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🗓 November 13, 2026 @9:30am📍 West Michigan Piano, 3600 29th St SE, Grand Rapids
⭐️ Don't Miss a Beat: Strategies for Rhythm Success with Transfer Students, Joy Morin
➡️ https://ptfgr.org/monthly-programs
🎶 Have you encountered transfer students who experience chronic rhythm problems and seem to have little sense of pulse, but who otherwise play well on their instrument? What do we do when they add extra beats when in 3/4 time, shorten note durations, or struggle performing tricky rhythms accurately? Using strategies based on Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory (MLT), this session offers practical activities for addressing rhythm issues in transfer students. Gain fresh, pedagogically-sound ideas to use in your lessons immediately!
Bio:
Joy Morin is a pianist, composer, and piano pedagogue — and the writer behind ColorInMyPiano.com, a blog for piano teachers. A devoted teacher and lifelong learner, she is driven by a curiosity about how music learning unfolds in musicians of various ages.
Joy teaches students of all ages at her independent piano studio near Ann Arbor, Michigan, and she serves as church pianist and director of music. Her scholarly focus is the intersection of piano pedagogy and music learning theory, particularly the research of Edwin E. Gordon. She currently serves as Secretary for the Gordon Institute for Music Learning (GIML) and as a member of the Young Musicians (Birth to Age 9) Committee for the Frances Clark Center. She holds multiple GIML and RCM certifications.
As a presenter, Joy has been featured at MTNA, NCKP, and state and regional conferences across the country. Her writing has appeared in Piano Magazine, Clavier Companion, and American Music Teacher, in addition to her own blog, where she has published regularly since 2009. She is also the founder and host of Retreat at Piano Manor, a professional development retreat for piano teachers, active since 2017 (pianoteacherretreat.com).
As a composer, Joy approaches composing the way she approaches teaching: with craft, curiosity, and a fascination with the intersection of pedagogy and artistry. That fascination shapes her compositions — pieces learnable by design and expressive by intention. She publishes with Alfred Music and self-publishes at keysatplay.com, including Keys at Play, Book 1 and other works. She also creates teaching resources at ColorInMyPiano.com/shop.
Joy holds a Master of Music from Central Michigan University and a Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, from Hope College, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She lives near Ann Arbor with her husband, daughters, and two cats.
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Event venue
West Michigan Piano, 3600 29th St SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49512-1812, United States
Tickets
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