 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ben Shaffer
Date: 2014-06-28 22:21
Although I consider myself an Adult Beginner, I actually played the Clarinet briefly circa late 50's and early 60's
Quick question... what were the most popular Clarinet Band Method Books, or Book during that Period?
Really what books were being used for the average kid in Junior High that would not be taking private lessons and maybe would just be playing in Band?
I may have a book or two of these up in a box somewhere in my attic, but its not likely they will ever see the light of day!
Just curious what book Band Instructor from that time period might have been using for us Baby Boomers!
This query falls in line with my Nostalgia for all things pertaining to the 50's!
Post Edited (2014-06-28 22:24)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-06-28 23:33
I doubt if most junior high band teachers back then would have used a band method book. They were around and used at the beginning levels in elementary school - Learn to Play, Belwin Band Builder and Breeze-easy come to mind as well as the Rubank series that, I think, Noah brought with him onto the ark. But my recollection (I started to play clarinet in 5th grade - about 1957) is that the books pretty much disappeared by 7th grade except for Rubank for the better players. Otherwise, outside of full-blown rehearsals the kids just practiced (or didn't practice) their band music.
Karl
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2014-06-29 06:41
Your question brought back some old memories from the 60s!
My first book (in a school setting) was Universal's Fundamental Method for the Clarinet by Donald J. Pease. Soon after, my school went the Belwin route and used the First Division Band Books (I used books 3 and 4). These were some of the most popular books out there for a long time. Belwin also had an assortment of supplementary materials that were widely used.
Easy Steps to the Band was another popular one. I used it briefly as a young teacher in the late 70s, but quickly moved on to newer materials.
Dale Harris, a legend in Pontiac, Michigan, wrote a band method that was used in some places, but I don't recall the title.
You asked about junior highs. I can't speak about the situation everywhere, but I can speak about many school districts in southeastern Michigan. Back then, many students started band instruments in fourth grade. Since there were no middle schools, students stayed in elementary school through the sixth grade. There were some outside distractions (TV was a big one, and teachers complained about it plenty), but it was the age before video games and all the other personal electronic gadgets currently seen everywhere. Students were under strict orders to practice at home, and most did, even though some were more serious than others. By the time a serious student reached seventh grade
--junior high school--he or she was quite far beyond the beginner stage. There were supplementary scale-oriented books that some junior high directors used, but I can't recall any titles.
When I started teaching in a big city school district in the late 70s, things had changed a great deal. Part of my teaching assignment was in elementary schools. In one school, built in the early 50s, I saw a collection of old band literature that had been used by previous teachers ten to twenty years earlier. I was shocked. The music was challenging, and there was no way that 99% of my students could even come close to playing it.
Nowadays, I see a few schools that start instrument instruction in fourth grade, but most wait until fifth or sixth. Middle schools today do much more basic instruction than the junior highs of the past.
It's interesting that the big push in education today is to teach teach concepts at an earlier age than they were once taught. When I was in elementary school in the early 60s, we didn't even learn the alphabet until the first grade. When my oldest son was in kindergarten in the early 90s, he learned the alphabet and some basic words, but that was it. Today, kindergarten children are expected to read and write complete sentences!
The opposite trend seems to be happening in school music programs. The amount of time children have in elementary general music classes is limited, and some students don't have music at all. If a clarinet player today learns to cross the break by the end of fifth grade (some do and some don't), it's considered to be a major accomplishment. Some middle school bands are fairly good, but I've noticed that the playing skills of the average seventh or eighth grader today don't even begin to compare to the playing skills of their counterparts of 50 years ago. By the time they get to high school, many of today's students do begin to "catch up." If there are any other old-timers who disagree, please feel free to share your thoughts.
Post Edited (2014-06-29 06:42)
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2014-06-29 07:52
When I moved from jr. high school beginning band to regular band in 1956, we used a book called Technical Fun, which had scales and arpeggios through four harp and flats. The band director had everyone play an exercise or two for the first 5 minutes of rehearsals and used the book for challenges.
Ken Shaw
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Author: elmo lewis
Date: 2014-06-29 23:06
I own the Hal Leonard Band Method (copyright 1961) and if you want to go way back The Victor Method of Class Instruction for Band or Orchestra (copyright 1933).
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Author: William
Date: 2014-06-30 01:28
In my 34 yrs of public school teaching, I used several different full-band methods for years one through three. And they are all basically the same and have the same basic problems: 1) none of them enable the horn player to learn without range difficulty having to initially play way too high or low--or jump octaves unmusically--to accommodate the Bb, Eb and C instruments; and, 2) in most beginning books, the upper range of the clarinet is not introduced soon enough (imho). I think that as soon as a beginner is able to play low E, they should be experimenting with the register key.
The most recent full band methods still have those problems, but include CD's and DVD's for the students home practice sessions. Still, it is very hard to teach the horns without individual or sectional lessons. And many school instrumental music programs do not allow time for lessons or sectionals within the school day. After school lessons are always up against sports programs, bus schedules and other special fun activities.
Just ranting.......I'll stop now.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2014-07-01 18:35
Stop saying 'Breeze Easy' - it gives me nightmares!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-07-01 19:15
I'm noticing that almost everything that's been mentioned are methods I've seen used - here in the U.S.. They're all published by American companies. Do European teachers use different books with their beginning to intermediate students? What material do British or French or German beginning students use? I'm assuming Breeze Easy and Easy Steps to the Band weren't part of the curriculum (or were they in the 50s and 60s?)
Slightly off the OP's topic, what beginning to intermediate materials are commonly used today?
Karl
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2014-07-01 20:18
In the UK there's the Otto Langey tutor which I'd suspect would've been used a lot in the '50s and '60s as it's a pretty ancient one and I think is still in print now (some consider it to be the bible or holy grail of woodwind tutor books), then 'A Tune A Day' and 'Learn As You Play' and various others which were popular in the '70s and '80s.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-07-01 21:33
Learn To Play was used a lot here when I started teaching in the '70s, but it was at a disadvantage in American public school programs because it was a "homogeneous" book - (for anyone unfamiliar with the difference) the books for each instrument were not synchronized with those of the other band instruments. Heterogeneous (all books synchronized) methods allowed different instruments to be placed in the same class. I don't recognize Learn As You Play, but I recall Tune A Day vaguely. I can't remember - was it a band (heterogeneous) method or an individual (homogeneous) series?
It was the "band method" or heterogeneous approach that was responsible for the problems William describes - not just horn range, but concert pitch instruments learning flats (Bb and Eb) long before they learned the naturals, so that getting a flute player to play B in an arrangement in G or C major was like pulling teeth. Series like Rubank and Learn to Play were better suited individually to each instrument, but you ended up with a band where the beginner players didn't know the same notes and couldn't play together, and scheduling students into the limited number of available lesson slots without mixing instruments was much more difficult.
Karl
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Author: Dick
Date: 2014-07-01 22:13
We used Belwin in west Texas. Everybody came up by the same route, so everyone had a common historical background. Even in 8th grade, when the band director got frustrated at how things were going, he would command us back to Book 1, calling out, "Page 4, line 1." (B flat concert scale).
Dick
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Author: GBK
Date: 2014-07-01 22:24
Attachment: Scan0001.jpg (533k)
This was the preferred beginning band method book in New York (Long Island) in the early 1960's. I actually had my original copy in my library.
...GBK
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Author: Ben Shaffer
Date: 2014-07-02 02:00
Hey GBK,
I grew up on Long Island as well in the early 60's. That may have been the method book used in Levittown I think there are 3 graded levels in that series
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