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.
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