So another good week lesson-wise. We're starting to vary lesson to lesson/group to group where we're ending up though for homework, so I'm hoping to try to maintain some sort of semblance of similarity so that instrument groups don't end up totally far apart from one another in the coming weeks (for example, I'm trying to keep everyone around the same page so that we're all learning the same concepts at the same times, rather than having one saxophone group fly ahead and then another stuck on the same page for two or three weeks in a row). Obviously I am doing my best to take the time to make sure everyone understands the concepts, but what I'm discovering is that I will need to figure out when to stay or move on because someone doesn't understand or if they just haven't been practicing. I want to ensure that everyone knows what's going on, but if they're not practicing at home there's only so much I can do.
One struggle that has surprised me is teaching students how to read music. I had thought this would be something pretty straightforward to teach, but I feel like sometimes I over complicate it and I don't want the students getting confused. For the most part they seem to get it, but then sometimes there are some who are just totally confused and I try to work out another way to explain it. What I've been doing that seems to work is to write out the staff on the board by hand, and explain things one symbol at a time, starting with the staff itself, then the clef (pointing out that the clefs are also G and F clefs and showing why seems to help), etc... We then go over how every line and space gets its own letter/note, and then I go over the Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge (which most of them have heard and recognize) and FACE concepts. I also teach them Ernie Gives Bert Dead Fish (these are all Treble Clef, of course). With one of my trombone players, we came up with Great Big Dolphins Fly Away and Arkansas Can Eat Grapes for the bass clef lines and spaces. Though they don't totally make sense, they're silly and people seem to remember them so far. Further, kids have fun trying to make up their own based on these. The more I teach reading music the more I am able to simplify it and make it clearer. Writing out the alphabet (only up to G, of course) under or over the staff and showing how lines and spaces skip letters among each other helps some students, too, and then I can show them how alternating lines and spaces make the alphabet go in order.
Teaching breath marks/snatch breaths has been a little tricky too; students are inclined to either take a full beat of breath (no matter how much I describe/model good snatch breaths) or take the snatch breath then jump to the next note way too early. I had one group count 1 2 3 4 while I played some snatch breath exercises on whole notes so that they understand I'm playing through beat four and not to beat four. This helped this group. I do my best to always have the students tapping their heels and stress that they should count in their heads as they play.
Another major issue of mine is that I speak super fast. Though most kids follow me, I am trying really hard to make sure I slow down, especially when giving instructions/homework. This has been one of the biggest comments I've gotten for many of my junior and senior student teaching remarks.
On the more successful side of things, my students in general seem to be warming up to me, especially the ones where there are more students per group. We're all opening up a little more which is making things run more smoothly, and I think they're getting to understand the quirkier parts of my personality. I've also been working on incorporating more call and response and pitch matching in my brass groups; I want to keep doing this, as well as some call and response by ear on all the instruments.
On a final note, I kept a group of clarinets a couple minutes late for their lesson on Tuesday on accident and apologized that I made them late for lunch/recess. One of the students told me "It's ok, this is better than recess". Awesome.
No comments:
Post a Comment