MUSIC  EDUCATOR

Marcia Howard, Music Educator
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Marcia’s experience as a Vocal Director, and Performing Arts teacher over the past twenty years, combined with her professional music career as a singer-songwriter for thirty years has given her a great breadth of experience as both a music educator and performer. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge and understanding of singing and songwriting in both her vocal and songwriting masterclass sessions at festivals, concerts, schools and conferences. Marcia has a Research Master’s Degree in Education, Monash University (her thesis and C.D of five songs are about songwriting and belonging to place through song). She has also released five solo albums.
 
Marcia has worked at Collarts in Melbourne, for the past three years as a part of the Music Performance Degree, teaching and developing the vocal masterclasses with Phil Bywater. She is a casual lecturer in Music Education at Deakin University, and IKE, Geelong. Marcia is trained in using the Estill vocal method, which looks at using the anatomy of the voice for vocal production and how to use the voice to create different vocal sounds. Vocal yoga breathing and various warm-up methods are employed in her sessions and she will teach you two, three-part harmony songs to sing with her in a live performance.
 

Holy wells to Waterholes, belonging through song.  Book & CD (Five songs). Research Masters Thesis. Monash University.

 Celebrating, culture, roots, the deep listening in place, where music and stories rise from the deep well of ancestral folklore and memory.

Using the processes of song writing Marcia Howard’s thesis, Holy wells to Waterholes, belonging through song, explores the notion of belonging and place and the ways in which practices and beliefs around water connect us to place. In the context of the politics of location it engages with personal stories that bring together understandings of the experiences of the Irish Diaspora in western Victoria in relation to colonisation and Indigenous communities in Australia. The songs that comprise the thesis draw on the meaning of family, loss, hope and identity. The thesis offers pedagogy of possibilities and hope.
 
 The research for this educational thesis on song writing is located in Marcia’s family background and her experiences in music making with indigenous communities in Ireland and Australia. The work encourages others to be reflexive in relation to their own ancestors and the land that they build their lives upon. The five songs that the research is based upon were written by Marcia and recorded by her in her home studio. The songs are beautiful and relate to the political, to family and to place. The lyrics are emotive and the harmonies together with her voice and the different instruments evoke wonderful images for the listener. The mixing and recording process has been an additional task of the production of the thesis that Marcia has mastered. She has expressed her heritage and responses to injustices through her talent as a beautiful music maker. This is a very important thesis. A wonderful, enlightening and stimulating set of songs and stories.
Dr Nerissa Albon, Monash University.
 
Abstract
I explore issues of belonging to place, through the medium of song writing. I interrogate the historic social effects of colonisation and what it is that connects me to place in relation to my Irish immigrant ancestors and their subsequent relationships with the local Gunditjmara people whose land they were now occupying. My songs tell the story of my geographical location combining folklore from our area, memory and connectedness that has unearthed stories for me from an historical Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspective. As a songwriter I enter the liminal space of the song in order to put myself in the emplaced world of the song. I forge an imaginative engagement with place; just as Indigenous song creators and singers have always done in the Australian landscape. I discover how a shared history of oppression between local Indigenous people and my own Irish ancestors has affected my life and the choices I’ve made as an artist. My experiences have all influenced and informed my relationship to place, my identity and sense of belonging. I am writing about the complexity of the human experience in place by documenting my personal ancestral family stories in the context of South West Victoria, historically referred to as “a distant field of murder (Critchett).

 
Two Sisters Dreaming.
©Marcia Howard.

C.D & Book AVAILABLE email marciahowardmusic@gmail.com

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​​'’From the well where the song is sprung,
the land and the sea were sung
and the sunset it was pink 
and I saw the bluest water and the blackest stones
It was the place where I was given my name,
My country, Nunagini, Nangala,
Two sisters dreaming place.”
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What the Session's Include
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MEd Monash University (Research Masters. Belonging Through Song).
Dip T. ACU, Cert IV Music, VIT registered. Estill Vocal Method, level 1 & 2. Grade 6 Voice, A.M.E.B. Grade 5 piano, Trinity College, London.
Experience
Vocal masterclass 
Vocal Yoga classes
​Live performance sound and visual presentation classes.
Preparing a stage plan.
Using 'pro tools' software recording for live work and songwriting process.
Music publishing, protecting coyright.
The Business of Music and putting on a show and getting an audience, promotion and publicity.
​Harmony. Reading music and improvisation of parts for live and recorded performance.
Classroom music teacher year prep-12.
​Classroom drama teacher, year prep to Year 11.
Voice lessons, piano and guitar lessons
Director of school musical productions
Choir Director
Music Theory.
Deakin University, Geelong and Warrnambool, Music Education lecturer.
Vocal Masterclasses, Collarts Melbourne, Music Performance Degree students.
Judge Battle of The Bands.
Kool Schools.
Rock Eisteddfods
Eisteddfod and school choir director and piano accompanist.
​Vocal Director for school musicals and piano accompanist.
Songwriting workshops, secondary & tertiary students.
Working with indigenous artists in an educational setting creating pedagogy with music song dance and story.
Vocal workshops using sheet music, improvisation, harmony and singing in local languages. Festivals and concerts.
Creating methodology and course content using relevant pedagogy for performing arts content, primary, secondary and tertiary.
VET music teacher, Year 11.

Performing Arts Teaching.
John Pujujangka Pirin School, Mulan, Great Sandy Desert West Australia. 1991.
Bellarine Peninsula Schools 1997-2001. 2015-2018.
Institute of Korri Education, Deakin Uni Geelong (1998).
Emmanuel College, secondary school, Warrnambool (2005-2014)
St Joseph's primary school, Warrnambool (2002-2005).
Caulfield Grammar Wheelers Hill, 2018 (Songwriting workshops, Year 8).
Northern Bay College Corio, Geelong (Performing Arts. 2017).
Collarts, Music Performance Degree, Melbourne (2015-2018) Music Education.
Deakin University, Geelong & Warrnambool ( 2017-2018). Music Education.
Aspire Geelong. Indigenous music composition workshops (2018).
Kaleidescope, soundscape, movement and indigenous story workshops with primary schools, Blakiston Theatre, Geelong Performing Arts Centre (2018).
St Leonards Primary School. Musical Director, 'Cinders' (2018).
Primary School Teachers voice care workshop (Deakin Uni 2017).







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"Dear Marcia,
Cinders was amazing and I want to say a big thank you for directing it. Thank you for working with the rest of the staff throughout the term to develop the wonderful performance by our kids that we saw last night. 
Your expertise and clear view of what needed to be done to ensure that every child felt supported and happy while performing was a key to our success. To be able to achieve what we did in one term was astounding and we have all learnt so much from you – children and adults.
There has been a wonderful buzz in the school today and many positive comments and messages of congratulations from parents as well as from kids and teachers. It has been a pleasure to work with you Marcia.
Thanks again and best wishes".
Jenny Cowburn, Principal St Leonards Primary School (2018).