Klarinet Archive - Posting 000052.txt from 2001/01

From: CmdrHerel@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] Community bands and clarinets
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 16:09:30 -0500

In a message dated 1/2/01 11:10:26 AM Eastern Standard Time,
michel_chicago@-----.com writes:

<< OK, enough ranting. How do you keep a child's
interest. Is technique really that important? (i.e. scales etc). I'd
really like to develop their ear and their appreciation of music. Any
suggestions? >>

Kids are smart. My "technique" for keeping their interest is to be just as
smart. That is, I pay very careful attention to the pace they learn at, and
constantly walk the fine line between giving them too much work, to boring
them with too little.

Technique? Well why in the world would you seperate "technique" from
"music"? I don't - it's all the same. Music IS scales. Mary had a little
lamb is part of a scale. The Mozart Concerto uses a lotta scales... Joking
aside, I find that if I lump scales and songs into one big "game of music"
for the little guys, they end up liking it all. For older kids already
ruined by somebody else, I spell it out very explicitly what scales and
chords really are and show them lots and lots of examples of how songs are
nothing more than patterns of scales and chords. Soon they see how working
on the latter makes the former so much easier. Kids are smart.

Walk the tightrope of balancing songs and scales, things they like and things
they don't like. Explain everything.

Teri Herel

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org