SCMTA (Snohomish Chapter of the Music Teachers Association) Meeting

We started out the week with our monthly SCMTA meeting at the Everett Music Hall.  This is a wonderful group of over 100 piano teachers involved in every aspect of teaching piano to beginning and adult students.  We have a chapter meeting followed by a Master Teacher presentation.  It's a great time to learn something new, and to network with fellow teachers and share best practices.

Our Master Teacher was Dr. Julia Shnebly-Black, author and teacher of "Dalcrose Eurhythmics", a method of linking our physical bodies to the whole musical process.  We often think of learning to play the piano as a purely intellectual process, but it is actually rooted in our physical responses and ability to use our large and small muscles to make the whole sequence of events come to perfect fruition in a seamless performance.

We danced, and clapped our hands to rhythms and music, sang and stopped, and walked and stepped. It was invigorating!

Dr. Shnebly-Black was head of the Piano Department for over 30 years at Georgia State University before coming to Seattle to get her Ph.D. at the University of Washington.

Everett Music Hall

 

Auditorium at Music Hall

 

Dr. Julia Shnebly-Black