What happens at one of our international 2 day training events?

"To see the music staff and students so engaged absolutely proves how solid your methods are. We are already having conversations and planning our next steps on how to include MF across our curriculum" John, The British School, Jakarta.

Find a workshop near you

Musical Futures International is running a series of 2 day intensive Musical Futures training events in 2019-2020. To find out more click here and scroll down to find out a bit more about the content of the workshops and all the resources and ideas you can take away on the day!

"I tried it out on Monday morning with my Grade 9 class; they worked for all class time and into their lunch break on their accord.(This has never happened before). I had never worked so fast on a piece of music before, they had worked out their parts so quickly. It is great that I can apply this so quickly into my classes" Chris, ISS International School, Singapore

Welcome, introduction to Musical Futures: meet the key staff involved in the workshops and get an overview of Musical Futures, what it is, how it works and what the next 2 days have in store! During the event we will explore key components of the Musical Futures approach looking at how we learn to play by ear, what it's like to be thrown in at the deep end and reflecting on how the role of the teacher plays an essential part in the Musical Futures classroom.

Across the 2 days we will explore Just Play, Informal Learning, Classroom Workshopping, Find your Voice, Songwriting and allow plenty of social time for networking, sharing ideas and making new friends!

Just Play is our comprehensive, musical skills-building approach. Experience Just Play from the position of your learners. In jut a few hours we will play guitar, uke, keyboard, bass, vocals, drums and play as a large ensemble. Just play isn't just about building instrumental skills though. It's about unpicking what students need to be able to do to take part in music making. from listening, counting, following, to understanding how to read TAB and find chords and notes, the learning takes place as everyone plays songs that many will know or recognise. A real highlight is our chair drumming session where everyone can be a drummer learning several different beats and playing along to some great music!

​Have a watch of our guide to the Just Play play-alongs that will help students play as a large group and introduce many of the essential holistic musical skills necessary to be part of a whole class ensemble.

Informal Learning is where Musical Futures began. The informal learning model builds on individuals’ existing musical interests, involves learning instruments and vocals mainly by ear, alongside friends, and is authentic and progressive. To get us started is a practical workshop unpicking Lucy Green's Hear, Listen, Play research into how we learn to play by ear. Then into groups to do some informal learning in music and discuss how this works in practice in the classroom starting with the role of the teacher in supporting informal learning.

Groove Your Classroom: models strategies for composing and improvising through classroom workshopping and shows how these can be delivered in practical ways that are both musical and theoretical. We will use classroom percussion to break down commonly used grooves and look at how this can become the basis for building a whole class workshop filled with ideas for modelling approaches to composing and improvising.

​The following video shows how a year 9 class at Doveton College, Australia used Groove Your Classroom as a start point for a student-led whole class workshop.

Threaded throughout the workshops will be some of our bite-size approaches for getting started with songwriting and highlights from our Find Your Voice unit with ideas to build teacher and student confidence with vocal work. 

With 8GB of resources to take away, there will be plenty to get you started no matter what age group you work with and during the 2 days, everyone plays everything including guitar, ukulele, keyboard, drums, and more!

Don't forget that all resources will be available free to take away and there will be plenty of social time to network and meet new people.

Meet our Champion Teachers!

Alan Crawford is Head of Academic Music at Dubai College, hosts for our 2 day workshop November 10th and 11th 2017

Steve Jackman is Head of Academic Music at Shrewsbury International School, Bangkok, hosts for our 2 day workshop November 17th and 18th 2017

Russell Lee Grant is Lead Music Teacher at Xiamen International School, China, hosts for our 2 day workshop in January 2018

Hadley Ronayne is Head of Music at Long Bay College, Auckland hosts for our soon-to-be-announced workshops in March 2018

Meet our Workshop Leaders!

Ken Owen is a Director of Musical Futures Australia where the rollout of Musical Futures has been supported by the Victorian Government and The Dept of Education and Training. 

Working with Musical Futures Australia and the Musical Futures International core teams of teachers and practitioners, he continues to provide teacher professional learning to Australian Educators as well as heading up the development of new approaches and resources for teachers across Australia and beyond.

Anna Gower worked for over 18 years as a classroom music teacher, Advanced Skills Teacher, Head of Department and Head of Community Music linking primary and secondary students and teachers through music projects and events.

As a freelance music education consultant in the UK and in various roles for Musical Futures UK, Anna has supported the work of many organisations including Music Mark, Trinity College London, Little Kids Rock and The BBC as well as working with Music Education Hubs across the UK. She is an experienced presenter, speaker and practical workshop leader, leading presentations, panels, keynotes and workshops at international conferences including OMEA 2014, Niagara Falls, MF2 2014 and The Big Gig 2016, Melbourne, ISME 2016, Glasgow, Music China 2017, Shanghai.

Her work with Musical Futures International has included the delivery of practical workshops and in-school consultancy in Australia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, UAE, USA, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia and more!

Anna's most recent experience has been part of the Academic Team at Trinity College London leading and managing academic pilot projects and providing academic oversight into the development of new products. She now works as a Freelance Music Education Consultant based in London, UK.

For any questions about our 2 day international workshops, email info@musicalfuturesinternational.org