4 Ways to Supplement the Beginner Band Book

Beginning Band students need
supplemental exercises to develop their
playing just like we did to develop ours.

I made a lot of mistakes with my first beginner class. One of the biggest by far was not supplementing their beginner band book. It's not that I didn't want to, or didn't know how to. It was more that I was so busy in my one man gig that it ended up as one of those things that just slipped by. Determined to make the beginners at my next job vastly different, I started working over the summer to create supplements. I've always been told that if you present everything through the book, you're probably in trouble, or that it's all about how you use the book. In some recent conversations on the Yellow Board I've found that some teachers use the book itself as a supplement, and have a large list of other things that are the base. Currently I'm in the school that spends half the class out of the book, and half in the book. The first twenty minutes or so are spent on supplements. I wish I were one of those teachers who had spent years collecting various materials to incorporate into their beginner curriculum. I need more time. Until then, if you're still spending the bulk of your time in the book, hopefully this will give you a few ideas to get started:

Rhythm Supplements

Of course there are usually two pages of rhythms in the back of every book, along with an occasional line in the sequence, but it's not enough. I've seen some teachers use flash cards with their classes to have them count and play them. In fact, I have cards like that in my office from the previous director, but I don't use that. Some of the best teachers I know just have a collection of rhythm sheets or have written a variety of rhythms that the students should be working on at that point. 

Personally, right now I'm using RhythmBee!. I wrote an article telling a bit about the RhythmBee! experience and you can also check out their website, www.RhythmBee.com, but be warned that their demos look awful, and really don't do justice to the real program in action.

I also use the rhythm sheets that are available for free at www.BandDaddy.com, which has a lot of good content for teaching beginners. And yes, we do sometimes use the rhythm sheets at the back of the book just so they can see how far ahead they are in rhythmic skills (they know when they can do both pages they have everything they need for the book). We also sometimes have them play the rhythms immediately after counting them, and I plan to do much more of that earlier on with my future classes as a way of helping to connect the learning.

Technical Studies

I've read that some teachers use technical studies as the backbone of their beginner curriculum and only use songs from the book occasionally as a way to maintain the kid's interest. Older method books were written that way, and I'm becoming more and more interested in this approach. But whether you go to that end of the spectrum or are operating in the middle (like me), you'll need to supplement the book with technical studies. Clarke studies, for example, stay in a friendly range. I consider tetrachords (which right now I'm calling four note patterns with the students) to be technical studies. Scales are another example. One of the most critical is long tones. Add in anything that a given instrument should be working on, line certain finger patterns at the beginning of the year, chromatic finger patterns, lip slurs for brass, and so on. Add breathing exercises to that list.

The thing is, yes, the book does have some of this stuff at the back of the book, but it's all written with the prerequisite of having the skills the book provides. In other words, you need to have materials for everything that's going to lead up to those studies, such as technical studies for when they only have a 3-5 note range, or a 7-8 note range in one key, then that octave and a half range and so on. 

I wrote out a few of these over the summer, but the instruction and curriculum have played out differently than I originally planned and so I'll have to revise them a bit. But the first set, which included basic long tones, five note pattern, study of thirds and the arpeggio in Bb, and an instrument specific technique (Lip slur for brass), really helped my beginners develop their technique as well as their reading ability. I'm often able to connect these exercises, as well as the tetrachord studies, to the lines in the book. So in addition to making them better players, I'm also building the idea that music is written with repetition and common patterns, and if you know the patterns and start recognizing them, it makes learning new music much easier and more fun. 

Call and Response (Rote) Exercises

Call and response games are a great way to help students focus on just the playing aspect of their instrument, especially early on but they can be used to address a wide variety of skills throughout the year. Play rhythms and have them play them back. Not only will this work on helping them feel a steady beat and the division of the beat, but it doubles as ear training. For technique, try just going up and down the staff using notes they know, starting easy (two notes back and forth) and building up in difficulty each day. This is also probably the best way I know of to address articulation problems. Most of these things can be done both on the instrument, and on just the mouthpiece alone.

Any Music Not in the Book

I would consider any music not in their beginner book to be a supplement. This could be lines from other books. I hear a lot of teachers use lines out of the Rubank beginner book, which I hope to eventually do once we get those books in the library. Other teachers write out the melodies to pop tunes that fit within that first octave and hand those out as a reward. Of course, any concert music you use at Christmas or at the end of the year would fall into this category as well. Why not add to that a solo, and if possible, a chamber ensemble piece? You might not find the chamber music if your students aren't advanced enough by the end of the year, but most beginner books have at least two solos you can work up as a class, one of which is at the halfway point.

Well, like I said, it's not much, but hopefully it will give you a few ideas if you're not sure where to start. If you're already loaded up on supplements that you like, please share what you're using in the comment section! I'm doing more than I have in the past, but I feel like I should be doing a lot more and have had a tough time finding specifically what other teachers are using. 

Thank you for reading, and until next time, take care and good luck!

Musically yours,

Mr. Cooper