 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Brandon
Date: 2005-03-07 17:00
I am doing an informal study on the requirements for students in private lessons. If there has been something done like this recently, I apologize. My general questions are as follows:
1. What does your teacher(or you as the teacher) expect from your students on a week to week basis? For example, were you(or your students) required to do a certain number of drills or studies each week, etudes, excerpts, solos, etc. Do you have a weekly requirement or just look at the bigger picture?
2. To give this study a little bit of clarity, I am also interested in knowing your current level of study, whether HS, ugrad, grad, amateur, hobbyist, etc. If you are not playing in lessons, then I am curious to know what level you are describing if you are talking about lessons from the past.
While I know this can be an exhaustive research topic, as stated I am only doing this for an informal study and for the general knowledge of fellow BBoard posters. Thanks for your input!
Brandon
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Author: music_is_life
Date: 2005-03-08 02:49
I am a senior in highschool; 6th year of lessons (8th year of playing); part-time private teacher (as of last year)
my lessons are not very structured. I am not really on a schedule, per se. When Eastern Region, New England, All State, or some kind of festival/audition/recital is coming up then they're a bit more structured. I am required to learn a piece for the audition and my teacher expects me to practice it so we can work on it each week. She generally starts off teaching me some history and showing me important motifs and such. She gives me a recording, and sends me on my way. After we have pretty much tweaked things (over the course of a few lessons), that starts to taper off and lessons are less structured. She usually expects that I know all my scales (major and all 3 minor...and chromatic) and will have me work in Baermann, Klose, or Rose. I almost never work on festival music, orchestra music, or band music. mainly it's audition music or etudes. she really lets me choose what I want to work on.
sometimes we work on really nit-picky things, like rhythm or intonation or fingers, sometimes we just talk about MPs or reeds or teaching or whatever. it all depends. but I have learned alot, so her non-structured free style has worked for me!
as for how I teach- 8th grade-10th... it depends. the younger student works on band music and I help them learn fingerings and embrochure and attempt at teaching them the finer aspects of tone quality...or at least how the clarinet should sound. I help them with their finger postion. I expect that they learn the music and be able to play it better than the previous week (ya know, PRACTICE!) and to learn an assigned scales (the younger ones learn one MAYBE two octaves of say, an F scale). at this age it's more about learning technique, rather than making music. They have to learn to play the instrument first!
the older ones, I get more involved with what I do. we work on going over the break smoothly- work on audition music... fingerings, tone...but it's at a greater level than that of the younger students. I expect them to learn scales (and arpeggios). I haven't required etudes, but I will...
hope that helps!
-Lindsie
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Author: Brandon
Date: 2005-03-08 03:20
Thank you Bradley and Lindsie. While you answered my questions, perhaps I should have been a bit clearer(I was a little preoccupied while drafting my original post!). I guess that while you described a long term process, I am more interested in knowing a lesson to lesson requirement. For example:
C major thirds
One Rose etude
One orchestral excerpt
One page of a solo
All of these are to be completed and checked off as mastery by the end of the lesson. So, I guess that I am not looking so much at long term goals such as scales, fundamentals, etc. but rather a week to week structure. The aforementioned lesson requirement was something I just put together, but I imagine that someone follows this format. So, when doing a solo, how much do you cover in each lesson? I know this can be very broad, but an estimate is ok.
For those in college, do you set semester long goals or a roadmap of what you are going to be doing for that given semester? Or does your teacher just wing it without giving clear direction or expectations?
I hope these questions have shed some clarity on the original post. I am most interested in hearing more replies!
Regards,
Brandon
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Author: music_is_life
Date: 2005-03-08 03:35
wow. like I said, my lessons tend not to be structured, but lets see...
let's say I'm learning the mozart clarinet concerto for an audition...
she'll have me warm up on some scales, since I have to play one (unknown until the day of)- she picks them randomly (+arpeggio) and then the whole chromatic scale. Then we'll get into the mozart. she'll usually have me play it, and depending on how I play it...or the mood she is in... she'll either have me play the whole thing and then pick on it (this is usually more toward the end, when I have it nearer to 'perfection') or have me play it and then stop me when she feels I have played enough, then kind of tells me of big issues (i.e. intonation, rhtym, dynamics, mood, etc.). Sometimes she'll give me some kind of imagry (in...I think it was Arabesque- Jeanjean...there was this one part were there was a motif that just kinda repeated itself, except it would increase by like a step or something...and crescendo...and anyway, she thought it sounded kind of desperate and so eqauted it to this guy looking for hi dog, calling for it...getting increasingly more desperate and worried...calling louder...seeing the cliff...louder...more desperate, etc.)- so we'll do something like that. or talk about the history if needed. sometimes she gives me articles and I read them. she doesnt expect me to read them, but I exceed her expectations and it makes things move faster.
really, what happens is that we start out working on the big things- general tempo, technique, rhythm, intonation...I am expected to practice, and then we get increasingly more nit-picky as time goes on.
I feel like when I was younger lessons were more structured. but now, as a senior, and more experienced player, she lets me do my own thing. but still has a sort of requirement (but not by a certain date, per se). back when I first started lessons, she would write in a notebook I had...do # whatever in the rubank book or whatever and learn these scales (by next week). I'd work in this book that she'd make checks in when I made progress, and upon finishing it, got a medal.
in this notebook she would also take note of things I would need to work on and I could refer to this sheet to fix embrochure, or measures 45-60 in whatever band piece we worked on....or #5 in the rubank or something.
now it's less structured though.
how's that?
-Lindsie
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Author: Brenda
Date: 2005-03-08 12:17
For a young beginning student our lessons are very structured. She has to keep a notebook of what we've done and what her homework assignments are. I assign specific scales and articulations for the week (that'll change soon, she knows that beginning in April I'll ask for any one of the scales that she should know for her level). I even tell her how to break down her practice time, so many minutes on scales, so much on warm-ups and so forth.
A specific study, or even a specific range of measures within a study is assigned plus one or two warm up exercises from Galper's book that have her work on the areas she needs to develop. For one solo I assigned only four measures at first. Depending on how she's been able to master the assignment we may go back to a particular trouble spot, or even do the same study and this time concentrate on another aspect of it (dynamics as opposed to just getting the right notes for example). We even work on the concept of coordinating her playing with the toe's tapping of the beat - it's unusual how the toe becomes entirely independent of what the other side of the brain is doing!
During the lesson I monitor where she's been backsliding or areas that need long term help, like fingering and embouchure, ear training and rhythm. I have her work hard on only one area at a time so she doesn't feel harrassed like I did when one of my teachers tried to get me to correct all things at once. For example while I'm having her concentrate on keeping her hands and fingers in the proper positions while playing I don't say anything about other things. Another area is keeping the playing in time with her toe so she's absolutely sure of where the down beat is.
We use visualization as well. I ask her to close her eyes and imagine herself doing this or that. Science is showing how important visualization and mental rehearsal is to learning, even without the instrument in hand.
Well deserved commendation goes a long way. Sometimes she does extra on her own, which I encourage so that she doesn't depend entirely on me, as long as she does what's been assigned that week. The student senses when they've done well and they deserve to be recognized for it, even for small, important steps.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2005-03-08 12:51
A typical hour lesson with a high school clarinet student usually follows this pattern:
10 minutes: all major scales - ascending and descending, all major scales in 3rds ascending and descending, articulation changes from week to week
15 minutes: 2 prepared exercises or etudes
20 minutes: prepared repertoire (solo and/or orchestral)
10 minutes: prepared duet (usually played twice with student taking both parts)
5 minutes: sightreading (my choice)
Obviously, for younger students the lesson structure is quite different as more time is spent on many of the fundamentals of playing.
Adult students, who are playing purely for their own enjoyment may often work more on standard tunes and/or beginning jazz studies instead of orchestral or solo repertoire.
With my high school saxophonists, the repertoire and duets are usually replaced with jazz standards, and/or improvisation using play-along CD tracks.
As every student's needs are different, weaknesses are identified and the above "schedule" is adjusted accordingly...GBK
Bradley: Still studying with Phil? If so, say "Hi" for me...
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