As part of the community music module we had to prepare a presentation on a community music workshop we would like to conduct to a group of people. The idea I came up with for my presentation was a piano workshop where I would teach people to play a simple piece on the piano, this would act like a starter lesson or a short introduction to the piano. The main challenge I faced when preparing this presentation was making it have a presentation time of 2 to 3 minuets long, to avoid my presentation being too short I rehearsed presenting my workshop along side a timer to make sure that my presentation was not too short. I ran through my presentation multiple times to see if there was an average presentation time for my workshop idea, I found that the average presentation speed was around 2 minuets and 40 seconds. Meaning it was the perfect length for the upcoming presentation.
Presentation Plan
Title Page- On the title screen have a large heading which addresses the main topic of you presentation (e.g. my community workshop)
What are you doing?– On this page talk about what your workshop is about and who you are teaching it to.
Workshop overview- Provide a very brief run through of what you would be teaching within your workshop and how you would do it
How will you prepare for this workshop? Talk about what teaching materials you would have to prepare for this session and why. Also talk about how you would prepare your self for this workshop in terms of skills and confidence.
My Community Workshop Presentation
For the first page in my final performance I decided to state the topic of the presentation to make the subject of the slide show clear to the readers/listeners, for this particular presentation I wrote ‘My music workshop’ as that is the topic I will be talking about through this presentation. I wrote the text in big bold and white writing to stand out from the black Yamaha piano as thee background image. I chose for a piano to be a background image as my workshop idea was for teaching piano, therefore the image is relevant and links strongly to the main idea of my presentation. All images used in this presentation were sourced from powerpoints built in photo gallery.
For my second page in the presentation I explained what would be taking place in my community music workshop, I wrote my ideas in bullet points as I find it easier to expand and explain upon my ideas when I am writing in bullet points. This is because when I write full sentences during a presentation it tends to look very messy and complicated, lots of detailed writing on a page also makes it difficult to resist it as a form script. On this page I have mentioned that this workshop is designed as a starters piano lesson for primary school students, and that my man goal is to inspire people to learn piano or to pick up an interest in the music industry. These bullet points do a good job of summing up the main intention of my project however I could have expanded on these points in greater detail. For example I could have explained why I wanted the workshop directed to primary school students, the reason for this is because many younger people might have an undiscovered love for music or a specific instrument and they may not be aware of this until they are introduced to it. Many primary school students and younger people in general have not had experience with the piano or had a proper explanation of it, therefore introducing the piano to younger students may spark their interest in the piano which may lead them to continue learning the piano and then eventually making a career out of it.
The second page of my presentation was in much greater detail than the first slide and had much more bullet points and ideas, the purpose of this page is to give a general overview of the workshop and how it will be run. As I would be working with kids it will be important to run the workshop with a fun and interactive lesson structure as children can have short attention spans if they are not interested, I could do this by engaging the group in fun icebreaker games such as follow the leader. I would also open the session by playing a fun piano piece to show the potential of the piano to the group and hopefully make some people interested in learning to play their favourite songs/pieces on the instrument, as many children aren’t interested in classical music the piano piece played at the beginning of the session would be a piano arrangement from the top charts on spotify as they would most likely have heard these songs. Or the piano piece could be a piano arrangement from some music often heard in pop culture, this could be famous movie or video game themes that they may know that has been arranged into the piano track. As many children play video games, playing a video game theme on piano would most likely get the group interested in the piano session.
During this session I would also explain the autonomy which includes; the arrangement of notes within an octave, what an octave is and the mechanics behind the piano such as strings, hammers and dampener pedals. Meaning by the end of the workshop everyone will know how the piano makes sound and how the different pedals on the piano function. This is a piano workshop however most locations do not have enough piano’s to share between a group, meaning this session would need to be taught on keyboards. Teaching on keyboards is easy as they are cheaper, meaning it is more common for locations to have enough keyboards to share between a group. They are also portable meaning we could transport some keyboards from college to the common space group via keyboard cases. The main goal of my workshop is to have everyone playing a simple piano piece by the end of the session, the piece of music I have in mind is when the saints come marching in. Because in my first ever piano lesson my piano teacher taught me this piece of music within our session, when I learnt this song I had no experience with music meaning it is a perfect song to teach to beginners. It is important to teach a very simple piece of music, because if the music is too advanced for beginners it will be very difficult to teach them the piece. The saints come marching in is also a very short piece of music, meaning it can be taught within one session. It is important that the music being taught within the workshop is also not too long, otherwise it will impossible to teach them the full piece of music if they have no experience with the piano.
This slide in presentation shows what material and resources I would have to prepare for the workshop in order for it to work, it also shows how I should prepare my self in terms of skills I must obtain in order to lead an efficient workshop. In order to teach the group music it is important I prepare some form of printed musical notation to share with the group to give people the ability to read the music instead of having to remember it from the top of their heads. Sheet music is very complicated to understand and read if you have no musical experience, meaning the musical notation I hand out will have to be simplified into a format that is easy to understand for beginners. A common way to write sheet music in a simplified format is by writing the notes in the names of their original letters instead of on stave lines, this is because it avoids the group having to learn official musical transcript. This technique was used in my high school, as most students had never understood sheet music all musical transcripts was written in the letters of (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) which refers to their notes within an octave. If I am to teach when the saint come marching in, the lack of sheet music rhythm will not be a problem as most people can remember the simple rhythm of the music from just listening to it, however if someone if struggling to play the rhythm of the music I will help them out by playing it along side them until they can play the rhythm.
Another technique my high school did for teaching piano was assigning 7 different stickers to their own notes on an octave. This would help people who can’t remember the notes within an octave, because the stickers will literally tell the, which note is which. For example a sticker with the letter A on it would be placed on the A key on the piano, meaning it would make it easier for beginners to understand the layout of an octave. I will use this technique in my workshop to help people who are struggling to remember the arrangement of an octave on the piano. In case anyone has an experience in playing the piano I will prepare three different variations of when the saints come marching in, each different variation increasing in difficulty. This will give people who learn the first sheet a bigger challenge when learning the second and maybe third variation of the music. The first variation would be the easy version with only simple notes within the treble clef, making it possible to learn for even the most inexperienced players. The second variation would include the implementation of the left hand when playing the music, giving people the skill of playing the piano with both hands and also making it a little bit more challenging. The third variation would include more advanced rhythms and timing with the implementations of elements such as; chords, arpeggios or counter melodies. Having three versions of the music will avoid me running out of material to play within the session and having to end the workshop early.
To prepare myself for the workshop I must have great knowledge around the piece of music I am teaching so that I can efficiently help people play the piece without having to learn it along side them, meaning I must learnt the piece of music before the workshop takes place. I must also be very confident with delivering simplified definitions of musical terms to people with no musical experience, as making a definition too complicated for a beginner not help them learn anything from the session. Therefore all definitions and explanations must be simplified so that everyone can understand musical concepts talked about within the workshop. Before this workshop I must also prepare a piano piece to showcase at the beginning of the session order to capture peoples interest in the piano.
