Klarinet Archive - Posting 000808.txt from 2001/11

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] High School Band and Practicing
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 22:33:09 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Dowler [mailto:syo@-----.com]
> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 11:44 AM
>
> ... Is this normal for a band director to not encourage
> or make home practice mandatory? ... Should I
> suggest that the band director implement mandatory home practice for
> all of the students?
>
You may be surprised to find the band director has already thought of this.

Trouble is, you can make anything you want "mandatory," but you'll need to
think of some consequence to impose on those who ignore your mandate. One
that won't cost the band program more students than it can afford to lose.

You also didn't say how often the band rehearses. If it has a daily
rehearsal, many students regard that as their daily practice. The very
conscientious ones will carry the instrument back and forth between home and
school every day. The others won't unless you (or the band director) decide
to resort to the approach in my preceding paragraph.

On the other hand, you can try to make the music they play as intrinsically
rewarding as possible, give as much positive and constructive correction and
criticism as you can during each lesson, and hope the challenge encourages
at least some to decide on their own to put in some home practice time.
Outside of an auditioned, highly selective specialized school environment,
you probably won't do any better than that with "mandates."

Karl Krelove

---------------------------------------------------------------------