APME Miami 2026
Annual conference for popular music educators exploring rhythms, relationships, and revolutions shaping popular music education.
Sessions (129)
Celebrating Popular Songs and Collaboration in the Ensemble Setting
Collaboration in Motion: What Africa’s Creative Enterprises Teach Us About the Future of Music, Production, and Global Commerce
Music, Memory, and the New Creative Frontier: What Senior Living Innovation Reveals About the Future of Popular Music Engagement
Resisting the Employability Agenda
💃🏻🍸WELCOME SALSA RECEPTION
☕️ CONFERENCE REGISTRATION, BADGES, & COFFEE!
👋OPENING WELCOME
🔑KEYNOTE TBA!
⏰ TRANSITION & 🏎️ CHAPTER SPEED SOCIAL
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: HIVE HONORS
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: OSCEOLA ROCKS
Opening the Magic Door: Songwriting as a Pathway to Student Creativity
Preparing the Future-Ready Musician: Adaptability and Creative Growth in Undergraduate Popular Music Students
Words & Music: Embedding Popular Music Education and Social and Emotional Learning Through Songwriting
🍎APME LIVE Orientation
"AI"-nt It Grand? More Music-Making, Less Paper-Pushing
Amplifying the Future: Powering Up a High School–University Popular Music Collaboration
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: GADSEN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: UP IN THE AIR
Going from “good job” to useful insights: Helping young pop musicians give better feedback and feedforward to their peers
Helping Music Students Find Their Ikigai
Improving Guitar Sight-Reading with Movable Do Solfege
Increasing Student Engagement in Popular Music Ensembles
Re-engaging Students Through Structured, Activity-Based Learning in Sound Design and Creative Synthesis
Song Structure Simplified!
🍎Pop Vocal Techniques with Garrett Michael Thomas
Creativity in the Popular Music Classroom Context
Ukulele in the Classroom: A Survey of Elementary General Music Teachers in North Carolina and Virginia
Walking on the edge: is band rehearsal needed at all?
🌮LUNCH + 📍CHAPTER MEET UPS!
🍏THE LUNCH SET AMPE LIVE Student Clinic: Kathleen Juarez
🍏THE LUNCH SET APME LIVE Student Clinic: Julian Abramo
🍎Live Touring with Tommy Merrill of Marshall Arts Touring
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: POLYPHONICS
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: WITHIN
Future Sounds: Soul Science Lab on Music, Culture, and Innovation
Live Is the Lesson: What Live Performance Teaches Us About Building Artists, Artistry, and Audience
Pop Theory in Practice: Teaching the Building Blocks of Modern Hits
Popular Music in Elementary Music Methods Courses
The Rhythms & Rituals of New Orleans
☕️CAFECITO BREAK + POP UP PERFORMANCE: JULIAN ABRAMO
🍎Social Media, Monetizing Your Music, Stage Presence, Recording Identity with Shane Calquhoun
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: AVIATOR LATIN BAND
Bring the Power of Hip Hop into Your Classroom with Soul Science Lab: Presented by Carnegie Hall’s Musical Explorers
Demystifying Melody Creation!
Fusing Musical Cultures: Developing Intercultural Competencies
Turning the Band Room Up to 11: Popular Music Pedagogy Inside the Concert Band
A narrative investigation of one songwriter's journey to Nashville
Becoming a Songwriter: Identity Development Through Curriculum Revision
Don't Get Sued, Get Educated: Smart Sampling Practices for Modern Music Students
Too Many Notes? I HIGHLY Doubt It!
Beyond the Stand: Lessons From a Podcast Exploring the “Both/And” of Popular Music Education
From Import to Score in Minutes: Fast Dorico Workflows for Cleaning Up MIDI and XML Files
Rockin' the Public Domain: What I Learned about U.S. Popular Music after Launching a Sheet Music Company for Teachers
Tradition Meets Today: Bad Bunny as a Springboard for Exploring the Musical Heritage of Puerto Rico
💃🏻🍸APME LIVE Happy Hour: HIVE HONORS & OSCEOLA ROCKS
☕️CONFERENCE CHECK IN & COFFEE
🔑KEYNOTE PANEL: TBA!
🪩FEATURED PERFORMANCE
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: HIVE ACOUSTIC
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: INTERLOCHEN
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: ROCK N ROLL CHORUS
Defanging the Canon Monster: Reducing the Friction of Building Quality Setlists
Part 1: Moving to the Pulse of EDM Music
Private-Sector Popular Music Schools: Locations, Challenges, Opportunities
When Notation Runs Out: A Framework for Style When the Ink Stops
🍎How To Practice, Developing Chops, Working On Band Sound with Heather Fortune
Part 2: Moving to the Pulse of Country Two-Step
Reinforcing Music Theory Understanding with Popular Music in Choir
Revitalizing K–12 Popular Music: Lessons from Music Will’s Lab School
Toward an Expanded Music Will Framework: A Collective Case Study of Music Will’s Influence on Music Teacher Identity in Early Childhood Music Education
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: MI ENSEMBLE
Can You Hear the Difference? Music Education Students’ Perceptions of AI-Generated and Human-Made Music
Fashion Pop
Lessons from the first AI Songwriting course. Berklee students take on the future.
Part 3: Moving to the Pulse of Salsa Music
Past as Palette: Historically Informed Covers as Pedagogical and Artistic Innovation
Popping with Intention: Understanding the Role of Popular Music Within Your Institution
Using Breezin Thru Theory/Composing in your music classroom
🍎Songwriting Workshop
AI Music Tools in the Classroom: Effects on Student Perception and Self-Belief
Beyond the Elective: Hip-Hop as Core Musicianship and Inclusive Practice for Neurodivergent and All Learners
Racial Trauma-Informed Strategies for the Popular Music Educator
Tarnish the Shiny Object: evaluating the learning technology in the music classroom
🌮APME LIVE LUNCH EVENTS: DIGITAL MUSIC SHOWCASE & JAM SESSION
🌮LUNCH
🍎Performing As Communication, Engaging the Audience with Ruth Debrot
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: INDIGO LANE
🎵APME LIVE CLINIC: REPOST
Sampling as a Foundational Skill in Music Education
Songwriting in the Round: A Tool for Connection
Teaching Latin American Popular Music: Resources, Challenges, and a Case Study #benitobowl
☕️CAFECITO BREAK + POP UP PERFORMANCE: HIVE ACOUSTIC
Arranging for Voices, Horns & Strings
Finding Performance Shangri-La: Developing Methodologies in performance practices for the developing artist
Is Popular Music Education Too Creative? A Philosophical Argument for Balance
The "Pop Music Pyramid” – Constructing Holistic, Tradition-Conscious yet Innovative Studies in Higher Education
Hip Hop Crate Digging as Method: Embodied Listening, Sampling, and Sonic Storytelling
Responding to the challenges of liquid modernity
Who Played That? College Music Education Students’ Accuracy in Detecting AI-Generated Piano Performance
🎉APME LIVE STUDENT FESTIVAL!
Beyond the Band Room: Assessing '21st Century Musician' Competencies in a University-Based Music Production Lab
Self-Produced Songs: Technology, Agency, and the Shifting Pulse of Popular Music
Teaching for Vulnerability in Popular Music Performance
“To survive, we evolve”: FIU Symphony Orchestra’s Road to the Grammys
Authentic Drum Kit Pedagogy: New resources available for modern band teachers
Things NOT to Do with AI in Your Songwriting (And What to Do Instead)
Feed It Forward: Embedding Reflective Practice and Evaluation into Music Education Assessment
The Neuroscience of Better Practice
What Makes Songs Sound “Substantially Similar”? A Music-Generative AI Approach
Amplifying Access: Rock Ensemble as a Catalyst for Inclusive Popular Music Education
Navigating The Fog: A Feminist Ethical Framework for AI
Student-Led Ensembles in Middle and High School
☕️CAFECITO BREAK + POP UP PERFORMANCE: ROCK N ROLL CHORUS
Relationships between Perceived Popularity, Desirability, Social Media Use, and Musical Role Choice with Adolescents Not Enrolled in Music Programs
Repertoire/Genre Selection in Modern Band Classrooms
Strengthening Improvisation Practices in the Orchestra Classroom
The Marginalized Voice of East Asian Immigrant Musicians
Crafting Fan Personas: A 3-Step AI Prompting Model
Informally Educated vs. Formally Educated Musicians in Music Institutions: A Sense of Belonging
Integrating AI in the AME Classroom!
Loop Lottery: Creating Beats without Sound
Building Urban Music Programs: What Colleges Aren’t Preparing You For
From Waveform to Meaning: Teaching Music in the Age of AI
Projects in Action: Real-World Release Strategies for Music Educators and Emerging Artists
Segregated Sounds: Subalternity within Contemporary Salsa Dancing
Orchestration for Pop Creators: Adding Dorico to the Arranger’s Toolkit
✨CLOSING SESSION