lesson updates 10/21

October 21! Where did this month go (and can I have some of it back?)?! Wows.

It was so nice to finally be back into my normal routine, and to see my students again. I missed them! Student M reappeared after weeks of being a flakey student, and he accepted my "laying down the law" without resistance. (Not what I expected.) And he actually opened up a little bit about some of the root causes behind his problems - I won't go into them here because they are very personal - and he promised he would be a better student. We'll see if this change of heart sticks for the rest of the semester.

More importantly, back to HLS. We had a great lesson this week! We started in on some new repertoire, and I'm interested to see how he it progresses. Her embouchure has become a much more habitual thing (I'm having to remind her about it less and less every week), and her technique is continuing to become more natural and refined. In working on producing a fuller, rounder sound, I've asked her to play everything mf or louder - and it's helped a lot! But now her playing has a very static quality to it. It may be time to start reworking dynamic contrasts and phrase shaping into the music, and I'm hoping the new sonata we're working on will be a good tool for that. My fear is that in playing more expressively, old habits will kick back in. Great diligence is in our future!

The end of the semester will be here before we know it. Keep practicing! :-)

mid-semester frustrations

Can we have another fall break now? I missed the first one, and am running out of energy...

... and so are my students, apparently.

Last week I did not teach any of the kiddos because I was inhabiting one of the "isolation booths" (yes, that is what the sign on the door actually says) in the computer lab taking my comp exam. But I gave them all an assignment based on their all around rather poor showing in our previous week's lessons.

I sent them an email about how to be an effective music student. It's a top ten list put together by the tuba professor at the University of Georgia and that Dr. Dennis AsKew shared with me at the start of last year. The top ten list is as follows:

1. Take your classes seriously, including theory, ear training, and music history.

2. Listen to as much music as you can.

3. Learn and know your scales and arpeggios, they are the building blocks of western music.

4. Schedule your practice time as though it were a class, and make yourself a tough attendance policy.

5. Go to concerts!

6. Embrace what technology has to offer us in developing as musicians.

7. Be curious! Strive to know the repertoire for your instrument.

8. Play with your peers.

9. Be serious about your pursuit of excellence. You owe it to yourself to be the best musician you can be.

10. Know that every great musician in the world still considers himself or herself a student of music.

I then asked them to spend the next week seriously contemplating this list, analyzing how successfully they have implemented the suggestions in this list and what they can work on. Before their lessons with me this week, they all have to write a blog post about their musings.

I'm hoping that this will serve as a mini "wake-up call" for each of them, in different ways. And that they take this assignment seriously. But we'll see. :-)

a weekend of revelations

Howdy, readers!

Well... the past few days have been great. Many little events have shed fresh light on my teaching and the hamsters in my head are working extra hard to churn out new ideas to keep up. ;-)

The first moment occurred on Friday when the student you have been reading about so far (HLS) gave her first rep class performance. She did great! One of her major goals for the semester is to work on her technique, and she has made tremendous progress already. To focus on technique, we've been working on a Stamitz concerto (early classical, not too difficult harmonically but with lots of sixteenth note passages that need to be played even, light, and fast). She did a great job keeping a steady tempo, and playing the technical passages evenly and without missing accidentals. There are other concepts I've been mentioning but haven't started really bearing down on yet, like the angle of her clarinet (she likes to keep it pulled down close to her body). During Dr. Burke's "masterclass" time with HLS after her performance she mentioned ALL of these other things that I'm referring to. It was excelled! Hannah totally understood (because she wasn't hearing anything knew) and at the same time realized that she hadn't really been thinking about them as she should (because we were focusing on technique). It made me realize that while we needed the weeks of focused study on technique (and learning to practice regularly and adjust to college life and all those other things freshmen face in the first few weeks of school), she is ready to handle more than one thing at time now. I can't wait for our lesson tomorrow!

The other "lightbulb" moment I had this weekend happened this afternoon. One of my other students, I'll call him M, has really been struggling. And I mean really struggling. Since classes started he has already missed two lessons and had just a half lesson one week. We have had no consistency and absolutely no sort of routine established - it's frustrating because he just doesn't get it. But that's where my heart bleeds for him... he doesn't get it because he doesn't know what he is supposed to be getting. Honestly innocent ignorance. So I was just about ready to start giving up on him, after weeks of trying to help him out and offer as much advice as I have to give... until today. I had the honor of performing a concerto with the University Band today, and M happens to be in that group. He wasn't playing on the concerto because the group was reduced in size so today was the first time he had heard it. After the concert he purposefully sought me out (I could tell he wasn't just passing by!) and said that he was "blown away" and that he had no idea the clarinet could sound like that. He sounded so excited! I really hope that I was able to give him a glimpse into what he can do if he works at it and doesn't give up on himself. I'm really starting to think that a lot of his problems are self-confidence related (even his trying really hard to appear confident on the outside), and he needs to know that I believe in him and want to help him. If he can get his act together and actually come to a lesson this week, I've got a great plan for him! I hope that in some small way I was able to help him find some inspiration and a goal to work toward. If I can do it, then he can too.

I don't envy these freshmen one bit! It's easy to forget just how hard that first year of college is, and how important it is for us to be the best teachers we possibly can be for these students - they need us.