Five Priceless Phrases for Rehearsals

Have you ever stumbled on a word or phrase you’ve been searching for all your career? It seems lately that’s been the case for me, and I couldn’t be happier. Here are a few gems:

1. “I’m not taking questions right now.” A huge time saver! How often to we fall into the trap of taking a question and then getting distracted from our teaching goals? By simply stating that now is not the time for questions, I’ve been been able to make a straight path to my lesson plans.

2. “Take 30 seconds to practice those notes.” Challenging musical phrases are often difficult to rehearse in a class setting. I’ve found that sometimes it’s helpful to give students a moment to work out the notes on their own. This means there will be 30 seconds of perceived chaos, but it often produces better results than repeating the passage over and over as a group. This is also helpful when you need 30 seconds off the podium to tend to another issue.

3. “I like the way [the flutes] are [sitting].” Or the way the Haley played staccato, or the way the clarinets are ready to rehearse, etc.. The idea here is to motivate the entire group to do better by praising one person or section. Those being praised feel rewarded, and the others become inspired to improve.

4. “I don’t expect it perfect today, but I want us to keep playing.” This is especially applicable when young groups are learning new music. It gives the students permission to make mistakes, but makes clear your goal to work through the music.

5. “You did it! I’m proud of you!” Who doesn’t like to hear an exclamatory word of praise from time to time? Celebrating even minor accomplishments can work wonders.

Have a good phrase of your own to add? Share it here!

Do Your Eyes Light Up?

I admit it. My wife watches Oprah, and because of the proximity of our computer to our T.V., I often unintentionally overhear the show. (Don’t worry, guys. I never watch more than 3 minutes at a time, or without a 5 minute break between segments. Yeah, that’s the ticket!)

Maya Angelou was a guest on one show, and one of their topics of conversation was education. They discussed how parents and teachers are often frustrated by children. We adults often feel let down when children don’t make the progress we wish they would. This eventually affects the relationship between the child and parent or teacher. After enough negative interactions, whenever the child and adult walk into a room and see each other their eyes roll in grief.

How many of our students go from class to class, from teacher to teacher, consistently getting disapproval? Wouldn’t it make a huge difference in the lives of these students if instead of getting disapproval, they saw our eyes light up? “Johnny, you’re here! I was hoping you would make it today!” How often do students hear phrases like this? Not often enough. What do you think it would do for one of these so called problem students to receive a kind word and a look of joy from their music teacher? It would probably make their day, and maybe even make a lasting impression on them.

It’s been my experience that most students who we perceive as bad kids probably have troubled home lives, or difficulty with our educational test-oriented paradigm, or even a harder time with social skills. More than once I have talked with another teacher about a troublesome student only to find that their parents are divorcing or they are going through some other painful experience. We can’t be their psychologists or therapists, but we can give them the benefit of the doubt by extending a little grace their way.

So here’s a little encouragement to show some kindness to your toughest kids and let your eyes light up with you see them.

Dostoyevsky Quote

“You are told a lot about your education, but some beautiful, sacred memory, preserved since childhood, is perhaps the best education of all. If a man carries many such memories with him, he is saved for the rest of his days.”
- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We all likely have many great memories of our education. Being music teachers, many of those memories are probably from our music classes. Perhaps those experiences are what motivated us to get into music education. Hopefully part of our reason for being teachers is to provide those experiences for our students.

I remember particular band rehearsal when I was in junior high. We played through, from start to finish, an arrangement of the theme from the T.V. show “The Greatest American Hero.” In retrospect, the T.V. show was awful, and the theme song may not have been the most artistically profound choice on the part of the director. I doubt the band really sounded exceptional either. Nevertheless, I remember how much fun it was to play that music at that particular moment.

Being a teacher now, that memory gives me two important reminders:

1. It’s important to have “run-throughs” of our music. We often take time to painstakingly focus on difficult technical passages. We try to expand our students’ understanding of music by teaching new musical concepts. All that attention to detail, however, should be balanced with opportunities to play more extended passages. Having a run-through, with all its probable imperfections and blunders, might just create a special memory for a student.

2. We need to provide our students with opportunities to create beautiful artistic moments. As artsy-fartsy as that may sound, I believe it’s those experiences that make music class different from any other subject. A colleague once reminded me that simply playing a Bb chord, correctly balanced, with a beautiful tone and good intonation, can be a wonderful moment.

Our students will probably never go home from a rehearsal thinking, “Wow. I sure am glad Mr. Engel reminded us to play the third note of measure 23 staccato.” But they will hopefully walk out the door thinking, “That was fun! I can’t wait to do it again!”

Here’s hoping that we provide our students with special memories of excellent music.

Raising Expectations

This year I’ve noticed a significant level of overall improvement among my beginners than in previous years. More of my beginners are graduating to intermediate band mid-year than ever before. (Students must be capable of playing music past page 13 of their method book to do so.)

It’s possible that this is due to a particularly good crop of students, or that my pedagogical skills are getting better for each instrument. But my hunch is that the strongest reason is because I am raising the level of expectation and am not intimidated to teach new concepts.

The best example of this is probably teaching beginning clarinetists to play above the break. In previous years, I wouldn’t bother to teach this because so much music is available which doesn’t require clarinetists to play above middle Bb. But my approach over the past couple years has been, “Let’s just do it. You’ll squeak and it will sound terrible at first. But you’ll get more and more comfortable as you get used to it.” And they are doing well at it.

Another example is expecting brass players to expand their range. The wealth of literature for young bands often doesn’t require brass players to play higher than concert Bb. But learning to play higher than that will make that concert Bb seem easy by comparison.

There have been at least two factors which had previously kept my expectations relatively low.
1.  The method book doesn’t teach that skill yet.
2.  I may teach the skill incorrectly.

Regarding the latter, I remember a conversation with a fellow teacher who was very opinionated about the dangers of teaching incorrect technique. She had been taught something incorrectly by a school music teacher, and then went to a private teacher who made her unlearn some bad habits. She was very outspoken that no teacher should ever make a similar mistake.

I believe her strong statements had a negative effect on me in that it made me reluctant to teach anything I wasn’t 100% confident in. For an elementary music teacher, that’s almost impossible during the first few years. Every teacher is going to have strengths and weaknesses, but with time and good coaching from other specialists, even a saxophonist like me can learn to teach proper cello technique to beginners.

Regarding band method books: They are written with all instruments in unison, and unfortunately don’t teach woodwind players their higher register notes. This is merely because brass players would have difficulty playing those same notes. Why not teach flutists and saxophonists to play up to a written D above the staff.

So here’s some encouragement to any young teachers of beginners: keep improving your knowledge of other instruments, but don’t be afraid to try new things. Your students may be capable of more than you think. Expect more from them and have confidence that they may exceed your expectations.

Bb Fingerings for Saxophone

The saxophone has several fingerings for middle and high Bb. Each has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the context of the surrounding notes.

Click here to download a short piece for saxophone, “Waltz for the Bb Brothers.” (Corny name, I know.) I specifically wrote this piece to show the context in which each fingering works best.

The PDF document also includes a fingering chart with the different Bb fingerings.