 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: janlynn
Date: 2003-08-12 17:51
i have an adult beginner ive been working with for a few months - shes been playing for 8 months all together and has done quite a bit of work on her own.
we just got back to lessons after about a 2 month break. the last time i saw her, we started a new scale (Bb) ..shes got C,F,G pretty good now. we went thru those and when we got to Bb she had some trouble when she commented about not looking at the notes. she says it slows her down. so she looks away from the music. im guess she is looking at each note and there is a process that goes on between each one, where if she just looks at the starting note and 'feels' her way up the scales she can go faster and smoother.
is this good or bad. eventually, i was going to have her play scales from memory, but she seems to already be there. her difficulty is that she runs into trouble when she looks at the music.
even a small chromatic scale - she would rather look away.
she also told me that once she figures out how a tune sounds looking at the notes just slows her down.
im not quite sure what to do here. i know she would like to play in a clarinet choir or wind symphony one day - its kinda neccessary to be able to look at what youre playing, isnt it?
usually i find people who 'need' to have music in front of them and cant do it without ....
so ... i guess im asking, is this good, bad or neither and should i let her look away or make her look at the notes as she plays?
JL
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Author: msloss
Date: 2003-08-12 18:21
Ear training is a very good thing... in moderation. Sorting out fingerings, technical sequencing, etc. is also good during practice... in moderation. Sight reading skills will obviously never develop, and your student is likely to have trouble in ensembles as well where she can't merrily plug along to her own figurative drumbeat.
I've had students who quite clearly do what you describe and are reluctant to play the page. A couple times I successfully broke it by either requiring 10 minutes of sightreading at each lesson or taking them through a couple months of assigning a lot of material or rotating it from week to week very rapidly. Basically, I kick the crutch out from under them and force the classic eye-hand coordination to develop. I'm willing to put up with a period of less prepared etudes and exercises to fix a fundamental problem.
Good luck -- big challenge!
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2003-08-12 20:34
Could the problem be a multi-step translation from the printed page to production of the notes?
Some who have learned note names go through a cumbersome mental gyration such as: "Let's see, second space is A, and the A is fingered like this...." That way, things happen very slowly. There is no need to go through all that. "See and play" works a lot faster.
No guarantee that's your studen's problem; but if it is, perhaps a different mental concept may help -- second space means press this key. Use note names only if necessary.
Regards,
John
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Author: Richard
Date: 2003-08-12 21:37
Janlynn;
I would explain to the student that if a complex task (such as playing a series of notes) involving coordination (such as eye-hand) is practiced over and over very slowly, eventually the cognitive portion of the brain no longer needs to be involved. Some call it muscle memory and the process is the key to training in several of the martial arts. Simply, the goal here is to train the body to automatically react to one or more of the bodies senses; in this case seeing and reproducing a note.
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2003-08-12 23:00
Hi Janlynn,
Everyone has excellent thoughts above which I can only echo. The one that strikes me as most appropriate though is "your student is likely to have trouble in ensembles." She obviously wants to do things rote which is OK for some things that need to be memorized but as all will agree, does not do any good when sight-reading.
I wonder if since she is an adult, can't you do more in the way of explaning the importance of being able to sight read. I sure like the idea of several minutes of sight-reading per lesson.
HRL
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Author: Synonymous Botch
Date: 2003-08-12 23:48
Etudes, etudes, etudes...
As an adult beginner, "I feel your pain."
The trick is to work through simpler etudes that graduate to more complex notes. Playing scales at the onset is tedious.
David Hite's entry text might be a good starting point, some of the tunes are quite lovely, really.
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Author: janlynn
Date: 2003-08-13 12:29
thank you for the advice everyone! i will do more sight reading with her.
the thing i told her during the lesson - becuz i wasnt quite sure what to say and was thinking that she is looking at each note - is to start seing groups of notes.
like when someone learns to read .. start off learning letters that makes a word, pretty soon they need to look at the whole word. something like that?
was this okay to tell her - is it something she can apply to what she is doing?
also .. the advice of assigning a key action with where the note is on the staff instead of a letter name sounds good. going to go over that too.
thanks all, JL
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Author: BobD
Date: 2003-08-13 12:44
For the most part clarinet lessons are for youngsters in preparation for participation in band and "classical" training methods are appropriate. An adult probably has other goals. Years ago playing "by ear" was frowned upon because it removed the teacher from the playing field. Now there are those who maintain that playing by ear .....without written music.....is a better way to learn an instrument .......at the initial stages. A person who cannot read music can present a problem to an ensemble unless it is a rock band or similar group(no, I'm not knocking them). Perhaps you should explain why learning to read music is important and a good goal and let the adult decide what to do about it.
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Author: johng ★2017
Date: 2003-08-13 13:57
Take a look at http://www.musicalfossils.com/. This is a great free on line book about teaching adult students. It is about teaching adult piano students but it all applies to clarinet, too. In the section "The Fossil Mind of Concepts" , Mr Harre discusses that an adult's concept of mind and body are different than a child's. A child has a more combined concept of mind and body; they are not separate. In the learning process an adult lives in the world of verbal and mental concepts and that can slow music reading down. He describes exactly what you are seeing. He says the trick is to move adults back to just allowing their mind to run the body without thinking about it. As teachers we do it all automatically so it is hard to remember that your adult student does not. Take a look at his web site. I think it should help.
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Author: janlynn
Date: 2003-08-13 15:40
still reading, but WOW - excellent website!! this should help a lot! Thank YOU!
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Author: Pam H.
Date: 2003-08-13 23:17
Learning common patterns is good as well. Many of the same ones occur in different musical pieces again and again. I don't think you did anything wrong in that respect.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2003-08-14 05:15
Don't worry if she can play the scale, but cannot read it. Task #1 is to get the scale LEARNED physically. She could even do that by going up and down adding one note at a time until the set is complete.
Once she knows the scale, write it out in the range that she's playing it in. Then have her play the scale up and down while looking at them and following along.
If she sounds pretty strong, give her a very linear song (one with very few jumps of more than one step) to play by ear, such as The First Noel, My Country Tis of Thee , Ode to Joy, or Joy to the World. Tell her the starting and ending notes. Have her play the song by ear. Once she learns to play it, have her write down the pitches down on staff paper. (don't bother writing rhythm, just open noteheads) She can figure out which notes to write by comparing her scale with the one that you wrote down for her.
This will give her an interesting activity that will force her to match her fingerings to written pitches. Rather than sitting there an memorizing notes, she will learning them in a more natural way.
Don't be afraid of students playing by ear in the beginning. Exploit it. Necessity is the mother of invention and all you have to do is create a sequence of necessities to take the student right where you want. In fact, I find that students learn to play better initially without the distraction of written music, and that they learn to read rhythms much better without the distraction of manipulating the instrument.
If she is uncomfortable with written music, add the Master Theory Workbook to her curriculum. My adults respond really well to it. Most get their first taste of sightreading with the book's rhythm exercises.
Allen Cole
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