Cairns Music Conference 2008

Session Details

Susie Davies-Splitter & Phil Splitter

Keynote Address - I'm not stressed, I always look like this!
In this highly interactive and entertaining presentation, Phil Splitter with help from his partner Susie Davies-Splitter, puts forward the notion that although we always have stress in our lives, it's how we manage it that can make the difference between thriving and surviving, or worse! Together they will help to uncover the myths of what stress is, why we have it and what we can do about it, in a fun and light-hearted manner that will give you some much needed strategies for coping in the classroom, the staffroom - and beyond! Phil, an accomplished speaker, writer, composer and humourist, and Susie, an experienced educator, composer, jazz pianist and singer, have been composing, recording and working together for more than 15 years. They have also been living together for even longer than this so when it comes to talking about relationships and stress they are experts! Susie and Phil have recorded numerous albums of original exciting and uplifting music for children and adults alike, and provide workshops, artists in schools programs and presentations all around the world, all with the one goal - to help people feel good about themselves. Through a mix of humorous examples, anecdotes and their original and motivating music, as well as some cold hard facts about stress, Phil and Susie will show you how to not only 'unstress in public' but actually enjoy yourselves along the way. 'I'm not stressed, I always look like this!' is a great way to begin a conference or special event; leaving you feeling Energised, Empowered, Enthused, Entertained…and Enspired to tackle the task of teaching, and living with renewed enthusiasm. © Phil Splitter
Take Orff with Jazz - for the middle years	3E
Come and share a repertoire of original and traditional jazz pieces for the classroom based on the Orff Schulwerk approach including swing, blues, Latin American and African material. Explore this material through speech, song, body percussion, dance, movement, instruments and improvisation for 8 - 14 year olds. Featuring Susie and Phil’s new compilation series ‘Take Orff with Jazz’
Take Orff with Singing - practical workshop suitable for primary and secondary	5E
Combining Orff principles that inspire, excite and motivate children to remember, understand and love music, sing your heart out with original and uplifting songs, rounds, gospel, folk, pop, jazz and multi cultural repertoire. Incorporate movement, actions and simple percussion instrument accompaniments and add to your choral and classroom singing repertoire. Discover the joy of music through your voice. Experience freedom and expression through vocal improvisation – songs suitable for all ages.

James Humberstone

Sibelius Groovy Music for the Primary Classroom	1E
In this session one of the creators of Groovy Music introduces the three programs, Shapes, Jungle and City. These programs cover all primary school ages and can extend into middle school. As well as learning how to use the software in both classroom (smartboard) and lab situations, participants will learn how to integrate their own repertoire into Groovy to reinforce concepts learned in performance classes.
Composition as Outcome (Year 9 & 10)	2D
In this session James Humberstone describes how composition is integrated into every part of the award-winning music program at MLC School in Sydney. Units of work and samples of student work are shown, and participants will even have the opportunity to complete a year 10 composition task in Sibelius! Concepts of how to use the Ideas Hub are extended.
Creating Worksheets in Sibelius	3D
Teachers need to create worksheets all the time, as hand-outs in lessons, tests or trial exams or notes for musicological study. While the worksheets themselves might be quite simple the art of laying out the page may not be. This session looks at how to set up any kind of worksheet, how to access over 1700 worksheets ready-made in Sibelius, and how to take your music from Sibelius to Microsoft Word quickly and easily.
The Compositional Process Diary as a Blog	4D
Many state and international curricula now ask students to keep a journal of their progress on a composition as they write it. This is very useful for reflection, and also is sometimes used to prove the creative work is all the student's own. The biggest problem with the old fashioned scrapbook-style diary is that constant marking and assessment is very time-consuming for teachers, and when the diaries are taken in students cannot record any more work. In addition to this, diaries can be lost, printing many versions of scores makes them large and heavy, and usually by the end of a year's project the cover is dropping off and pages falling out. Enter the digital age, where students can blog their progress online at school or at home; teachers can view their work at any time of the day and night, keep completely up to date and even offer comments online. The work is backed up on a server, so it can't be lost, and thus any compositional work is also backed up. This session gives examples of how it can work for you.
Creating Composition Tasks with Sibelius Ideas Hub	5D
A new feature in Sibelius 5, the Ideas Hub, allows students to tap into a large library of pre-made musical ideas in hundreds of different styles and instrumentations. As a teacher this is very useful for getting students started, but what if you'd like to limit the material they can access, and even create your own library of ideas to help students start a composition task? This session looks at how to create your own Sibelius files and Ideas libraries for composition tasks.

Gordon Hughes

Basic percussion techniques for the band and classroom	1A
An informative, hands-on session to enhance general percussion techniques for teaching and effective participation in the classroom and band/ensemble.
Concert band conducting for the developing ensemble	2A
This session will cover practical conducting techniques, rehearsal methods and discuss repertoire selection to enhance outcomes in the developing concert band.

Alyson Locke

Student Engagement - Taking an interest in individual student tastes	1C
It's easy as a teacher to simply teach the things that we were taught and teach those things in much the same way as our music teachers demonstrated to us. It's also easy to grab a standard tutor book and run with it. In my experience however, there are many reasons to look outside of what we have learned as students and take on what it is that young people today are interested in listening to. So perhaps the key here is listening as opposed to teaching. Asking to have a listen to whatever they have coming through their Ipod can provide us with ideas and when it comes to lesson design it can make the job of teaching a whole lot easier.
Traditional Technique in Modern music teaching	3C
It fascinates me that the majority of modern day music teaching is still based around the classics of the past. How many students actually listen to Mozart and the Greats? A select few it would seem? So perhaps the question is how many teachers are prepared to teach traditional techniques through modern repertoire? This is an area of tuition that seems to be developing and when looking at the new Rockschool syllabus put out by Trinity College Music London, it is, in my opinion, a valuable and entirely worthwhile source for teaching and learning that can be examined. Embracing the top 40 charts and adopting traditional methods of technique is not impossible and it almost always ends up producing happy, long standing and well rounded musicians.

Christine Wang

Building Cello Technique from Scratch - highlighting the differences between violin and cello technique	3A
This session will provide great ideas for teaching first year cello. Topics will include practical recruitment advice, approaches to cello pedagogy, equipment, and teaching strategies. The session will benefit current string teachers, and those who would like to start a cello program for their school. Participants will have the opportunity to learn how to teach the cello basics from an established private teacher. Topics will focus on various aspects such as basic pizzicato technique, bow hold, arm movement, left hand shape, intonation, extensions and a step by step system of teaching basic scale finger patterns. * Attendees are welcome to bring instruments to this session.
Cello Technique in a Nutshell for Violin Specialists	4A
This session will aid teachers in facilitating technical improvement by fine tuning the basic skills already in place in their existing cello program. The presenter will examine cello students' common technical problems and offer practical solutions to alleviate them. Topics will include teaching of techniques such as string crossings, bow strokes development, shifting, vibrato, trills, harmonics and sequencing positions. This lecture demonstration will involve an interactive learning experience for teachers providing analysis and solutions for common issues in intermediate and advanced cello technique. * All participants are encouraged to bring an instrument along to the session.

Attila Szlay

Make Band in a Box software part of your Toolkit	1D
For many years, Band in a Box software has been regarded as just a tool for making quick and easy backing tracks for cabaret artists. However, from these humble beginnings way back in the 80's it has been expanded and improved to include a whole host of features that teachers can use to make their lives easier. In this session, you'll find out about adding automatic harmonisation to a melody, audio and MIDI recording, automatically extracting chord sequences from any audio recording, and much more.
Time Saving Recording and Rehearsal Tools - Roland CD2e, Roland MT90U and Edirol R09HR	2B
These new hardware products from Roland / Edirol have really hit the mark for easy audio recording and playback. In this session you will see how easily these products can be applied to your Educational environment/ requirements and settings. Learn how to record direct to CD, overdub and create a recording / rehearsal CD in a few simple steps.
Education Applications with Finale 2008 & Notepad 2008	3B
Resources and budget limitations can be very difficult to overcome in schools. Learn how the power of Finale 2008 combined with Finale NotePad 2008 can help achieve your outcomes in an education setting on a small budget. We will go through creating complex worksheets and templates that your students can work on using the powerful and free Finale NotePad 2008. This is an interactive hands-on session with participants working with a Finale file as a student would.
Loop Based Composition and Multimedia, using Sony Acid and Vegas software	4B
Music for Radio, Film and television is one of the most widely taught units in the music curriculum. Learn how to apply and use these programs to achieve the outcomes of this popular unit of work. Merge audio and visual into one project, create cross fades and professional looking transitions. Have your students engaged in a technologically enriched environment. In this session you will learn how to create music using pre-loaded Acid loops combined with live MIDI and Audio. Learn how to connect your camera and transfer your recorded video projects into your computer and create soundtracks that will bring your vision to life.
Demystifying Computer Based recording with Sonar Home Studio	5B
In this session we will take you through the processes of recording with MIDI and Audio in one environment. You will explore the Educational applications of sequencer based recording and how it can help achieve outcomes set in the curriculum.

Mark Leehy & Kevin O'Mara

Music Room - a classroom music program

Music Room is a developmental classroom music program for primary schools. It is fresh, fun, engaging and easy to use for music specialist and classroom teacher alike.
The program was developed by Rob Fairbairn, Mark Leehy & Kevin O'Mara for Bushfire Press and consists of 7 book & CD packs, covering the primary years (books 1-4 are available, book 5 will be released August/September this year and books 6 & 7 will follow).
Each full colour book contains a year's worth of lesson plans that address the musical elements through listening, singing, moving, playing & creating, as well as Arts Practice, Responding to the Arts, Aesthetics & Context and performance pieces, concerts etc.
All activities are fully illustrated. All charts, proformas, award certificates, music & lyrics required are also in the books and there is provision for tracking and evaluation. The accompanying 4 CD packs contain songs & music, backing tracks and demonstrations … plus videos of some of the songs & activities. There is also web support, with additional activities. And there are CDROMs for each book which contain lyrics, music, charts, arrangements and certificates etc for data projection, enlargement etc.

Bradley Eustace

Think Creative	4C
A workshop presented by Australian composer and arranger Bradley Eustace. The workshop will include unique ideas on exciting ways to teach improvisation and composition plus how to incorporate easy-to-use technology to monitor student practice. No previous experience is necessary as the explanations are complete and ready to use in a teaching studio or classroom scenario. Bradley will also perform some of his pieces that have been included in the AMEB, ANZCA and St. Cecilia examination systems. Attending this workshop will equip participants with insights into the execution of creative learning with the use of the latest keyboard technology.
Contemporary Repertoire to Excite the Learner	5C
A presentation on current contemporary repertoire that is available utilising the most modern Casio piano technology. The workshop will demonstrate how easy it is to use modern music in conjunction with technology to engage the learner to want to continue the life-long process of music performance. The workshop will include performances of commercially available materials, expanding the facilities of the Casio piano to produce fun and amazing effects and how to download music files from the Internet and incorporate these files in teaching. An easy induction to current trends in music learning that blends music and technology with education.

Len Henderson

Direct to CD recording with the Superscope PSD340	1B
Recording rehearsals and performances used to be a painful exercise - but now with the Superscope you can set up in seconds and burn a CD on the spot - without a computer in sight. BYO instrument to this session and see why you don't have to be a recording engineer to produce professional sounding CD recordings for all occasions. Try out hands-on some of the many useful tools built in to the unit. This session is sponsored by Superscope Technologies
Scoring and recording using MIDI Guitar	2C
Back in the 70's I got to play the first production MIDI guitar - it was hard to use and inaccurate in tracking. Finally in 2008 the technology has come of age and I can enter music notation directly into Sibelius and Finale easily from my guitar. In this session we will explore some of the new outcomes made possible when using the guitar as a MIDI input (and performance) device.
Move Over Wiggles	4E
In this interactive session we'll see how kids (and teachers) can get musically creative using the MIDI Pads - a set of 8 floor pads that can trigger musical events (At last, a musical instrument that's made to be stood on!). Plus, have some fun composing with loops using Super Duper Music Looper and Jam Trax software.
SmartMusic - the perfect practice tool for brass, woodwind, strings and vocal	5A
Instrumental music teachers have always faced the same problems. How can I tell what my students are practising between lessons? What can I do to help keep them motivated while practising? The answers to these questions have been put forward by SmartMusic software. In this session we will put the software through its paces and let you evaluate its usefulness to you and your students. Bring along your own instrument and try it for yourself. It also includes a host of extras we'll cover during the session.