Ah, the life of a music teacher. Sometimes it's a major celebration that a student performed a piece of music "just right"! Sometimes it's a class full of kindergartners piling hugs on me. And, sometimes it's reaching deep down into your soul to pull out that last thread of patience, after you've told the same kid the same concept 50 times. Sometimes, it's going home after a day of work and crashing on the couch for an hour until you get so hungry that you get up and make dinner. Or some semblance of dinner anyway.
I find that there are some concepts that my band padawans just have a hard time with in the beginning. Most recently, there was a student having a hard time remembering how to move his fingers in order on his clarinet. Granted, clarinet uses 9 fingers and that last little thumb on the right has to hold the whole thing. That's a lot of fingers when you're just starting out. In class, I had them move their fingers in order up and down; first on their right arm and then on the full clarinet. It went something like this, "Pinkys up! OK, lift the ring finger, middle finger, pointer, thumb! Now go backwards..." Most got it.
For the one who struggled to remember to use his left hand, much less which finger moved next, I thought, "Maybe there's a way I could record myself doing it. Then he can look at it at home. His parents may not have any idea how a clarinet works and that would help them visualize what we're learning as well so they can help." (Our administrator is constantly reminding us that "parents are our partners!")
The bright idea occurred to me that there are several small items like this on beginning instruments that could use the same treatment. We'll call them Band Shorts. My bright ideas usually burn brighter than the energy to make them happen (see above!) but I'm hoping to collect a list of beginning instrumentalists' challenges and help them overcome them with these short videos. Hopefully the lighting and backgrounds will improve as well! :)
Let me know in the comments what concepts you've run across we can cover!
https://youtu.be/ZCIPItTNN7w
No comments:
Post a Comment