But... You Didn't Tell Me That Soprano Recorders Were Involved

I am getting ready to go to an Orff workshop about 40 minutes away from my home, with strangers, and (shudder) I was told (after signing up, by the way) to bring my soprano recorder. Do you know one of the reasons that I am NOT an elementary music educator? Oh, it would be the soprano recorder.

I now have a morning full of soprano recorder to get through before I can come home and relax. I felt that this Orff workshop would be a good way to get back into something a little less music therapy focused and a bit more music education focused. I also thought that I would make a bit of community. One of the bad things about me is that, when the time to go actually comes, I am much less enthusiastic about leaving my home at this moment than I was when I signed up for all this, and the recorder information did not show up until significantly after signups were finished. I went back and looked at the information and nothing, NOTHING about the soprano recorder was on the flyer. In fact, there is nothing about what we will be doing on the flyer at all. They could use some help with their website, but I must resist getting too involved in something else at this time in my life.

So, I am going to be spending my precious Saturday morning in some continuing education. That has happened quite often in the past ten months. I have given up many of my Saturdays to learn about something or another. Many of these have been music education focused, come to think of it. I guess I am needing a bit of familiarity to my learning this year.

My word for 2022 is Explore. I wanted to step out of my familiar learning patterns into something different - so, I chose music education! I decided to explore places, my health, ideas, connection, and identity. The most prevalent topic I studied this year, so far, has been ideas, though health took over for several months. I did get my passport renewed, so places can happen next year. I've done a little bit of online visiting, but I am going to focus on some outside things to do in the last months of the year.

I have three months left of 2022 (as do we all), so I am going to focus on identity and connection for the last quarter of the year. I am getting a bit more insight into how others want to indicate their identities. I know that I do not share the same wishes as others, and I am fine with how others identify themselves, but I am not going to identify myself in the same ways. I hope that others will support my wishes as much as I want to support theirs. We will see.

For now, though, I have to get ready to meet a bunch of music therapists and music educators who will all be engaged in something with soprano recorders. This counts as ideas and connection. I am taking credit for this event as part of my exploration. I will talk to people, I will listen to what the presenter says, I will resist the urge to volunteer my services for this organization, and I will enjoy myself. After all the hoopla (screeching, squeaking, and soprano recordering), I will drive home and relax for the rest of the evening.

Let's hope that the recorder part will be finished quickly - or, even better, completely optional!