Klarinet Archive - Posting 000695.txt from 1999/12

From: "David B. Niethamer" <dnietham@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] recomedation of Reeds
Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 19:52:18 -0500

>>From: SoulClarinetAdam@-----.com
>>
>>Well, I really want to be a teacher of the clarinet, as well as play, but i
>>really want to teach to college students. I don't know why...perhaps it's
>>because i have a low patients level.

on 12/19/99 1:30 PM, James Leonard Hobby wrote:

>If you know you don't have the patience for elementary and secondary school
>teaching, then aim for what you want to do, from the git-go, because if you
>fall back on PS teaching as a stop-gap measure, you could very well burn
>out before you are able to further your education and get that college
>appointment.
>
I now have an OK job as a player, and do some teaching of university
students, things that I aspired to do when I was in college. But one of
the most useful things I ever did for both my playing and teaching was to
teach beginning woodwinds in a public school system.

To achieve any degree of success at all, I had to formulate in my mind a
series of steps by which these beginning students could master the skills
needed to learn to play their instrument. This included (in the US model
for school instrumental instruction) both musical skills and instrumental
skills, in some mix that continued to engage the interest of the students
as much as possible. And those individual tasks had to be simple - 9/10
year olds don't conceptualize very well. You need to say "practice this."

I certainly don't mean to imply that I formulated all this in a vacuum,
made from whole cloth. There are lots of excellent materials out there,
and I used many of them to be sure. But what I had to do was clarify in
my own mind how to present this in the simplest and clearest possible
way. That helped me as both a teacher and a player, since I had to think
about how I did things, whether it was efficient and/or productive, and
in the case of complex tasks, what steps it took to get there. After all
that, you still have to hope the kids will actually practice! ;-)

I always wanted to be a clarinet player, for as long as I can remember. I
never thought I'd teach elementary instrumental music. But I greatly
enjoyed the kids. What spurred me on to pursue my ambitions as a player
were the kids' parents, and school administrators!

BTW, if you think it takes less patience to teach older students... ;-)

Good luck!

David

David Niethamer
Principal Clarinet, Richmond Symphony
dnietham@-----.edu
http://members.aol.com/dbnclar1/

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