Klarinet Archive - Posting 000924.txt from 2004/10

From: "Nicholas Yip" <clarinets21@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] confidence in the band program
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 12:47:33 -0400


Essential Elements and Standards of Excellence are decent band method books
as well.

Nicholas Yip
Clarinetist and Music Teacher

>From: "Lacy, Edwin" <el2@-----.edu>
>Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
>To: <klarinet@-----.org>
>Subject: RE: [kl] confidence in the band program
>Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 11:40:59 -0500
>
><<<The band method we use is the "EASY STEPS TO THE BAND" by Maurice
>Taylor. This method produces MUCH better results than anything else we
>have seen. (and I have been teaching 41 years !!!!!).>>>
>
>Wow, I didn't really realize that this method book can still be
>obtained. That's the one I started in, in 1949! I do a quick survey of
>method books in my woodwind techniques class, and I always mention the
>Easy Steps method (and Intermediate Steps) to them as one of the best
>ones ever written.
>
>In my experience, there is only one problem with this book, and that is
>that it is quite slow in introducing clarinet students to the note B
>natural on the 3rd line.
>
>There is only one book that I have ever discovered that I like better
>than the Easy Steps book, and that is the Master Method series, by
>Charles Peters, published by Kjos. Its educational philosophy is very
>similar to the Easy Steps book. In both cases, the going can be rather
>slow and methodical, but if students are taken carefully through either
>book, they will have a really solid background. The reason I like the
>Master Series better is that the series is more comprehensive, with more
>supplementary materials available.
>
>Both of these books, in my opinion, are so much better than those that
>have been written in recent years. And, as schools have tried more and
>more to comply with all the requirements being imposed on them by the
>so-called No Child Left Behind act, and other politically-motivated
>requirements, the method books have become more and more watered-down.
>For example, almost every method book, new or old, will have the
>students play the French folk melody known as "Are You Sleeping." In
>one recent method book, the instructions at this point are, "Speak a
>phrase in French," and "Tell three facts about France." Naturally,
>there is nothing wrong with any of this, except that performing these
>tricks will not help any child know how to finger the notes of the
>melody, to be able to breathe or articulate properly, or to make a
>beautiful tone. Time taken from the music class to learn to pronounce
>(probably inaccurately) some random phrase in French that will soon be
>forgotten is time that could better be used to learn more about the
>music itself. By the nature of the music world, music students tend to
>gain a better sense of the international nature of the art form, as well
>as a stronger sense of history than most other students who do not study
>music.
>
>Sorry, I guess that I got rather far afield here....
>
>Ed Lacy
>University of Evansville
>
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