music geeks, unite!

Today, I got to totally embrace my inner music nerd. CMEA (Colorado Music Educators Assoc.) conference is this weekend, and today my friends and I got to be music geeks all day.

Really, this is a good thing.

Usually, on a day to day basis, I am a loner. No, not in the social sense (I can HEAR my dad laughing). But in my school, every day, there is no one who truly understands what I do. I am the only one of me. This is opposed to the High School music department, where there is a High School Choir director, 2 Junior High Choir directors, as well as 3 people in the band department.

The same is true for other teachers at my school, like the art teacher. She is the only one of her, and there's no one else there who knows what she is doing on a day-to-day basis.

Usually this is not a big deal, and I don't think about it much. But today, in a room full of hundereds of people who do the exact same thing I do, and understand exactly what I'm talking about when I say I'm going to the Kodaly session, it was nice.

The Kodaly session today was on a new kind of curriculum, based on Kodaly, but much of the presentation was on why this Kodaly method is better than the traditional Hungarian version of Kodaly's teachings. It was a LOT to take in in an hour. Kind of like trying to drink out of a firehose.

We also went to a reading session. This means we sang through about 20 pieces of music in an hour. Fun singing, not as much fun to evaluate each piece as we went through them. I did enjoy singing different parts, though. I'd switch parts in the middle of the song, just to get a wierd look from Becky. She was singing the other part next to me. Tee hee... :)

OK, that's music geek humor right there. Musical jokes. Intentionally not resolving the suspension at the end of a song. She hit me for that one.

Music geek statement of the day: "You know you're a music geek when you categorize people by their voice part."

Anyway, it was fun. To be among my own kind. To be able to burst out in song and not have anyone bat an eye.

I'm back tomorrow, for more singing, more learning, more musical jokes.

I'm going to go to the "Harmonicas in the Classroom" session. That seems like a musical joke in itself...

Musically,
K