Klarinet Archive - Posting 000177.txt from 2005/06

From: "Margaret Thornhill" <clarinetstudio@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Teaching Clarinet (Peter's post)
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 12:19:29 -0400

Dear Peter,
You've gotten good advice from people on the list already!
Teaching--children especially--is so much about the relationship you build
with your student. But, if I could add one thing it would be to remember the
most important reason we play: music is magic. It expresses our deepest
feelings and emotions.I goes beyond speech. It changes us. Children,
especially middle schoolers, are imo far more in tune with the world of the
emotions than we are as adults, (though as pragmatists, they may not talk
much about their feelings.) Don't underestimate the power that making music
can hold for them. The more quickly you can connnect your young students
with playing actual music, no matter how simple, the more genuine and
effective your teaching will be.

I see tone as the sculptural material of the musical artist. For this
reason, I devote most of the early months of study to legato pieces ,
leaving the whole discussion of repeated, staccato tonguing for a later
stage when the sense of a continual, supported line is more developed.
I edit all the printed materials I use to support this concept. Pick and
choose, and eventually develop your own.

Best wishes,

Margaret Thornhill
Los Angeles
http://home.comcast.net/~clarinetstudio/

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