Joy Morin
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Speaking

Below is a list of Joy's available presentation topics. To view her calendar list of past and upcoming speaking engagements, click here. To schedule a program, please contact Joy. 
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Striking a Chord with Your Students: Nurturing Young Composers in Your Music Studio
Do you have budding composers in your studio? This engaging session presents a five-step approach for helping young musicians develop their original musical ideas into polished, fully notated compositions. Learn practical strategies for guiding both reluctant and prolific young composers to compose, notate, illustrate, and “publish” their own musical masterpieces. Experiencing this creative aspect of being a musician can help transform students into passionate, creative, and multi-skilled music makers!

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Don't Miss a Beat: Strategies for Rhythm Success with Transfer Students
Have you encountered transfer students who experience chronic rhythm problems and seem to have little sense of pulse, but who otherwise play well on their instrument? What do we do when they add extra beats when in 3/4 time, shorten note durations, or struggle performing tricky rhythms accurately? Using strategies based on Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT), this session offers practical activities for addressing rhythm issues in transfer students. Gain fresh, pedagogically-sound ideas to use in your lessons immediately! 

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​Teaching Music History: Lapbooks, Listening Games, and More

Looking for ways to incorporate more music history into your teaching? Learn how “lapbooking” about composers can inspire your students and how listening games can teach students to aurally recognize the style periods of Western classical music. 

Music from the Inside Out: The Story of Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT)
This session brings to life the story of Dr. Edwin E. Gordon (1927-2015) —renowned researcher, educator, and pioneer of Music Learning Theory (MLT)—through a narrative that draws from his autobiography, academic research, published writings, and landmark contributions to music education. Presented in a storytelling format, the session will trace Gordon’s early life, musical experiences, and the formative experiences that shaped his lifelong pursuit to understand music learning.
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Participants will follow Gordon’s journey from performer to scholar, gaining insight into the development of MLT and the central concept of audiation—his term for the process of thinking music in the mind. The session will explore how Gordon’s relentless curiosity and dedication to empirical research led to innovations in music aptitude testing and sequenced approaches to music learning, which continue to influence teaching practices around the world.
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Ideal for music educators, researchers, and students, this session offers an engaging blend of narrative and scholarship—highlighting how one individual’s passion and persistence created a lasting legacy in the field of music learning. Music teachers will leave with new insights into how students think, learn, and audiate music. 

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Piano Method Mining: Gems from Past and Present​
Join us as we embark on a survey of piano method books from the past to present! We'll begin with early European treatises and progress to contemporary American piano methods -- including some of the best resources at our fingertips resulting rom the new wave of self-published piano methods. You'll leave inspired to try out a new method book or two or incorporate certain nearly-forgotten gems as supplements into your teaching. ​

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Teaching the Way We Learn: 5 Principles from Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT)
​This session will present a primer on Edwin Gordon’s groundbreaking contributions to music education research and pedagogy -- known as Music Learning Theory (MLT) -- and share a variety of teaching strategies and activities for tapping into the way our minds naturally learn music: all towards the goal of provoking greater depths of musical literacy (i.e., "audiation") in our students. Created with and ideally co-presented with Amy Chaplin.

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“♩= 1 beat” and Other Lies My Music Teacher Told Me​
Why does music education typically teach false absolutes such as “a quarter note gets one beat”? Are we truly interested in teaching rhythm itself, or are we perhaps caught up in teaching rhythm notation? This session, based on tenants of Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT) examines SIX different mistruths commonly taught by music educators and theory textbooks and explores how rhythm instruction can be approached more naturally and effectively through movement-based activities and aural comprehension (“audiation”). Discover new avenues for building rhythm, reading, and performance skills in your students!

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A Walk-Through of Keys of Play, Book 1
Join Joy Morin to learn more about her book, Keys at Play, Book 1: 88 Progressive Pieces for Pianists of All Ages -- a collection of short, engaging pieces for nurturing audiation and artistic performance in developing pianists. Explore preview pages from the book and hear about the philosophy, sequencing, and ways to use it effectively to help your students develop their rhythm, technique, and audiation skills. Learn more at keysatplay.com. 

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Thank you for all the 'joy' you gifted our Forum with this past Friday. Your presentation was so well-prepared and filled with great ideas. And delivered with enthusiasm that was infectious! You were a favorite presenter of mine!
       With appreciation, B. Johnson & the Grand Rapids Piano Teachers Forum
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