Friday was one of those days where my excitement level shot through the roof. In a private lesson with a student I helped her achieve not only a major breakthrough in her playing, but perhaps personally as well! It was one of those eye opening experiences where you are reminded of the power music has to positively change lives.
We'll say her name is Susie. But I'm getting ahead of myself just a little bit.
As mentioned in a previous entry, I've been taking the time to pull about a student a day from the full band rehearsals at the camp I'm working for private lessons. I started with the weakest students and gradually worked my way up. Most of what I dealt with were theory things: note names, understanding key signatures, chromatic finger pattern, figuring out fingerings, etc. etc. The last couple of days I worked with stronger students. When the director decided that he might give the band Friday off until picture and performance time, I realized I might not get to work with a couple of the students who had asked for help. On Wednesday I managed to get through two students, but that still left one who really wanted a lesson, and two tubists who were improving in their sound production through our sectional time, but still needed additional help in that regard. I wanted to pull at least two of them on Thursday, but decided since it was their last rehearsal before Friday's concert that they needed to be in the band. Instead I offered each of them a time to meet me on Friday, since there were no rehearsals. All three students eagerly agreed to show up.
Susie, a trombonist, was the first, and as it turns out, the only one I worked with Friday.
On her music bio she basically wrote that she wanted help with everything. Rather than a simple line, it was a paragraph of bullets. The thing is, she was one of the strongest brass players. She had good playing technique for a freshman. But she was also very hard on herself, which I later explained to her is both good and bad. Good that she can recognize and wants to fix what isn't going well, but bad because she wasn't giving herself credit for good things she was doing.
I then discovered that she wasn't even hearing the good things!
She confirmed my suspicion that she suffers from low self esteem, which carries into her perception of her playing, despite making the All-Region Band twice. I knew that to help her have a breakthrough in her playing, I also had to start planting seeds for her confidence and a better self-image.
Since we had done enough breathing in sectionals and had so many things to cover, we went straight to long tones and a discussion about warming up. She was blown away by this information because their previous teacher never really discussed what to do when warming up, and had never given them warm up exercises for individual use. She said she never really knew what to do when practicing. So I gave her the elements of a very, very basic warm up. Stretching, breathing, buzzing (we did a couple of exercises there), long tones, lip flexibility (which I pointed out was part of her band warm up), articulation and scales. I got her to a point where she was playing with a great sound on her long tones... but she couldn't recognize it!
Remember when I previously discussed how the entire brass section seemed unable to get excited about doing something great? It was like that, but worse. Even when she did something great, all she could hear was the one note she missed, or the hardly noticeable wavering of pitch on the last note, etc. etc. She couldn't recognize the tremendous progress!
Of course I asked her time and again, "Yes, there was that, but don't you think it sounded a lot better that time?" She often agreed, though timidly, and there were times when I didn't ask, but said, "Wow, that sounded so much better!" To which she often responded, "It did?"
So we had a talk. I talked to her about how the brain is hard wired for success, whether you succeed in playing poorly or playing well, doing something or failing at something, if you believe either one, you will succeed in that outcome. I talked to her about rewording her internal dialog so that instead of saying things like, "That was really bad" she could say "That wasn't as good as I want it to be." or "I can make that better". I talked to her about recognizing and appreciating progress, that while you should never be content with where you're at, you should be proud of any progress that you've made, because after all there is no limit to how good we can make a piece of music.
But in spite of her progress, she still didn't like her sound. I'd told her in the first week that she had a good sound, that trombones were supposed to sound that way, but it was as if she didn't believe me. So we went into the office and the director pulled up a video of Joe Alesi performing "Blue Bells of Scotland".
Given she wanted to discuss so much, I had scheduled her for an hour and a half. That ended up being a good decision.
So after she captured the actual timbre of trombone in her mind's ear, we went back to long tones. We also had to grease up her slide. It was sticking so bad that she couldn't play notes in time. Once that was fixed, she had less to feel bad about in terms of her playing. Okay, what else?
So she got to a point that she was feeling pretty good about her sound. She thought it could still be better, and I explained that she was right, but that it would take some time, with the promise that if she used long tones 4-5 times a week and pushed herself on the exercise, then her sound would continue to improve, and she would notice a major difference in the next couple of weeks and beyond. But we finally got to move on.
We did a very simple articulation exercise. I drew a diagram of what the tongue should be doing in the mouth, and we used quarter note wind patterns so she could practice a relaxed, light, but quick tongue action. She quickly caught on, and picked up her trombone and used a very nice, legato articulation. Then when I demanded she do it with the same sound she had on long tones, she did that as well. Articulations were another very frustrating point for her in her playing, and when she heard herself she finally felt a jolt of excitement!
My second student hadn't shown up yet, so I decided to apply these things to some of her music. She was game. So we pulled up her opening solo from the ballad. It's just three bars quoting the melody, but it was perfect for the exercise.
So I just let her have at it. Her inhalation was good, and I only had to occasionally remind her to keep her shoulders relaxed. Her articulations were awesome. But her sound was not (though better than usual). So we went to the part of the long tones that goes through that range of the instrument to recapture that sound. She played the solo again, this time significantly improved. But she wasn't happy! Too many small mistakes, not enough progress. Which was fine by me once she at least recognized the better sound. From there I had her play, buzz, and play again. Much better (of course). She noticed that whenever I had the brass section play, buzz, and play, it always sounded a lot better, so I explained why that happens, and that she should always feel free to use that trick.
There were still a couple of small issues left, but we eliminated those as well, and suddenly she sounded like an All-Area trombonist, if not something close to an All-Stater!
And this time, I didn't have to tell her how good she sounded.
Her face lit up, her eyes beamed, and her voice raised in pitch, in fact her entire body was bouncing in excitement! She was going giddily on and on about how much better she sounded and how happy she was. When she later went to put her instrument away, she practically hopped over to her case! It took two hours (though admittedly at a somewhat casual pace), but the transformation and the break through was totally worth it. In two weeks I had never seen more than a forced grin from her, and a single genuine grin from her boyfriend when I helped him with his solo the day before. Now, finally, she was filled with musical excitement and accomplishment!
If I could change one thing about that lesson, I would've liked to have done the same work in probably half the time. But it really wasn't because I didn't know what to do to help her. I made one right step after another. It was in part because of our attitude talk, in part because I was explaining too thoroughly, perhaps, in part because of the Joe Alesi video, and in part because of the time she took to grease her slide. But all in all, I don't regret the lesson. Guiding her through that playing transformation and hopefully a small personal transformation was indeed well worth the time and effort. My pacing could've been better. It's always worse in lessons than in ensemble rehearsals because I want to take some time to explain what's going on so that their understanding reinforces their concept of how it's physically done. But anyway...
THIS is the power of music education. I later reminded myself that band programs have the power to achieve that on a large scale, and then let myself dwell in the possibilities.
Through our programs, we have the power to transform lives.
We can create a safe and supportive atmosphere in which individual students with low self-esteem eventually feel comfortable enough to come out of their shell, be themselves, and open up to fellow students about the issues they're going through at home or otherwise.
We can use music to help them feel a high level of achievement. This is something they can become good at, and be proud of, and feel good about. The feeling of reward that comes from hard work paying off through inspired musical performances and thrilled audiences.
We can also use music and the mission of music as a whole to make them feel like they're part of something greater than themselves. To give them a sense of purpose. We're not just playing music for ratings or trophies. We're thrilling audiences, but more than that, we're delivering the deep personal messages of the composers and of the cultures/people from which the music originates. In this way, we can also challenge them intellectually to grow.
And we can take the opportunity from time to time to spread attitude concepts about self-esteem, time management, and the slew of other things that will help them grow into happy, healthy human beings.
That is the real mission. To use the power of music to change lives. We have the chance to not only change their lives, but perhaps if our performances are exciting enough, to perhaps get a few more audience members interested in the genre as well. After all, as Benjamin Zander argues, Classical music is for everybody.
So am I on the right track, or just crazy? I know we can't save them all. We can't radically change everyone, but even a few would be remarkable, don't you think? And you can't tell me that if we're providing that kind of quality educational and musical experience mixed with a supportive atmosphere and a dash of life coaching, that we wouldn't have a significant positive impact. Feel free to leave your thoughts!
Thank you for reading and sharing this journey with me. Until next time, take care!
Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper
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