Fruit!
October 17, 2009
At long last, I finally feel like I’m seeing the fruits of my labor with my beginning musicians. Kids are finally playing Hot Cross Buns and other tunes from the beginning of the method book, and they’ve got decent beginning level tone, embouchure and rhythm.
Here are some of the steps we beginning band teachers go through just to get to this point:
- Recruit students for the music program
- Have meetings with parent to enroll students
- Distribute school instruments, or discuss rental options at local music stores
- Obtain method books. (This was no small task this year!)
- Establish the schedule of music classes
- Confirm schedule with principal, secretary and custodian
- Distribute schedule to teachers
- Meet with music students and discuss policies, etc.
- Teach students to assemble and care for instruments
- Hope that students won’t damage instruments before learning to play
- Teach students proper embouchure/holding technique
- Listen to first sounds on the instrument. (Contrary to popular belief, this is NOT the hard part. All of the above is the hard part.)
- Teach students first fingerings
- Hear students individually play #10 from Essential Elements Book 1, a four-measure/five-note exercise
- Rejoice
October 17, 2009 at 8:22 am
Congratulations! What a nice wrap-up and reflection. And you are absolutely right, it’s the administrivia that is the hard part, not listening to students play…that’s the fun part and the joy as they progress each week. Thanks for sharing.
October 17, 2009 at 10:35 am
I like the rejoice part!
Musical progress is a spiral…it will always either spiral up or spiral down. If you can just get them to play that first song and feel like rock stars, then they go home and practice, followed by coming back next class and sounding even better…the upward spiral takes care of the rest of your year.
Congratulations on another job well-done!
October 21, 2009 at 12:14 am
Cool! Thank you for the post. There’s no better reward than seeing your students learning to play musical instruments. Not just that, your beginning musicians are now having discipline – knowing how to properly handle such musical tools. As band teachers, you are able to extend the specialized information to them. In case you’ll be needing some music teaching tips, don’t falter to visit the link. It’s very helpful. Also, you can include some tricks or valuable advices to your music program. Continue to inspire other people in pursuing their passion. Let’s cheers to that!