The Perfect Method Book: Fact or Fiction?
  Thursday February 18 - 2:45 pm-3:45 pm
Only you can design the perfect method book for your class. Come hear about Sound Innovations for String Orchestra, the most innovative and flexible approach to string method books ever written. You can actually customize your book! Celebrate this new beginning by attending the entire session and receive a free, grade 1, orchestra chart only available at these clinics.   
Presenters: Bob and Pam Phillips
Sponsored by: Alfred Music Publishing Co., Inc.

Foundation for Strings: Developing the Sound of Success 
 Saturday February 20 - 9:15 am-10:15 am
A new string class method designed for a variety of teaching styles. New material is introduced in musical examples that sound like real music. The book is sritten to allow students to make a good sound and enjoy success as they learn.
Clinician: Elliot Del Bogo
Sponsored by: C. Alan Publications
 

Duets: Perfection by Twos 
Thursday February 18 - 11:00 am-12:00 pm
String educator Doris Gazda will explain and demonstrate how the use of duets in your daily curriculum can enlarge and enhance opportunites for students to learn performance and ensemble techniques through independent rehearsal with another member of the orchestra. Student participants in the session will be from the classes of Kate Meyer, Lincoln High School and John Felder, Lynbrook High School, both from the Santa Clara area.
Presenter: Doris Gazda
Sponsored by: Carl Fischer Music          
    

FREEDOM AND JUST RIGHT FOR ALL: Creating a Balanced and Healthy Physical Set-up
Saturday February 20 - 12:30 pm-1:30 pm
A great set-up is the basis for a string player’s long and healthy career.  Cornelia Watkins (author of Rosindust) and Laurie Scott (director of the String Project at UT Austin) take an in-depth look at ensuring that our students will not only look good on the outside but feel good on the inside.  The session will explore images and exercises that create a balanced and healthy physical set-up, offer trouble-shooting ideas to root out existing problems, and examine teaching approaches that help foster psychological comfort and physical freedom in students.

If It Doesn't Look Right, It Probably Isn't:  Developing an Eye for Physical Playing Problems 
Thursday February 18 - 9:45 am-10:45 am
After establishing what good and bad posture look like, discover how a properly-fitted chinrest and coaching in posture and instrument positioning promote good neck and shoulder health- and improve technique and sound. Free fittings at our exhibition booth with sign up at the Showcase.  (Spaces go quickly!)
Presenters: Gary Frisch and Lynne Denig
Sponsored by: Frisch & Denig Custom-fitted Chinrests

   
Scholarship of Writing a Method Book
Thursday February 18 - 12:15 pm-1:15 pm
Developing class materials for a heterogeneous string class is indeed difficult.  Rectifying the technical needs of the different instruments while still keeping the rest of the class engaged is not an easy task.  There is also a whole list of musical concepts, terms, symbols, and the National Standards to contend with as well as making the format easy to use and helpful for teachers.  This session will focus on how one team appraoched these issues, the decisions and solutions they found as well as focus on some fo the problems associated with heterogeneous class teaching.
Clinicians: Joanne Erwin, Kathleen Horvath, Robert D. McCashin, and Brenda Mitchell
Sponsored by:  FJH Music Co.

    
Old Becoming New: Little Known “Gems” of the String Orchestra Repertoire
Thursday February 18 - 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Looking for “new” and exciting compositions for your string orchestra? Led by renowned conductor and arranger Sandra Dackow, teachers will have the opportunity to hear and learn about the forgotten historical gems of the standard string orchestra repertoire. Perfect for concert, festival and competition performance; explore or revisit selections that have been “lost” in the mix of the vast history of string literature. Exhilarate students and audiences alike with these old, yet “new” pieces of music history!
Clinician: Sandra Dackow
Sponsored by: Luck’s Music Library

     
 Perform-Connect-Reflect: Three Keys to Maximizing Student Performance in Middle Level Ensembles 
 Friday February 19 -12:15 pm-1:15 pm
This session examines time-tested, research-based strategies that will help you engage individual students and increase individual learning in large ensembles - Maximizing student performance in your orchestra by working differently, not harder. Sub-topics include framing comprehensive, standards-based rehearsals providing individual feedback to improve performance, assessing music learning in addition to performance skills, guiding results-oriented independent practice outside of class, and promoting students' self reflection on their own learning.
Presenter: Dr. Wendy Barden
Sponsored by: Neil A. Kjos Music

Better Bass Playing at Every Level 
Friday February 19 - 10:30 am-11:30 am
A grab bag of (bass) tricks that click to use in your classroom next Monday. Topics such as how to decide what bass and bass bows to buy, how to size basses, and how to select repertoire that encourages and develops bass playing in elementary, middle school and high school orchestras.
  Clinician: Bob Phillips
  Sponsored by: Shar Products Co.

    
Using SmartMusic To Assist With and Assess Student Performances
Saturday February 20 - 11:15 am-12:15 pm
The vast library in the new SmartMusic 2010 can be used to asses a student in getting the most out of practice time. SmartMusic gives a student the opportunity to play with the orchestra at any speed, hear how their part ‘fits’ in the ensemble, assess their performance, provide feedback to the student, record the student and send the recording and grade to the teachers grade book. Also learn how to use Finale 2010 to scan music to create custom scores for SmartMusic.
Sponsored by: SmartMusic/Finale

      
Strings Charts: Alternative Styles Sheet Music for String Quartets and String Ensembles
Saturday February 20 - 2:30 pm-3:45 pm
Do you and your students want to study and perform rock, jazz, blues, swing, and the music of many traditional styles?  Are you looking for excellent arrangements of both familiar repertoire and exciting originals at a variety of skill levels?  Do you demand the highest quality editing, engraving, and printing in the sheet music you choose? Then please join us for a Strings Charts reading session with the Real Vocal String Quartet (RVSQ). You'll hear (and play) a variety of classic tunes, stuning originals, and contemporary popular songs and receive a free full-length CD of full performances of 13 Strings Charts by RVSQ.  In the process, you'll learn how Strings Charts can captivate and motivate your students and audiences with their unique appeal.
Strings Charts is the music imprint of String Letter Publishing, publishers of Strings magazine and AllThingsStrings.com.
Sponsored by: String Letter Publishing

 
All Hail the Scale! Two Octave Scales and Bowings for Violin, Viola, Cello and String Bass
Friday February 19 - 1:30 pm-2:30 pm
Bring your instruments! Two Octave Scales and Bowings for violin and viola are used widely in many studios across the country. Susan C. Brown has updated these books and created books for cello, string bass and a string score for classroom use. Brown along with cellist Daniel Levitov, contributing cello editor, will demonstrate practice tips for building left and right hand techniques through scales. Come and see how this new series recommended by the ASTA Certificate Advancement Program for Strings can work for your string students.
Clinicians:Susan C. Brown and Daniel Levitov
Sponsored by: Tempo Press

Interaction between Instrument, Strings and Bow 
Friday February 19 - 2:45 pm-3:45 pm
In today’s world strings for stringed instruments are high-tech products. Latest scientific developments from aerospace industry such as synthetic fibres or biocompatible materials such as Titanium are used in the manufacturing process. Machines with high-precision equipment are essential to achieve superior quality standards. However, for the musician generally other parameters such as sound characteristics or playability issues are dominating. The session will focus on, apart from a brief overview of the physical basics, phenomena such as wolftones, the whistling of e-strings or response problems. By the end of the session participants get basic and useful tips and tricks.
Clinician: Franz Klanner
Sponsored by: Thomastik-Infeld/Connolly Music Company

     
Free Book and CD: First Step Method for Beginning Strings
Friday February 19 - 8:00 am-9:00 am
 First Step Method for Beginning Strings features enough material for two years of study, targets state objectives, and incorporates an innovative approach to music literacy for the Audio, Visual and Kinesthetic learner. Pedagogy is intertwined with an abundance of fun songs. A new read along approach, work sheets, and study guides aid to make music literacy effortless, fun and permanent!
Clinician: Guido A. Lavorato
 Sponsored by: Strings Music and More

The Art of Creating Full-Sized Sound on Fractional Instruments
Saturday February 20 - 8:00 am-9:00 am
During the last two decades strong efforts have been made to further improve the properties of cello strings for full-sized instruments. In opposite, cello strings for fractional instruments still lack a number of fundamental properties. Metallic sound, dull sound and pitch instability are problems often reported for these strings. In the presentation the challenges and possibilities, but also the limits in developing new optimal fractional cello strings will be illustrated and explained.
Sponsored by:  Larsen Strings

   
They're Fun! THEY'RE LOUD! But Now What? 
Friday February 19 - 4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Yamaha Certified String Educator, Janet Farrar Royce presents a basic “how to get going” workshop for string educators anxious to take that first step into an electric string ensemble.  Instrument and sound system set up will be covered as well as performing options and meeting national standards with Rock. Lesson plans, monitoring and assessment tools as well as portfolio assignments will also be covered.
Clinican: Janet Farrar Royce, Yamaha Certified String Educator
Sponsored by: Yamaha Corporation of America