Professional Development Reflection (Fine Arts)

Baltimore City holds a fine arts-centered professional development at a high school,

which contains multiple different seminars you can attend, hosted by volunteering teachers,

which teach various subjects. The first seminar I attended was the brass seminar, hosted by

teachers who have a brass instrument as their primary instrument with experience with the

different instruments. I learned the importance of a successful brass warmup, breathing exercises

for more advanced musicians and brass students, mouthpiece sizes, how to clean brass

instruments, the importance of keeping the instruments clean and using proper amounts of oil,

and how to play a marching baritone. With this information in mind, I will be able to teach a full

ensemble with more confidence, as I am primarily a woodwind musician and have much less

experience with brass. The next seminar I attended was a music technology seminar, which was

hosted by my mentor teacher and another high school band director, and they showed the

different possibilities of using and teaching music technology. The high school band director had

a student that had a rapper reach out to him and pay thousands of dollars for one of the beats that

the students made just using loops, which is an interesting story that could inspire students to

really think about the fact that what their creating is music, and can be a final product. During the

professional development and in between sessions, I met with many Baltimore City music

teachers and administrators, and made connections that could benefit me in finding a job in

Baltimore City, and I have more peers I could ask for help when I am having trouble with

specific instruments or technologies.