“We Can Play, or We Can Wait.”

I’ve recently stumbled upon one of those phrases I’ll probably carry with me through the rest of my career: “We can play, or we can wait.”

The music classes in my district are only 30 minutes long. That includes the time it takes to set up instruments, deal with individual issues, and make any announcements. I figure I’ve got about 25 minutes of actual playing time per class.

In an effort to avoid using phrases like, “Hurry up already!” I’ve been trying to come up with new ways to motivate students to, well… hurry up.

This passive-aggressive approach has worked pretty well much of time. Most of my students are geniunely motivated to play during class, so there’s sort of a constructive peer-pressure factor involved.

Do you have successful suggestions on how to get rehearsals started promptly?

Testing a New Mouthpiece

The music store where I teach has been expanding its presence on the net and on YouTube. With that goal in mind, they recently asked me to review a new saxophone mouthpiece. Here’s the video.

Here’s a video of a colleague trying out the classical/traditional model by the manufacturer.

For those of you shopping for new saxophone mouthpieces, I would encourage you to add these to your list of possibilities. (And no, I’m not a paid endorser!)

Two Thoughts for New Music Teachers

In the post Music Vs. Behavior, Janet asked about advice for pre-service teachers who are getting ready to start their careers. If I had a moment to share a few thoughts with her music ed students, I would remind them to…

1. Talk less/Let the students play more. Students are there because they want to PLAY. The general education community is slowly coming around to the idea that students learn by doing, and “doing” is what being in music class should be all about. Plus, the one failsafe a music teacher always has is calling out a title and giving a downbeat. When you don’t know what else to say or do in class, play another piece! It does wonders for classroom management as well.

2. This one is more general, but be mentally prepared to adapt to the unexpected. Whether in rehearsal, in a performance, on an outing, or in a career, there are undoubtedly going to be unexpected obstacles. In my first year or two of teaching, I’m not sure how well I reacted whenever I hit a bump in the road. But I have since realized that even seasoned veteran teachers hit those same bumps. Although it’s impossible to be prepared for every unexpected setback, it is possible to learn how to react and solve problems. Students will lose sheet music. Instruments will malfunction at inopportune times. Tour buses will get stuck in traffic. You will be asked to teach a course outside of your specialty. When these things happen, don’t panic. Learn to be a problem solver. As time goes by, you’ll learn to predict the types of things that may go wrong, you’ll learn how to ask for help, and you’ll learn how to react.

Videos: How Reeds and Saxophones are Made

As always, I vow not to make this blog into “link central.” But these are worth passing along.

If course, if reeds and saxophones aren’t your thing, it won’t be difficult to find similar videos for your instruments.

Music vs. Behavior

This year I’ve been growing in my ability to distinguish teaching music vs. managing behavior the classroom. Here’s what I mean:

Students in music classes are learning about unfamiliar concepts. They’re learning new repertoire, new notes, new fingerings, and other aspects of music they’ve never considered before. And along the way, students are learning how to behave in a rehearsal.

As music teachers, we’ve got to learn how to manage all of the above; the learning and the behavior.

This year, as I’ve been learning to recognize the difference between those two issues, I’ve become more determined about two principles:

1. I will be quick to stop student behavior that interrupts the learning.

2. I will be quick to help students who put in the effort to become better musicians.

To put it more simply, I won’t belittle students for playing wrong notes, but I will reprimand a student for disrespectful behavior. I’m trying to demonstrate patience in the process of learning, and intolerance with disruptions.

This is all in the interest of the music. I’m trying to teach my students when we get past the behavior issues, we can really give our attention to learning to play music.

Does any of this resonate with you?

Eighth Notes are Faster

After years of trial and error, I have decided that the best way to explain eighth notes to 4th graders is to say, “Eighth notes are faster.”

Try it. Works like a charm.

My previous technique involved reserving about 23 minutes of class time, rolling up my sleeves, drawing elaborate diagrams of various note values and their proportion to eighth notes, getting students to tap their feet in quarter notes, explaining downbeats and upbeats… You get the idea.

This new technique employs the concept of “play it now, understand it later” and “eschew obfuscation.”

Now before any of you left-brained thinkers like me get all worked up, please understand that we always circle back to those diagrams in the method books that explain eighth notes in detail. I lead my ensembles in rhythm studies on a weekly basis.

But when giving the initial explanation for new concepts like this, I’m becoming more and more convinced that students benefit the most from hearing a demonstration, playing the music, then understanding the theoretical concepts afterward.

A Very Fun Test Drive

This week I got to try out a limited edition Yamaha YAS-62IIS alto saxophone selected by Dave Koz.

Here’s a little video clip of my moment with the horn: http://californiakeyboards.com/wordpress/?p=110

Here’s Yamaha’s video of Dave Koz: http://yamahawinds.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/dave-koz-yas-62iis-artist-selected-saxophone/

“What’s The Fingering For Ab?”

The most aggravating part of teaching elementary musicians is not dealing with the dying chicken sounds. Nor is it replacing broken reeds or fixing stuck valves. Nor is it hearing Hot Cross Buns for the 278,000th time. The most frustrating part of teaching elementary musicians is repeating the same information week after week as if you’re speaking to Dory, the fish from Finding Nemo who has no capacity for short term memory.

A prime example of this is the question, “What’s the fingering for Ab?”

Now mind you, I teach the chromatic scale to my second year band students. It’s a regular part of our daily warm-up routine. I teach various major scales, and I teach about how to read key signatures. But on a regular basis, I hear this question over and over. As I was in the process of drafting this blog entry and had already decided on its title, a student asked me verbatim, “What’s the fingering for Ab?”

Ironically, it seems that Ab is a tricky note on just about every instrument. Flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, trombone… they all use Ab from time to time, but just rarely enough for students to forget the fingering.

The moral of the story is that I have decided to exercise patience and happily answer the question whenever it is asked.

I’m working on applying the same principle to similar questions. “What are we supposed to wear for the concert?” “What songs are we playing?” “What time are we supposed to be there?” But no promises.

Metronome App Recommendations???

Can any iPhone app users recommend a good metronome with a realistic swing feel? Something with a ride cymbal sound? A Dr. Beat kind of thing, but more authentic?

Play It Again, Sam

Now that I’ve been teaching a number of years, I find myself wrestling with the issue of the re-using concert selections.

As a composer/arranger, I really enjoy finding well-written pieces that work well for elementary students. There’s so much great stuff out there that I’m sure I could go through my whole career without getting to play/teach/conduct everything I want to. However, as the years go by, I’m finding more and more material I can’t bear to see filed away indefinitely.

One of my colleagues has told me he has a 5-year rotation of concert selections. Essentially, he already knows what his groups will play at each concert for the rest of his career. When he first told me this, it seemed shocking. But that was several years ago, and now that I’ve been at it a while, I have a little more understanding of his approach.

So at this point I intend to do a little of both; I’ll try out some of the unfamiliar music which is likely to be successful, while at the same time bringing back into the rotation some of those gems which worked so well in the past.

How about you? If you’ve been teaching a while, what are your thoughts about re-using music? If you’re relatively new to teaching, are you finding material you intend to use again?