It's been a while since I last blogged, but so much has happened! This semester I've been student teaching. It's been a wonderful experience. My cooperating teacher and the assistant put me to work immediately with lessons and sectionals, then quickly gave me part of each beginning class (there are times where, in woodwind class for example, that there is one teacher to a section). As the semester progressed they entrust me with more and more. Now it is common for the assistant director to let me take the entire trumpet class, or the full woodwind class, or for the head director (my cooperating teacher) to have me take the full low brass class since he has been dealing with preparations for contest with the high school band.
I don't feel comfortable anymore discussing my experiences on the blog. Although I've tried to talk in general terms, the fact is that with a public identity on the blog, it is easy to figure out where I'm at, and then possibly who I'm taking about. This was yet another lesson I learned a while back. In the future I plan to continue a music ed blog, but with a less public identity. Maybe I could set up something similar to one of the first blogs I got into, www.soyouwanttoteach.com. I recommend this one, especially for my college friends.
But I can tell you a lot of what I've talked about worked. Some of it didn't. When something didn't work, I still think it was because of my implementation of the technique, and not the technique itself.
What Worked?
Wind patterns. Anytime I wanted to improve tone quality, having students wind pattern once or twice did the trick. And it required very little explanation to establish the procedure for how to do it. All of my beginners know what I mean when I say, "Turn that into a wind pattern". What surprised me, though, is that it also worked very well for helping students develop finger coordination. I originally discovered this when helping a high school saxophone student with a relatively quick lick that required a bit of jumping around (think 7th chord arpeggios without the third, up and down in 8th notes about roughly 130 bpm). When slowing it down wasn't enough, for some reason, wind patterning helped. All she had to do was think about which buttons to press without tone production, and when she went back to the instrument it worked. From there it was a matter of practicing slow and gradually increasing the speed. But she couldn't do that until she could develop the finger coordination to play the right notes. Afterwards I incorporated it into my beginner classes to deal with passages involving finger coordination (which can be as simple as a jump of a third for them) and it seemed to be much more effective than just playing it slower. On a quick side note, a friend of mine incorporated wind patterns into a long tone warm up for his band, and credits that
Classroom procedures. My classroom is the music library room, which fortunately is large enough to hold 12-15 students without feeling cramped. Students know not to bring their cases into the room, and they know to look at the small dry erase board for the day's objectives and goals, and to get their music out in that order. They know the procedure for asking questions, or being excused to the rest room. When I work with the 7th grade band, they know I'm picky about instruments coming up when the baton comes up, and they follow it. I rarely get to work with them, so I usually have to rehearse it again with them, but once I do the rest of the rehearsal is much more focused and productive. The one time I worked with them and didn't enforce it, they were disruptive and hard to focus. Which brings me to an interesting point - was it the band's fault for being unruly teens and pre-teens, or was it my fault for not enforcing the procedures? I'm the teacher, I took the blame, and the next time I had that chance we were far more productive because I enforced the procedure. That said, there was another class I failed to establish the procedure with (the first time I had them I was caught off guard, and once their expectations were set it was difficult to overcome). This group needed it more than anyone else, and I failed to implement it. We did make some progress, but it was very disruptive. I wonder how good it could have been had I enforced a couple of the procedures. Classroom procedures work. What doesn't work? Not using them.
Sharing the goal. They never ask, "What are we going to do today?" Most of them have the hang of getting their exercises and music out in the order indicated on the board. I have goals next to the objectives, so they never ask why we are doing something. They know we're trying to improve their sound and technique, or when the goal is notes and rhythms, or when the goal is dynamics and style, etc. etc.
Expressive conducting. I think "expressive" is misleading to some people. They think that means you try to mimic what the music sounds like. Actually, you're trying to communicate what the music sounds like. Regardless, I haven't actually been overly expressive so far. My regular beat pattern is a little different from the teachers I work with, but the students caught onto it quickly. Simply conducting a whole note scale acclimated them to my beat pattern. Sometimes I don't conduct a beat pattern, and instead just focus on dynamics or note emphasis, or phrasing, etc, but always with the goal of assisting them in achieving the desired effect. When it doesn't work for me, it's usually because of one of two things: 1) They aren't watching, or 2) They don't understand my gesture. Teaching gestures like they're vocabulary words works. If they aren't watching, try making eye contact. It's also possible that they're not used to having to watch, and it needs to be ingrained as the new habit (and we all know how hard it is to form new habits). On a side note, I debated with a friend the value of expressive conducting while at TMEA, and he was of the school that students at certain levels aren't ready for it. I explained that they have played the music so many times that they could probably keep the beat without his conducting. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later he called me, ecstatic over the day's rehearsal because he tried it, and it resulted into one of the best rehearsals of the season. He noted that they were thrown off at first, but he reassured them and gave them multiple chances, and pretty soon they were making music at a much higher level! It can be scary to try stuff like that. I'm still glad he did, and that it worked for him so well. What will be really cool is once they learn his conducting vocabulary, and learn to watch as the normal habit, they will start performing more musically and stylistically better on future works without him having to explain as much as he probably does now. It will save time. At least, that's my prediction. Also, I watched another friend at Concert Contest, and thought his conducting was awesome. Very expressive, and it made sense. The band performed incredibly well. Every phrase was musical. One director thought he was helping the band too much. Another thought they sounded like the third best band of the day. Not bad for a first year teacher. Way to go, guys! So yes, I still think expressive conducting works, but you have to work it. If it doesn't work, something is preventing effective communication. Once that's solved, it can work very well.
What Didn't Work?
Again, I don't think it's the technique, but rather my implementation of it. I discussed using some "Inner Game of Music" tactics in my Iron Man post. A friend commented that while working up a piece for contest, he found similar moments in at least two of the pieces that facilitated musical breakthroughs. When I tried to use similar techniques this semester, it didn't work. I tried it in three different settings, and each failed. This has created in me an aversion to trying those techniques again, but I think it can still work if I can just get the hang of it. Perhaps when I'm done reading this current series of books I'm on I'll go back to Barry Green's "The Inner Game of Music" for a refresher.
The rest of what didn't work was simply getting the hang of keeping a fast pace, and recognizing what to do in different situations. Perhaps some other things will come to me and I can write a follow up blog. We'll see.
Oh, another thing that DID work was my use of body language to communicate in place of language. This is an old trick, but it warrants a separate blog. I think I might only do one or two more blogs on the current site before I convert to a more anonymous format. Until then, thanks for reading, and take care!
Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper
