Klarinet Archive - Posting 000601.txt from 1998/06

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Beginner students
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 13:07:42 -0400

Hmmm . . . this is kind of opposite of the anecdotal evidence I have
encountered.

I do not have a problem w/ multi-age bands--in fact, I think they're
preferable. At least in the middle-school environment, bands grouped by
ability (the 1 band and the 2 band) do much better and faster than the ones
grouped by grade (i.e., the 7th grade band and the 8th grade band). I am
not aware of any scientific evidence either way.

The evidence of mixing students of various abilities in the normal
(non-band) classroom is well researched, however. The evidence is clear
that younger and/or less-advanced kids do better in a mixed environment.
What is disturbing, however, is that these gains come at the direct expense
of the more advanced children, who DO become bored and disenchanted.

While we can fool ourselves into thinking that "the good kids enjoy
performing for the others," it is simply not true. They get bored in a
hurry, and misbehave because they have nothing to do. Kids are perpetual
motion machines--if they're not in gear going forward, they're going to
expend that energy in another direction.

It really boils down to a simple question that you can ask yourself--do you
prefer playing with musicians who are (a) as good or better than you or (b)
stink? I have done a lot of both. Do you ever recall rolling your eyes at
the 3d clarinetist with no brain? Translate that emotion to a little person
with the attention span of your average 6th grader. Do you really think
that they enjoy being a beginner twice?

Another experiment you can perform. Look at the behavior of your best
clarinet player when s/he is sitting in your band, bored again while you try
to convince some other kid that the pointy end goes in their mouth. Then
watch the same student in a rehearsal of a more advanced group, say an honor
band or youth symphony. Not only will they behave, they will play better.
Trust me, it's not the superior classroom management skills of the second
instructor--it's that the kid is fully engaged.

The educational debate of whether to teach to the top or the bottom of the
class is not new, no matter what the edusociologists tell us (I believe
that Plato discussed the problem). The issue certainly doesn't get better
if you make the bottom lower.

kjf

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich & Tani Miller [mailto:musicians@-----.net]
Subject: Re: [kl] Beginner students

I disagree with WG Grabner's response. In my school district this year, we
started implementing multiage classes. It took a lot of adjustment and LOTS
of planning, but we did see some really great results both academically and
socially. For example, my multiage (2nd/3rd) class did better on solo
singing assessments than the 2nd and 3rd grade classes did separately. My
4th graders did better on recorders this year than in any previous years. I
attribute that to their being in a 4th/5th multiage class with 5th graders
as
role models (they had already played recorder for a year). I've always had
first and second year band and orchestra students in the same groups.
Beginners achieve more in a short period of time when they hear their peers
doing things that they can't do yet. More advanced students love to perform
for other students.

You can use you advanced student as an example for the others. Obviously
you
want to keep pushing him to advance as well. Why not teach them tonic and
dominant harmonic functions and let him improvise over top the harmony? If
you wrote out the harmony part, it would strengthen your lower level
students
reading ability and would work on ear-training with your upper level
student. It would be good for all your students, though, to play by ear.
You could also use duets and have the lower level students play the easier
parts and upper level students play the more advanced parts. Yamaha makes
pretty decent ensemble books with three part pieces. In the clarinet book,
the first parts in the pieces (I think) often go over the break. The
second
and third parts usually don't. In addition, this will keep ALL students
playing. More playing with good technique reinforced usually results in
better players.

Having a group lesson is a great opportunity to learn through ensemble music
rather than the traditional method of going straight through the lesson
book. You just have to stop teaching like a traditional teacher. If your
students are making music, they will almost certainly learn in the process.

GrabnerWG@-----.com wrote:

> Anna....regarding your very advanced student, get him out of the class and
> give him private lessons. There is NO way to accomodate him and the other
> sudents in the class. It will just frustrate them and demotivate him.
>
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