Dr Zara Thompson, the presenter from the University of Melbourne, started out with “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”. We sang it, and then added movement. I did ok on the first two times through but got mixed up on the last two. I may have been laughing too hard.
Zara proceeded to explain to all of us about the problems we all have (not just older people) of new action and memory. This was a fabulous entry into the rest of her presentation. What we learned is that learning to play an instrument assists in preventing memory loss and so many other skills. If you play or learn with a group, your well-being improves because of the interaction, your identity and autonomy, confidence, and many other benefits are realized. Zara also emphasized finding the right teacher, one that is able to teach YOU, not you learning their way of doing it, but the way YOU need to learn. I encourage you to watch the seminar, if only to chuckle at yourself as you sing “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”.
Here is the RECORDING of the Seminar.
Zara has provided a list of resources (teachers, studies, etc) as mentioned in her talk.
Report written by Chris Colavizza.
Helen Vorrath was the facilitator.