 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Meri
Date: 2002-09-12 00:31
Has anyone else noticed the greatly declining quality of school music programs, especially in the elementary school programs? I used to think it was only the occasional school, but from what I know from my experience working in an elementary school, my 12-year-old cousin's experience learning clarinet in the school program (she was really shocked at what my students play with 6 months of lessons--my students learn what she learned in two years in the school music program in 4-6 weeks! And her parents won't pay for lessons, even though she wants them?), the comments I read on the BBoard, and what my students tell me, it seems that many music teachers don't care about teaching good playing habits and reinforcing good habits if they do teach basic technique. On top of that, some don't even teach certain concepts correctly, like the recent post on tonguing on the roof the the mouth on clarinet. This is not just a problem at the elementary school level: one of my students, whose sister is in high school, said to me that he sounds better than the clarinetists in his sister's high school, that his sister's music teacher doesn't teach the clarinetists everything I've been teaching him about air and embouchure! In some high school bands, the clarinetists play with horrible posture, embouchure, air, andsound like ducks.
In the elementary school I worked at two years ago, the school music teacher was a clarinetist, but she didn't teach her clarinetists basic technique, on the basis that the students should be having fun. How can learning an instrument be fun if you are struggling with playing it? Even my now-eighth grader told me that he knows he's a lot better than the other kids in his music class.
Is this a general problem, or is it mostly confined to Canada?
Meri
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Author: jbutler
Date: 2002-09-12 01:23
I can only speak of my region of the US. Most public schools do not have instrumental programs until the middle school years (grades 6-8). We have some excellent instruction going on in Texas.
jbutler
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Author: Kat
Date: 2002-09-12 02:48
I had made some comments on the earlier tonguing post. I will add a few here. Many of the band directors in my area do NOT teach basic technique on clarinet. I have no other experience on other instruments so I can't comment there. In fact, the music store where I teach regularly "hits up" us teachers to teach more instruments. The manager asked me tonight if I could teach flute and sax. I can PLAY flute and a little bit of sax, and I do teach basic beginning flute stuff elsewhere, but I really don't like to advertise myself as a flute teacher. It's really shameful how people at this store will take students on a wide variety of instruments. I refuse. I do not want to teach an instrument I don't know. When a kid plays clarinet wrong, I typically know or can deduce the specific technical problem. Not so on the others. I could teach MUSIC to the other kids, but not that basic technique. The whole idea drives me nuts!!!
Katrina
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Author: Jim E.
Date: 2002-09-12 04:27
It is quite common, especially in smaller districts, for students to be taught by teachers who did not major or minor on the instrument. Music education majors are required to take one semester on each of the types (ie brass, strings, percussion etc.) of instruments that he/ she does not play, obviously that is not enough to competently teach an instrument.
My son was taught in school over the years by a clarinetist in 4th grade, a flutist in 5th & 6th, a trumpet player in 7th and a diferent clarinetist in 8th. These days the flutist has retired, and the daughter of friends is being taught beginning flute by the trumpet player.
The HS band director is a string bass major and trumpet minor. He admits that he doesn't know which end of a clarinet goes in the mouth.
Private instruction is essential for serious students.
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Author: William Hughes
Date: 2002-09-12 04:42
Meri:
When I was in elementary school (late in the Jurassic era) we had both a vocal and an instrumental music teacher in our building. Today our schools here may have just one elementary music teacher for 300 to 400 students. The result, as suggested above, is that students begin instrumental instruction later and private instruction is almost a necessity. We do have a community-based, after school arts program that is beginning to fill some of the void, but the reduced emphasis on elementary music nonetheless has taken a toll. You cannot place the blame on the teachers; they are probably as well prepared as music educators have ever been. They are simply spread too thinly.
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2002-09-12 13:04
Meri,
I dunno - there was a mix of teacher quality when I was in school and there still is now. My wife is a music teacher, and I meet them all: the good, bad, and the ugly. My junior high teacher, some years later, was kicked out of teaching for good because of some unspoken act, and I see the same things happening now.
Now I come in contact with more teacher, however, which raises the probability of meeting the really stellar ones. They show me how very simple it should be to teach music. The emphasis is on *MUSIC*, not on "technique", "practice", "attitude", "work ethic", "committment", and all the other lame substitute words thrown at me over the years. It is a pity that I didn't know more of these stellar individuals when I was younger.
Regards,
Ralph
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Author: Scott
Date: 2002-09-12 18:36
On one hand it amazes me what many band directors are able to accomplish with a group of kids who have never held an instrument before in their life. These are the directors who actively encourage private lessons. They take those kids to levels they will never forget. On the other hand you have directors who, based on one semester of a skills class, most likely taught by someone who hasn't seen a beginning band class in twenty years, constantly do things like insist all of their new clarinet (trumpet, trombone, etc.) players use the same mouthpiece (usually a B45!). Do they all have the same facial structure? The same teeth? The same horn and reeds? This thinking drives me up the wall!
I also have a huge problem with music stores pushing lessons when they do not have a qualified teaching staff. I own a small store and I insist that all my private teachers be degreed or highly quailified through performance on the instrument they teach. Often times the poor parents will not know any better and they are shelling out good money to someone absolutely not qualified to be giving private lessons. Ok, I'm off the soap box now.
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Author: Kimberly
Date: 2002-09-12 21:30
I agree with the incompetence thing.
I started playing clarinet in the 6th grade and was taught by a trombone player who hadn't even graduated from college yet. He had no idea what the correct embouchure was or how to toungue correctly. He hardly knew how to put the horn together. I tounged on the roof of my mouth until the problem was caught by a clarinet teacher in my freshman year of high school. Pretty sad, in my opinion.
I got my first private instructor my sophomore year. He had awful tone quality, squeaked constantly, and encouraged me to slide my fingers when I didn't need to. It turns out he was a saxaphone player but knew just enough clarinet to be able to teach. Maybe he would have been good for a beginner, but I was a little past that stage by then.
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2002-09-13 03:05
Kimberly wrote:
>
> ... knew just enough clarinet to be able to
> teach. ...
Nope. He didn't know enough to teach.
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Author: Kat
Date: 2002-09-13 05:36
"I also have a huge problem with music stores pushing lessons when they do not have a qualified teaching staff. I own a small store and I insist that all my private teachers be degreed or highly quailified through performance on the instrument they teach. Often times the poor parents will not know any better and they are shelling out good money to someone absolutely not qualified to be giving private lessons."
How true, how true...I don't suppose you're anywhere near the Twin Cities, MN, Scott... ;^)
I'd love to find a place to teach that didn't want me to do things I have no business doing... (And which I DO refuse to do anyway...)
Katrina
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Author: Dan Borlawsky
Date: 2002-09-13 16:35
OK, all of the above may be true. But what are some suggestions for improvement? A band director, teaching by himself/herself in a given school, can't be a pro-level performer on every instrument. He/she can only do what he/she has been trained to do (one would hope that each teacher is competent on at least one instrument!).
As a band director with 28 years' experience, I realize that I can't perform professionally on every instrument; I can only hope to study the pedagogy of each and try to impart and encourage.
I really don't think we can make a sweeping general statement about incompetence of music directors; many work under terrible conditions, traveling between schools, trying to serve hundreds of students, etc., etc. Some (most?) of the blame should be placed squarely on the administrators who hire the ones who are "incompetent" -- often they feel that as long as the teaching certificate says "music," the person is qualified. There are vocal majors teaching band, string majors teaching chorus, band instrument majors teaching strings. WHY?
Then there are some wonderful directors who are extremely successful in building a program in less-than-wonderful conditions. They deserve our respect.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2002-09-13 17:25
Dan said: ...As a band director with 28 years' experience, I realize that I can't perform professionally on every instrument; I can only hope to study the pedagogy of each and try to impart and encourage..."
That is exactly the point, and all we should reasonably expect.
Sadly, many do not take that initiative, and continue to teach...GBK(30 year high school music teacher, newly retired)
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Author: mike
Date: 2002-09-13 17:44
Ok, then. Let us assume that a school band director realizes that he or she is not qualified to teach all the instruments. Given that some parents cannot or will not provide music lessons for their children, what can be done to improve elementary music education in the schools? Do any school systems hire instrumental specialists who go to schools in that district and provide group lessons to the beginners on that instruments? Can the best high school players be coerced into helping out the beginners?
Me? I'm working on a revolutionary new technique called the "think system." I want everyone to think the Minuet in G.
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Author: Vic
Date: 2002-09-13 17:47
My high school band director was a trumpet man, and a dang good one. He never professed to know too much about the clarinet. But, as GBK, pointed out, he had studied enough on it, and other instruments, to have given me some very good tips. I didn't learn as much from him as I did my private clarnet instructor, but the director was conversant enough to at least speak the language and encourage me.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2002-09-13 17:53
Vic said: "...I didn't learn as much from him as I did my private clarnet instructor, but the director was conversant enough to at least speak the language and encourage me..."
See, it <b>can</b> (and should) be done...GBK
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2002-09-14 00:39
School music teachers are not supposed to take the place of private teachers.
Private lessons don't replace the group experience and what it teaches either.
Surely our kids could learn to be better writers, mathematicians, and historians if they each had a private tutor in these subjects too.
I was very lucky that my son's middle school band director was taking clar. lessons when he was there. She certainly gave him many tips on playing. She could no doubt have given him great private lessons, being a fine player and teacher...but not during band. This is for group work and what the school can provide. The cost of providing each child with a private tutor in music (or any other subject) would be a bit much.
Everything in its place.
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Author: Kat
Date: 2002-09-14 04:01
I suspect, Ginny, that the initial comments were not designed to send every school scurrying for "expert" teachers in every instrument.
Rather, they deal with the general dissatisfaction with a band director teaching technique that is not correct. You wouldn't want the math teacher teaching the kids that 2+2=5...So you don't want your band teacher teaching young clarinet students to tongue on the roofs of their mouths.
Katrina
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2002-09-14 17:12
The teacher mentioned probably did flute as their woodwind, hence misplaced tongue. Again, no individual willing to teach little kids is going to master the techique for all woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion. Perhaps the tongue placement is a big deal, but could you go in and instruct a child on say typani, upright bass (with say a German bow) or trombone technique and be sure you had not made as big an error? And how could you possibly make sure every little kid understood what you meant on top of that? This is why we have private teachers.
I think the majority of classroom/band teachers are excellent musicians doing their jobs at least as well as studio instructors. At least the average parent knows they have some training, whereas the private instructor requires no creditials or training what so ever.
Nothing will replace private lessons.
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Author: Kat
Date: 2002-09-14 20:26
I think the point is that in basic music ed classes at university, there are method books used to prevent exactly this kind of misinformation. I personally make no claim to be able to teach anything other than clarinet, but if I HAD majored in music ed, I would keep those textbooks from those classes handy at all times, simply in order to avoid making such errors.
I agree that private teachers are better than "just" a band director for the more subtle aspects of clarinet technique. But something as basic as where your tongue touches (and not necessarily the amount of tongue or precisely where on the reed it should touch) should be part of the basic clarinet class.
I must add that I have never studied clarinet in a school band or in a class setting. I began playing in 6th grade, a year after the class lessons were over and done with. I started with 2 months of private lessons under my belt, and progressed rapidly on my own. I didn't take lessons for 3 years, and began again in high school with a better private teacher.
Katrina
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The Clarinet Pages
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