Klarinet Archive - Posting 000810.txt from 1998/06

From: "Mark A. Bradley" <markb@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] A beginning teacher teaching beginners.
Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 16:23:31 -0400

I would not necessarily recommend the Yamaha books for beginners. There
are several other books that I think are better than these.
The Yamaha books I think are missing some fundamentals. There is not an
easy to read scales sheet. They don't start working with chromatics
until late in the series. There is little about basic music theory and
virtually no text--beginners will have to be in a lesson situation to
make the best of these books. Beginners who are ready to go on will
have to wait until other students and their teachers catch up unless
they are intuitive enough to understand everything in the upcoming pages
without explanation. There is little outside of the short lesson pieces
that teaches rhythms. The pages are cluttered and often don't look like
"real" sheet music.
Yes you can skip ahead and change the order of the lessons if your
students are good enough, but there are some lesson books that go a step
further and provide supplemental lessons for the advanced beginner.
The interesting songs for beginners may be a plus, but not worth it
especially if there are other method books that pick up on the Yamahas'
weak spots. They are pretty good method books but there are so many
others that are better. Also once book three is reached interest may
start to slack--I can only speak for myself, though, since that was my
situation.
In short, I think whoever posted the original message will have to sit
down with several method books and look through each to decide which is
best for them and their students. Yamaha might be fine for you but
don't take mine or anyone else's word for it until you have looked
through a variety of books. Like Mr. Williams said, you may want to
start out without any book at first.
Good luck with this interesting venture.
--
Mark A. Bradley
markb@-----.com

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