The first several weeks of Beginner Band are crucial to the over all success of the students. These kids are often required to learn two skills at once, both of which involve multitasking - playing and instrument, and reading music. I had heard for years about the idea of Sound Before Sight, mostly as an elementary pedagogy but also by some as a beginning band method. My earliest attempt at this was missing some key components that ultimately resulted in a slower start to reading and playing, and less progress over the year. This year my friend and I worked together to develop a comprehensive curriculum that would both train the students on the basics of playing while simultaneously building them up for reading and playing. The two classes who got the full treatment are currently having better success than anything we've experienced, while the class that didn't get all of it is still struggling on the literacy end. Hopefully there's something in here that will give you ideas for your own Sound Before Sight curriculum, as having one that is effective can definitely make a big difference for your students!
Building The Playing Skills
There are a number of things that most beginner band books will even cover that are a given. These things include instrument assembly, embouchure, tone production, and so on. We really didn't do anything special in this regard, but we did do a couple of things worth mentioning:
Breathing Exercises - We kept it pretty simple, starting with in for four, out for four, and gradually expanding the exhalation counts while stressing the importance of relaxed inhalation and a steady exhalation. Breathing Gym exercises are a great place to start, especially things like the Inhalation/Exhalation monitors that give them something to hear or feel to gauge how well they're doing. For any group, I always recommend going straight from great breathing to the mouthpiece and encouraging them to keep the breathing the same. This can risk overblowing, but for me that's a better problem to have (and easier to fix) than not using enough air support!
Matching Games - Model everything you can, from the mouthpiece to the instrument. Make them use their ears to evaluate and model the wrong way to do it as well as the right way to do it. For example, playing with a steady tone. This is for me has also been the most effective way to improve articulation by changing air articulation "Hoo Hoo" to the tongue articulation. That said, these modeling games can be used for just about anything.
Using Teaching Toys - I wrote a separate post about this one if you want some ideas. One I originally left off of that blog (hopefully I'll remember to add it) was using straws to form clarinet embouchure. Cut a straw in half, pinch one end, and use only your lips to suck on it as hard as possible. This REALLY firms up the lip muscles in the way you want the kids to do it. Then do the same thing on the mouthpiece. After the kind of success and fun we've had this year using these kinds of fun tricks to get kids to learn, my curiosity for finding more has exploded.
Above all, go slow! There is nothing wrong with pushing them just a little bit, and it can be advantageous, but you'll know when you're doing too much if a player starts having trouble doing things they used to be able to handle consistently. If you act fast, it can be fixed. With most method books it will be a while anyway before they need more than three notes.
Actually, above all, focus on a quality, steady tone and good articulation. They won't have the muscles to do much at a time, so don't over do the playing. You can always do related instrumental things, like checking alignment/mouthpiece assembly, or learning fingering patterns.
Teaching Music Literacy
Some of this is literally just reading, but the last thing will show the transition work to reading and playing written music.
RhythmBee! - Before we introduced ourselves on the first day, the students saw a countdown timer as they walked into the classroom and noticed name tags on their stands. We explained their first two music lessons were on posture and tapping the foot to keep a steady beat, and then went into RhythmBee! unit 1. I'm a big fan of this program, and think it's possibly the greatest money you'll spend.
That said, any rhythm work is essential, and I know great teachers who don't use it and produce great players. Some rhythm sheets even have foot tap icons printed over the music similar to what you see in Division of the Beat or Rhythm Master. One teacher I observed used a laser pointer to get a similar effect to the arrows in RhythmBee as he could track the notes for them on a projector. Regardless of how you do it, do it daily and...
Use a Counting System! Preferably something they can build on into their high school years. Elementary style counting is for elementary music. When I say that, I mean things like using food for syllables. It's not an insult, but unless you have something that can cover some of the complex rhythms of higher level grade music, I would suggest Eastman (what we use) or maybe the Traditional system. They're not that hard to learn.
The Pulse Game - Written about by Ed Lisk in The Creative Director: Alternative Rehearsal Techniques, the pulse game is simple. You have them count to eight over and over while keeping a steady pulse. I like to have them compete against the metronome sometimes. On level two you use your hands to indicate when they count out loud and when they count quietly in their head (the longer the quiet counting goes on, the harder it is). The first time the beat isn't in perfect sync, you start over. This is one way to help establish group pulse and help them feel the beat.
The Musical Alphabet - Also advocated by Ed Lisk in the same book (or maybe in his beginner book... I can't remember). It builds off of the Pulse Game and also prepares them for a method of learning scales later on. Start on A and say the letters of the musical alphabet going up indefinitely with a steady pulse. Next, start on A and go down indefinitely. Eventually build up to starting on different letters and going up and down one octave. This precedes note naming on the staff.
Note Names with MusicTheory.net - I prefer this to the traditional approach of teaching the lines and spaces. While some kids will catch on to the old method, many will be lost and confuse the lines and spaces (like I did, and other kids I've worked with along the way). I've found this to be far more effective. MusicTheory.net is a free website with various exercises, including one at the top that is basically a flash card note naming exercise. You can choose your clef and customize the range. Start with two notes on the first day, and gradually add notes until they master what they need. I don't bother doing the entire staff, but the trumpet/horn class went from C under the staff to second space A before we left it alone. The important thing to me is that they get the concept of lines and spaces representing pitch, and knowing the location of their first 3-5 notes on the staff with confidence, which you can quickly build with daily or bi-daily drill on this exercise. To me, anything more than that risks confusion.
Crossing the Bridge to the First Line of Music
At this point they should know the basics of their instrument, basic rhythms, at least three notes on their instrument (they can play them by name), and 3-5 notes on the staff. They've done a variety of other activities to build them up to playing as a group, establishing the beat, and so on. But before we try to put it all together with written music, there is one last step we can take...
Play songs by note name. This is another elementary pedagogy, and part of the whole Sound Before Sight method. I don't know if it has a specific name, but here is what I'm talking about:
Mary Had a Little Lamb
D C Bb C | D D D--> | D C Bb C | D D D--> | C C D C | Bb--> -- -- ||
One of the reasons we chose Measures of Success this year for our method, aside from what we expect to be excellent pacing (and has been so far), was that it includes a page of Sound Before Sight, with both lines on one note and three songs written out like this. These songs then appear written on the staff half way to late in the first chapter, meaning that once they can play these songs and sound good they have the technical skills to play most of the first chapter and can focus on the task of reading and playing without having to think as hard about the basics. You can work these for finger coordination, articulation, note length, tone, practice your note name & finger procedure, wind patterns, buzzing and so on with music so that when you get to those first lines of music they will already be familiar with those routines!
The only thing I would change for next year is that I think I'll put the rhythm on top of the note names to help them make the connection to the rhythm work we're already doing. The arrows work to show they're holding out the note an extra beat (the beats are also numbered under the letters), but this would be a supplement based on what I've learned from our woodwind class this year and the trouble they're still having with recognizing the difference between quarter notes and half notes when they have to play it (although they count it just fine!).
Once our brass classes emerged from this process, which probably took the first 5 weeks of school, they were able to hit the ground running. They easily handled the first 10 lines of music in their book in a week, and after three weeks of music we're running victory laps through the first chapter (approximately 28 lines of music, not including things like the rhythm lines, which is not a bad pace in our short experience). And they sound really good! They understand how to read and play music, and most of them have shown the capacity at some point of teaching themselves new music within their knowledge base. We're stoked. With our woodwind classes, some of those playing tasks took up more time which resulted in leaving out a few of the seemingly less important activities (or only getting to do them a couple of times), and now we're paying the price for it with a slower start and more confusion about reading (though at least they have good tone!).
I used to feel puzzled about how one would go about starting a class, but now I think we've hit onto a process with a high success rate if it is followed correctly. Some of this was even based on the elementary music classes I had to teach at my last job (and if I could teach 1st graders how to read 5 note songs, you'd think it would work for 6th graders). Anyway, I'm proud of what we came up with for this year, and I hope to find ways to do it even better next time around.
Do you have any tips for this crucial first part of the year that I didn't list? Please share them in the comment section! Not only would I love to hear it, but I'm sure passers by would appreciate them as well! Thank you for reading, and until next time - take care!
Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper
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