Gail Berenson is available as a workshop clinician or a convention artist. The following topics can be combined or arranged to fit your program needs. Ms. Berenson is also available as a master class artist.
Strategies for Coping with Performance Anxiety
Powerpoint presentation – approximately 75-90 minutes in length, but can be reduced to 60 minutes. Equipment needed: digital projector for Powerpoint and screen
Some students perceive even their weekly lessons as a frightening performance. For those students, excessive performance anxiety can stand in the way of their achieving their potential. This session will address the issue of performance anxiety, presenting a wide range of options, enabling the teacher and/or the performer to determine which combination of approaches might be most helpful. The strategies to be discussed will include: 1. Breath control and Fitness; 2. Muscle relaxation; 3. Cognitive thinking; 4. Imagery; 5. Desensitization; 6. Medical advances; and 7. Practical advise. This session will assist teachers and students in viewing performance anxiety as a positive element, not the enemy.
An Injury-Preventative Prescription: Healthy Practicing Strategies
Gail Berenson (and her translator)
Tainan University of Technology; Tainan, Taiwan
Powerpoint presentation – approximately 60-75 minutes in length. Equipment needed: digital projector for Powerpoint and screen
Practicing -- it's something we all do -- young beginners and veteran professionals, alike. Yet, it is too often viewed as tedious drudgery. Efficient, healthy practicing strategies are the key to a lifetime of joyous, injury-free performing. With pianists spending anywhere from three to as many as twenty-eight, or more, hours per week at the piano, we need to ensure that each student has cultivated a resourceful and imaginative attitude, has access to a healthy practice environment and has developed a thoughtful working agenda. This session will examine the role of the teacher in helping students liberate their practice in an effort to free their musicality.
Bach to Bartók and Beyond: The Collaboration of Physical Gestures and Sound Concepts in the Teaching of Style
Master class presenter in Stamford, CT
Powerpoint presentation – approximately 2-3 hours in length. Equipment needed: digital projector for Powerpoint and screen
How often have we attended a recital where the student performed accurately, but where everything sounded the same? This lecture will articulate some essential guidelines to help students develop their artistry and skills in expressing the emotion and style of the music. Introducing students to these crucial musical and technical concepts will help promote their independence in making musical decisions. Examples will be taken from the intermediate and advanced repertoire.
The Art of Communication: Nurturing Resourceful and Spirited Students
Gail Berenson presenting a lecture in Rochester, New York.
Powerpoint presentation – approximately 75-90 minutes in length, but can be reduced to 60 minutes. Equipment needed: digital projector for Powerpoint and screen
What is the magic spark that serves as the impetus that encourages a student to strive for a higher level of musicianship? Although much of our focus is on teaching students a specific skill, helping them become resourceful pianists and reaching their musical potential, piano mastery is only a small portion of what we teach. As a result of cumulative piano lesson experiences, students develop attitudes and beliefs about music, learning and themselves. Teachers who are perceptive and skillful communicators are those most likely to succeed in instilling a love of music, building their students' independence and self-confidence and helping them achieve their goals. I hope to engage those in attendance at this session in a lively discussion that will include topics such as motivating students, offering feedback, the significance of responding to learning styles and balancing teaching approaches.
Evolving Trends in Developing an Injury-Preventative Technique
Powerpoint presentation – approximately 75-90 minutes in length, but can be reduced to 60 minutes. Equipment needed: computer, screen and vga projector
As a result of the knowledge gained from ergonomic research on countless injured computer users and the dedicated work of a number of prominent pedagogues who have devoted their lives to the better understanding of a healthy technique at the piano, the teaching of technique has changed tremendously over the years. Adding technology to the mix generates even greater transformations. This session will look at some of those changes and their influences on today’s students and teachers.
Performance Preparation: Nurturing Fit and Healthy Musicians
Powerpoint presentation – approximately 60 minutes in length. Equipment needed: digital projector for Powerpoint and screen
Although every institution strives to offer students a complete education, it is rare to find courses that address the well being of the individual as a whole. This lecture will focus on the evolution of Performance Preparation, a unique course and how it has benefited the students and faculty of Ohio University. It advocates the investigation of similar initiatives by other institutions and serves as an example for other colleges and universities wishing to incorporate musician wellness courses into their curriculum.
