Brain Smart Rehearsals

Active – Engaging – Celebrating the Joy of Music Making This session will explore the benefits of being “brain-smart” in rehearsals and how we can use activity and novelty to bring out the very best in our rehearsals, our singers and ourselves. Directors will walk away with an INCREDIBLE resource including a toolbox of activities and teaching strategies for learning that will work with all ages. Research is brought directly into the rehearsal space for the management of attention, collaboration, community and performance. Throughout the workshop, the sessions will present many mini modules on ways to Reset, Elevate, Wake-up, Unify and Improve Performance within a rehearsal. The categories of activities will be structured in the following way to allow for the best session flow: Within the Reset activities, we focus on short physical activities for attention and transition. Elevate activities will be create strategies for directors to allow brain smart memory aids for all singers (for example: creative ways to teach the musical scales and note naming so everyone will remember them). Wake-up activities will take the student out of the “black hole” of learning when their minds are no longer focused on a given task (breaking the tedium). Unify activities will be short team-based strategies to build a rehearsal environment of trust (culture builders). Finally, Performance activities address quality performance in the classroom and concert stage. Once again, these strategies become a toolkit for the very next rehearsal and for future inspiration. At this close of each mini module, we will have a short time to process our learning, take notes, reflect and ask questions. This too models a design ideal for our brains to process what we have just learned. This fast-paced and engaging session will leave a mark on every director who attends and will reinvigorate them for their very next rehearsal and the toolbox will equip them for the rest of the year.