went to San Diego hoping for more of the same, and I did, indeed, get some ideas that I'll be incorporating into my lesson plans. For once, though, the content was not the big takeaway. Maybe it's that I have had, for the first time in my career, enough time with the students I'm teaching, and enough experience with the methods I use, that finding new ideas for lessons is not a problem. Like most Orff teachers, I create my own curriculum, teaching concepts th...

This was my second year at Orff Central. That’s not what we really call it. Its complete name is the AOSA National Professional Development Conference, but in the nine years I’ve known about Orff Schulwerk, my colleagues have all referred to it simply as conference. It’s an annual event that alternates between sides of the United States. Last year, my first, it was in Denver; this year was Nashville; next year will be San Diego; and the year after that, Atlantic City. Wherever it’s held, the real draw of the conference is the workshops, as veteran Orff practitioners condense their best ideas into 75-minute sessions. For those of us who serve on the boards of our local chapters, these workshops are like previews of what the presenters would have to offer at an all-day event. Last year I came away with just one name of a presenter I’d like to come to Portland. This year, there were two. Even the less successful workshops provide useful ideas, and I’m coming back to Portland ...

You need to hear this guy play. Unfortunately, that means taking a trip to Nashville. I’m not in a honky tonk tonight. I’m in Nashville for a music educators conference, meeting at the downtown convention center just a block from Broadway and its row of live music venues, but the live music I’m hearing right now is several blocks away from that incubator of country talent. Rather, I took the advice of the concierge at the hotel by the convention center and made my way to the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar, and as I write this, I’m soaking up some tasty blues. So it’s not the kind of music one comes to Nashville to hear, but it’s still live, and it’s several notches better than an establishment this seedy could hope to attract in most other American cities. The surprising thing, though, is not that I’m hearing blues tonight; it’s that I had to skip out on the conference schedule to hear it. In fact, as beautiful and tuneful as this city is, the only reason I’m see...