Close, But Not Quite.

Today in my 3rd grade Summer School class, my students had their first flutophone lesson. I taught them the parts of the flutophone, and we reviewed them together. “Mouthpiece, tone holes, bell…”

When I pointed at the tone holes once more, one girl proudly shouted, “toenails!”

It was a wrong answer I will not soon forget.

Studio Web Site: A Call for Help

I’m considering the idea of creating a web site/blog for my private students and their parents, and I’m looking for good examples. (Yes, I’m giving you an invitation to plug your site and shamelessly brag about why it’s so great.)

If you do have such a site, what are its main features? I’m wondering specifically about including the following elements:

- Teaching schedule, so parents can see when they might schedule make-up lessons
- Lesson policies, and all that boring stuff
- Curriculum, so parents and students can have an idea of where they’re at and what’s next in the grand scheme of things
- Photos of students, to give the site a more personal feel
- Videos/audio files of students’ work
- Links to online activities and educational sites

Is your site an interactive blog where readers can make comments, or is that an opportunity for problems?

What else am I missing? Please share your thoughts!

Misplaced Concerns

This evening I had the pleasure of being part of a panel of music teachers to speak in an undergraduate Music Education course my supervisor teaches. I was honored to have been asked to participate.

An interesting phenomenon took place as the Q&A session began. The points of concern of the college students were quite different than those of the panelists.

The students asked questions about these topics:
- The most effective fund raisers
- Teaching music theory
- Band trips
- How the 10-second rule is impossible
- Listening materials (the subtext of the question being “Can I get my kids to listen to Bartok and Coltrane?” A panelist’s response: “They need to listen to the guy playing Lightly Row on their Essential Elements CD.”)

These were the panel’s points of emphasis:
- Connecting with kids
- Learning from other experienced teachers
- Being flexible

They spoke of their most effective ways to motivate students, what to do when you’re kicked out of your teaching area, and keeping an attitude of lifelong learning.

As you might imagine, I learned a great deal from listening to the other panelists.

Elementary Music Festival 2009

Here are some photos from the final rehearsal for my district’s Elementary Music Festival Concert.

The concert included performances by the String Ensemble (about 200 students), the Flutophones (400+ students), the Honor Orchestra (150 students), and the Honor Choir (200+ students).

The Honor Orchestra is an audition-only group made up of students throughout the district. Each piece is rehearsed and conducted by a different music teacher.

The String Ensemble is made up of beginning and second-year string players who are selected by their music teachers. Students are typically in String Ensemble for one or two years before participating in Honor Orchestra.

The district rents our local arena for the concert. Both the stage and the audience seating were packed!

The Honor Orchestra. Yours truly conducting.

 

 

 

The Honor Orchestra

 

The Honor Orchestra. Yours truly conducting. (2)

 

The Honor Orchestra, conducted by a colleague

 

The String Ensemble

 

The String Ensemble

“Your Life is About to Change Forever.”

Those are the words that stumbled out of my mouth as I prepared to teach a group of my beginning trumpet students to play a chromatic scale.

I was feeling very lighthearted as we began the lesson. The school year is winding to a close, and there are no looming deadlines or upcoming performances. Just an opportunity to teach, not rehearse.

I was trying to over-dramatize the point that these students will use the chromatic scale throughout their musical careers, and that this was going to be a landmark lesson in their journey to musical excellence.

But then the thought occurred to me that all lessons should be life changing for elementary students.

Sure, we will always have those weeks when we’re in concert preparation mode and don’t teach any new concepts. But shouldn’t there be twice as many life changing lessons as there are rehearsals of overplayed music?

Memories of Elementary School

An old friend and I have been posting pictures on Facebook from our elementary school and junior high days. Former classmates have left some interesting comments and have shared some thoughts about those days. Some of their stories are still fresh in my mind; others I had completely forgotten about.

This has got me wondering about what my students will remember about music classes.

What do you remember about the music classes you took in school? Specifically, what was your music teacher like? Do you remember making friends? Did many kids quit mid-year? Other memories?

I’ll get the ball rolling here. In elementary school, I used a school-owned alto saxophone. It seemed so heavy carrying it from home. When I had it on the school bus, I got a seat to myself. (But that was nothing unusual!)

Our music book was “First Division Band Method.” I remember feeling so cool when we graduated from the red one to the blue one.

The music teacher also taught at the high school. Although he always seemed to enjoy working with us kids, there must have been days when he would rather not have traveled to various schools. When I was in junior high, he took a sabbatical from teaching to pursue playing professionally. There was a rumor he did some work for NBC. Whenever I heard a trumpet on T.V., I wondered if it was him.

One particular memory has nothing to with learning about music. The beginning band was in the cafeteria when an earthquake struck. The walls waved to and fro, and the light fixtures (chandalier style) swung back and forth. I had no idea a building could move like that without crumbling to the ground! One of the flute players started to cry, and the band director had to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.

How about you? (Don’t feel obligated to be as long-winded as me!)

End of the Year Recording Project

After reading several great blogs addressing the subject of studio recitals, I’ve started feeling really guilty about not hosting one for my private students. Because I teach at 3 different elementary schools, the idea of adding another performance to my calendar has never been too appealing. However, a number of influences have led me to the conclusion that my students deserve some sort of culminating event to celebrate all their hard work. So instead of a recital, I decided to do an end of the year recording project.

Part of my private lesson curriculum includes duets. So making a recording of the pieces we’ve practiced during the course of the year was a logical move. I’ve been using a Zoom H2 recording unit. Then I’ve taken the digital music files home, edited them, sweetened them, and am putting them on CD.

While a studio recital may be a better route to go overall, I am pleased with how this project is turning out. Hopefully the CD will be a learning tool for my students and also a valuable keepsake for the students and their parents.

Motivating Young Musicians, Part 1: Selecting Literature

I’m becoming convinced that one of the most important elements of motivating young music students is giving them music they want to play.

This is a pretty good representation of how my student felt about teaching the Raiders Theme: Battered, bruised, but determined!

One of my beginning saxophone students found some sheet music of the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” theme. If you know the music, you know that it uses a wide range of notes, and dotted eighth/sixteenth rhythms. When he asked me to teach him to play it, my first reaction was to say, “No way! You’re barely past page 6 of your method book. This is Book 2 material.” But he had obviously put some effort into it already, and was determined to learn it.

Mind you, I’m not a fan of teaching by rote. I’m a pretty Type-A logical thinker. So this was a very out-of-the-box situation for me.

Over the next several weeks, we devoted a portion of each lesson to the Raiders Theme. It took a great deal of effort on my part NOT to address every one of the myriad of mistakes he made. Instead, I tried to focus on one or two issues in each lesson. In one lesson, I taught him the difference between F# and F natural. In another, we focused on tone quality in the low range. In another, we focused on rhythmic issues.

After a number of months, my student is proud to proclaim that he can “beat it” (as in in beating a level in a video game).

I don’t necessarily plan to incorporate the Raiders Theme into my curriculum. But in this case, the piece definitely motivated my student in a way that most method books just don’t.

Taxation and Unions

Forgive me. I’m breaking my own rule about using links in this blog. When I decided to create this blog, I vowed not to just make it a collection of links, but instead to offer original thoughts and spark discussion. But in this case, I’m going to make an exception because the article is so interesting and because it’s posted on a blog which you probably don’t already follow as a music educator.

My brother-in-law, an excellent elementary band teacher, wrote the following article. It raises some important issues about music advocacy, taxation, funding music programs, and the musicians’ union.

If you’d care to comment on the article, please do so at the source. However, if you find the article to be linkworthy, please let me know here.

Success! Redemption!

If you follow this blog, you may remember that I had previously written about a weak Winter Concert, and several steps I’ve been taking to address our biggest problem areas. Well, I’m happy to report that we’ve had a successful Spring Concert.

Okay, if you’re like me, you need a measureable means of defining success. Here’s my criteria:

- We didn’t fall apart. I didn’t have to stop and restart any music. No train wrecks.
- Rhythm/pulse improved considerably.
- Balance improved considerably.
- With two pieces, the audience started applauding before I cut off the last fermata. (Hmmm. Were they just happy it was over?)
- I didn’t feel the need to avoid eye contact with teachers in the lunch room.

Of course I’m just being lighthearted here, but I really was pleased with the performance.

I attribute our success to the following:
- I identified the most problematic players. These are awesome kids who play their instruments well individually. But they simply needed to learn to listen and fit in with the rest of the ensemble in terms of balance and rhythm.
- I moved those students to the back of the stage, in front of the drums but behind the trumpets. It goes against traditional seating charts, but it gave them a strong sense of pulse, and helped with balance.
- I introduced the music to the students earlier in the year than usual.
- I prioritized run-throughs in rehearsals, even as we first started learning the music.

Thanks for reading this. I hope your spring performances go well also!