Klarinet Archive - Posting 000874.txt from 2002/04

From: "Dee D. Hays" <deehays@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Duet book for flute and clarinet
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 22:37:44 -0400

I must also disagree with you about the value of the Rubank method books.
The key to their use is knowledgeable application by the instructor. When
starting from scratch, the Elementary method book will typically take two
years. At this pace it is neither too fast nor too slow for most students.
By the end of that book, the student should be able to play to altissimo G
and play major scales to 3 sharps and 3 flats. That's a pretty good
accomplishment by the end of two years. However it does need supplemented
as it is boring.

After the elementary book, skip the intermediate as it really adds nothing.
Go straight to the advanced books and work through them as shown in the
tables at the beginning. Once a student has done all this, they have a good
grasp of all the major and minor scales.

The biggest problem that I see is that students simply don't drill enough.
The Rubanks provided that drill.

When I come across a really good player in a community band, I generally ask
them what method they learned from. Invariably that answer is Rubank
followed by others such as Klose. The followups do vary but seem to be the
various "old fashioned" methods and etudes (Baermann, Klose, Lazarus, Rose,
etc). Admittedly this is not a statistical sample size but it is
intriguing.

Dee Hays
Michigan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Dowler" <mikedowler@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] Duet book for flute and clarinet

> You are right, the "royal blue" rubank books with the 50's styling
> are method books. What I would like to see is someone getting to a
> music store and convincing the music store clerk to BURN them. I've
> lost track of the number of students I've started to teach who have
> been practising forever the C major scale and arpeggio that makes up
> most of the beginning of that book. The rest of the books were
> written with the same ignorance of any instrumental pedagogy specific
> to any one instrument. Better to go with a book such as the Yamaha
> "individual method" or the Galper "blue Book 1" End of rant.
>
> As for the duet books, they could be described as "cyan" and
> "magenta" if you'ld like.
>

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