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CASL and the charitable non-profit music school

Some big changes are coming this July with respect to Canada's anti-spam laws.  The new CASL legislation takes effect July 1, 2014.
Basically this new law completely rewrites the book on Spam and how for-profit and non-profit companies can broadcast their information to their clients.

It will not have any effect on the spam you receive from outside of Canada (which is where well over 90% of all spam originates from), but it will impact how local business is conducted in this country, from client mailing lists to newsletters.

The big change is that you can no longer opt into a mailing list or email list by default. You must not only have clear methods for your subscriber list to "unsubscribe" but each subscriber to your lists must make a concrete action to subscribe in the first place.

The good news is registered charities are exempt from some of the most stringent rules being applied to the for-profit businesses.  Clearly your local charities would be in dire straights if it were suddenly illegal for them to ask for donations.
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Job Opennings at BCACMS Schools

We have some positions at BCACMS schools listed on our site.  Follow the link here

1) Chilliwack Academy of Music - Principal
2) String Instructors - Central Valley Academy
3) Suzuki Piano Instructor - Nanaimo BC.

The Benefits of Music Education

Our Friends at the Royal Conservatory of Music have published a new brochure outlining the benefits of Music Education.  You can find a pdf version on their website here.

The perennial discussion to cut school music in BC

Updated April 17
It seems that every few years in this province of BC we encounter a movement that wishes to cut the "frills" from education in order to balance the books at local school boards. The latest is the City of Vancouver, you know that town here on the west coast that hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics just a few short years ago. It seems that Vancouverites can'f afford to pay for the "frills" otherwise known as those arts, music and library programs that essentially are what distinguish humans from primates.

But from this morning's Vancouver Sun it looks like Vancouver's difficulties are just the beginning tell-tale signs of the massive underfunding of our provincial education system by our provincial government.

But is the province entirely to blame? Juxtapose this with the costs of administration at VSB, look at the number of employees making more than $150,000 per year.  Actually there are 174 people at VSB making more than $100,000 per year. You can look up this information by going here.

If one looks through the contents of this blog one will find much compelling evidence as to the importance of music education and the arts in general.

But if anyone still needs convincing, here is yet another article that deals with the current crisis created by chronic underfunding by our Provincial Government and a lack of cognitive ability at the VSB.

Anyway, just so we can remind ourselves, here are some reasons why music education is an important component of every child's development.

From http://trainingthemusicalbrain.blogspot.ca/ http://trainingthemusicalbrain.blogspot.ca/2014/04/in-support-of-school-band.html   here is some more scientific rational as to why we need music in our schools.

Benefits of Musical Training on Cognitive Function and Emotional Well-Being

Musical training enhances auditory processing, leading to better verbal skills and increased reading ability:

• Musical training enhances brainstem auditory responses to both speech and music.  Musicians have better encoding of pitch information in speech, which is important for understanding what is being said, as well as the emotional content of speech. (Musacchia et al.,2007; Strait et al., 2009)

• Musicians are better able to filter away background noise, and so can better encode and understand speech in the presence of background noise (Parbery-Clark et al., 2009)

• Adults who had musical training as a child (but did not necessarily continue playing music as an adult) still have better brainstem responses to sound.  This indicates that changes in the brain in response to early musical training are long-lasting.(Skoe and Kraus, 2012)

• Musical training protects against the normal age-related decline in auditory processing.  Older musicians show the same accurate processing of sounds as young people.  This effect of musical training is not limited to professional or life-long-musicians.  Even a few years of musical training during childhood had a protective effect on auditory processing in seniors, even 50 years later.  (Parbery-Clark et al., 2012; White-Schwoch et al., 2013)

• University students with musical training before the age of 12 had better verbal memory  than people with no musical training (Chan et al., 1998)

• Children  with at least 3 years of musical training performed better on vocabulary tests than children with no musical training.There was a positive correlation between duration of musical study and performance on test; in other words, the longer the child had studied music, the more likely she was to do well on the vocabulary test. (Forgeard et al., 2008)

There is much more folks, follow the link here.... to find the rest of this article

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone. Here is a video from the Piano Guys.

The Truth About Piano Lessons

A piano teacher looks at what it takes to succeed in music, why parents should care, and what they can do to help their kids. (This article applies to much more than just the piano...) 

Dear Piano Parents:

You're probably getting mailings right now about fall activities for your kids. The soccer coach wants to know if you're doing travelling team, the Little League coach is scheduling practices, the dance teacher is putting her classes together. And you're wondering about piano lessons for little Johnny or Suzie.

You want to know how much Johnny will be expected to practice. You want to know if Suzie can just "try it out" and see if it's "fun." You need to know what kind of instrument I expect you to have. You want to know if you can come whenever it's convenient, and whether I'll be flexible regarding hockey games, ski Fridays, school dances, ice-skating parties, holidays, and play dates.You want to know if I'm "reasonable" by which I think you mean: Can I change my schedule to suit yours, and am I a stickler for daily practice because Suzie has so much else on her plate and  "things are crazy around here." 

It doesn't usually occur to you to ask what you can do as a parent to help your child with music lessons, but that's something you're going to have to know, too.

I'm in a difficult position as a piano teacher because I'm afraid of telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I'm afraid because the unvarnished truth is not what you are probably going to want to hear if you are like the majority of my piano parents, and when people don't like what they hear, they tend to bail out. You may go to another teacher (which is fine: Everyone deserves the teacher they are most compatible with). But I'm afraid you may bail on music lessons all together.

Because the truth about learning to play the piano scares people. That's the last thing I want to do.

read the article here