Hello and welcome back to another blog post!
Through my internship, I have been given various presentation opportunities. I have experienced what it’s like to prepare for and present to an audience (virtually, of course) both at the national and regional music therapy conferences. In fact, one of the most recent presentation opportunities I’ve had was led by my internship director, Julie, where we talked about cool functions available on any keyboard including the Yamaha EZ-220 keyboard!
I never had experience using the EZ-220 keyboard prior to internship, so it was a learning curve figuring out what the different buttons on the keyboard do. Let me tell you though, it is a game changer when you learn how to use the cool functions! At the presentation, we discussed ways to use the song, style, and voice settings on the keyboard in therapy sessions. Certain settings, such as the follow the lights setting, are great for addressing goals such as sustained/selective attention and/or isolating individual fingers using a familiar song. The style setting is also great for picking a motivating background beat and providing steady and consistent tempos for rhythmic entrainment. The voice setting is awesome for motivating clients and making the keyboard sound like another instrument (e.g. a trumpet, electric guitar).
At the presentation, we also discussed the different ways of helping clients become more successful at using the keyboard by giving them opportunities to make choices when appropriate. For example, MTCCA has an adaptive keyboard kit of picture visuals that correspond with different songs, voices and styles. This can allow clients to make decisions for what to play on the keyboard based on the visuals. Along with this, we talked about other aspects of the kit that can be beneficial for clients, such as the color coded system with stickers and tabs to provide more visual support when figuring out the functions of the keyboard.
It was a great opportunity overall to be able to present virtually and have experience interacting with audience members over a virtual platform. While it wasn’t in person, I still learned valuable information about ways to have an engaging presentation. For example, using visuals and pictures is an awesome way to engage people rather than having them read off of a screen with lengthy information. Another way of making a presentation engaging is to provide personal accounts or stories. I did this by providing a brief introduction and recounting specific client stories of when they’ve used the EZ-220 keyboard in sessions. This helped not only show a real life example of how to use the keyboard, but it also broke down the barrier between me as a co-presenter and the audience. The last thing I learned was to not take myself too seriously! Presentations or public speaking in general are skills that always made me anxious, but it helps to remind myself that I am human and that it’s okay to let my personality shine during these opportunities (no matter how goofy I actually am!).
If you want more information about purchasing the adaptive keyboard kit, click here. To purchase the EZ-220, click here.
There is also an amazing opportunity to learn more in depth about various functions of adaptive keyboards in MTCCA’s upcoming “Adapted Keyboard Series!” This is a free workshop series hosted on Zoom each Monday in May of 2021 and describes different ways to utilize the keyboard in both therapeutic and adaptive lesson settings. For more information and to register for the series, click this link!
Katherine
MTCCA Music Therapy Blog 