 The Clarinet BBoard
|
Author: chitown22
Date: 2005-01-03 00:46
Hi-
I'm twenty and currently an undergrad; I've been playing the clarinet for the past 13 or so years, but I no longer get instruction and I'm not studying music in school. I have a little experience teaching (an apprentice program of a community band I played with) and I'd like to start giving beginning lessons to elementary school kids in my neighborhood. However, there's slim chance that I'm going to get a teaching degree; I've read over some of the previous topics in the bulletin board, and it seems like a lot of people feel like the only people who should give private instruction are those who have degrees in teaching...
...but its a little late for me to change my course of study, and I'm probably going to go ahead and give lessons anyway, sorry if that really offends anyone.
Point being that it's been awhile since I had my first couple of lessons, so I'm a little rusty on how to get someone started on the right foot. I'd greatly appreciate any tips or recommendations from "real" teachers on books that are helpful or ways to get started with younger students; ways to be fun without sacrificing the right technique. Probably more than that, if there are any students out there who just started, or remember their first lessons and have any handy little anecdotes of ways their teachers made an impression on them, made them fall in love with music, didn't scare them away from the clarinet, etc.
Thanks so much...
Lindsey
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: Aussiegirl
Date: 2005-01-03 02:05
Ive been teaching clarinet thru a community band for a little over a year now, and am facing the awful task of leaving my students when i go to uni in a few months, but heres what i found helpful in their first few lessons.
Start by first showing them how to put the instrument together, and let them get comfortable holdig it correctly. Then show them the correct embouchure before having them play open G....fiddle around with that one for awhile. Basically i just went with the flow, going on as they were comfortable with one thing onto the next. Most beginning tutor books have duets right from the start, i taught my 2 together so that they could play these, making it more fun for them.I also found that they had a lot of fun playing with kids on other instruments, so if you know anybody else teaching kids of the same age/abilities you could maybe have them play as a group occasionally, i was lucky thru community band that there were trumpets/saxes/flute players at my disposal! Standard of Excellence and Yamaha are both good tutor books, and the abracadabra books are also great for fun songs and duets.
Hope this is of some help to you, its just what worked for me! Good luck.
Fiona
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: allencole
Date: 2005-01-03 15:56
Actually, I don't think that you'll find that much prejudice here in favor of 'teaching' degrees, though you will likely find some in favor of 'music' degrees.
It's going to be hard to assess your abilities on a BB, so let's just say for now that you are comfortable enough with your own skills to feel ready to teach.
Assuming that you have the skills to pass on, the real wrinkle is trying to articulate and demonstrate them. With younger kids, I think that the demonstration part will be fairly easy. I also thought that Fiona had some good ideas and mentioned some good books. Most modern beginning band books do a decent job, and Hal Leonard has a new packet called "Play Clarinet Today" that I'm currently test driving.
Your best asset as a new teacher is going to be your own practice and your own curiosity. A good way to learn to articulate, and to get good teaching advice, is to read some books by name players/teachers. Many of those can be found through info on this website. I've found good advice in books by Jack Brymer, Keith Stein, David Pino and Tom Ridenour, as well as documents and interviews available online from others.
Remember that you need to learn not only what you are interested in, but what you need to know. Some people set out to teach an instrument forgetting that their real task is to teach MUSIC once the student is underway. You want to make sure, for example, that you have a consistent and coherent way to work with rhythms. (I use the Master Theory Workbook for basic rhythm training)
This is why you'll find that people with music degrees are favored for such tasks. There is no guarantee that even a teaching degree makes for a good teacher, but the person with the music degree has years of collegiate-level private lessons, plus experience with chamber music, piano and theory, to name a few.
So go out there and get experience, both as a player and as a teacher. If you are interested in music, and you like the kids, the rest will be determined by your skill and your enthusiasm. But be warned, keeping both of those in shape can be a full-time job.
Allen Cole
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
Author: EEBaum
Date: 2005-01-03 19:27
Is it possible for you to start taking lessons yourself again? No offense personally, but I know that after I'd gone 6 years without lessons (those lessons being "this is how to get sound out of it") I had LOTS of bad habits, which I would likely pass on to students. With lessons, I've broken most of those habits now that I've been taught properly, and would feel a bit safer giving lessons now.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
|
|
Reply To Message
|
|
The Clarinet Pages
|
 |
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
