Klarinet Archive - Posting 000740.txt from 1998/06
From: Rich & Tani Miller <musicians@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] mixed-level students
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:52:02 -0400
Actually, the credit goes to a trio of greats in the world of music education
and research--Richard Grunow (professor at Eastman), Christopher Azarra
(professor at Hartt), and Edwin Gordon (retired professor from Temple). I took
a course last summer at the Hartt School of Music from Ed Gordon on music
learning theory. Chris Azarra came and did an afternoon on improvisation. It
was just wonderful. It actually had nothing to do with jazz but certainly
could help jazz performers. His whole premise was that the way to get students
to improvise was to do two things. First, teach them lots of tunes by ear.
Then, teach them harmonic functions, aurally of course. If you can't hear the
chord changes, you can't improvise. We started with songs that had very simple
tonic/dominant functions. There's a whole lot more to it--lots of research and
time spent working on this concept and a lot of groundwork laid in teaching
it. You don't do this in one lesson. There's a great resource for this by
these three talented people called Creativity in Improvisation, published by
G.I.A.. The process works best if you teach through audiation but can also be
used successfully with whatever your teaching approach may be. Incidentally, I
do these types of things vocally with my general music students and am working
on making the transition into my instrumental (band/orchestra) programs. My
philosophy towards improvisation is this--if you can't hear, you can't
improvise. Music is about hearning and listening! How many of us have heard
people improvising a whole lot of notes that really have no relationship to
anything. I've only been at my current school for two years and it takes time
to lay the groundwork for this type of performance. I'm curious to see how far
I can take my students, and how far they'll go after they are no longer my
students.
I've done workshops with Richard, Chris and Ed. I very strongly recommend
their presentations to ANYONE who teaches. It doesn't matter what you teach.
You will walk away with a better understanding of the process that is involved
in learning music, as well as with a lot of great techniques to use with your
students.
I have two other examples of success with this method. My oldest child has
gone through music learning theory in general music, took piano for a while,
and plays french horn. He has perfect pitch and has been singing harmony parts
with Sesame Street songs since before he started school. He has an ear that my
husband and I absolutely drool over!!!! He can transpose anything and sings
like a dream. Oh yes . . . he's only ten. His younger brother is 3 and is
well on his way. As well as gloating like the proud parent that I am, the
point is this: His aural skills have ensured success for his french horn
playing.
I hope I haven't bored anyone by going off on a tangent. This is one of my
life's passions. I truly believe that musicianship is taught through hearing
music. If one possesses the ability to audiate, technique on an instrument
will follow quite easily in most cases.
Tani Miller
Carter & MacRae Elementary School
School District of Lancaster
Lancaster, PA
P.S. In light of current discussions, I'm one of those people who can't
improvise in a jazz style very well (my husband, a drummer/percussionist says
I'm "very white" whenever I try to play any sort of jazz--please don't take
that as a racial comment, it's not!) but I can teach simple improvisation which
leads to conceptual understanding of jazz improvisation. The more I teach the
process above, the more I learn from my students.
James Rosen wrote:
> Rich (and/or Tani) Miller wrote:
> <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.
> >
> ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! I love the idea of soloing. When I played in a jazz
> band last year, my general clarinet playing improved incredibly. Having the
> less-advanced students do harmony/bass lines is an incredibly good idea. In
> theory, at least (and I don't see why it won't work), this will do exactly
> what you suggested: have students progress at the same time using the skills
> they have at the beginning. If you thought of this plan, Kudos!
> -James
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
> For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org
---------------------------------------------------------------------
For additional commands, e-mail: klarinet-help@-----.org
For other problems, e-mail: klarinet-owner@-----.org
