Communications

Indulge me for just a little while as I walk you through a child-like fantasy - I promise there will be an important message for you as a music educator by the time you finish reading this. Let's pretend for a moment that you live in a small rural community, you are about 12 years old and you want to be a circus performer in the worst way. The circus is now in town and you rush over to where the tents are being pitched and find someone who looks like he's some kind of boss. You tell him your dream of being a circus performer (I told you this was fantasy and I assure you it's going someplace so bear with me, please). You make your case, but what is a circus master going to do with a 12 year-old boy?

The circus master decides that the easiest way to get rid of you is to give you a task to achieve that is so hard you could never accomplish it within the week or so that the circus is in town. And, while you are working on it, you stay out of his hair - brilliant! He says to you; "My unicycle-riding, juggling clown just quit so if you can learn to juggle while riding a unicycle, within one week you have yourself a job". With that said the circus master is now sure he is done with you. In fact he pats himself on the back for coming up with such an ingenious and diplomatic solution.

Now, it just so happens that your older brother tried a unicycle for a short while and it's still in the garage gathering dust. And the juggling part, well you could juggle just about anything. In fact you have an orange tree in the yard, so why not oranges? Ahhh, your plan is set and your lifelong dream is about to be fulfilled. You will practice really hard for a week then go show the circus master that you can do this. So you get your oranges and your unicycle and give it a shot. You try and try and try, but you keep falling off the unicycle, frequently squashing the oranges in your fall. It seems hopeless, but you have a dream and a ton of commitment and so the ordeal continues. As nightfall comes you drag your completely exhausted, muddy, scratched up, orange-smelling, bruised body into the house and collapse into a deep, coma-like sleep.

As often happens, our biggest disappointments are the source of our greatest inspirations, and so it is tonight, as well. Somewhere in your deep sleep the image of all the day's transpirations ebb and flow as only the subconscious mind can function. Upon wakening you have a brilliant revelation! Instead of practicing the end result, which is the juggling while riding a unicycle, it occurs to you that you can isolate these activities. It would be far easier to learn to juggle while standing on firm ground! After practicing juggling for about an hour you could then practice the unicycle for about an hour. In fact, you could even break this incredibly complex muscular coordination feat into smaller, bite-sized activities. Maybe learning to juggle one orange first, then two, then three. As for the unicycle, maybe practicing your balance on a balance board first before moving on to the unicycle. Yes! This will be far easier to achieve and much less painful! This is your plan and you begin work in earnest. At the end of the week, the results are astounding; you can actually juggle oranges while riding a unicycle, and you owe it all to your cleverness and determination.

Now back to reality; believe it or not, much of what has been done in music education is very similar to practicing juggling and riding a unicycle at the same time, except it is complicated by even more stuff, like counting and breathing and listening and reading! It is amazing to me that we don't have 99% student dropout from sheer frustration. If you learn only one thing from me it is this: Compartmentalize musical tasks. Things are much, much easier to learn when you allow the student to focus on just a few things at a time.

As a band director, many years ago, I had a chance to apply this philosophy with my own beginners and I saw an astounding difference in how quickly they advanced. Specifically, I had a class of beginning trumpet students. We would spend part of the period working on tone production only. This would involve long tones, changing pitches, bending pitches, starting notes at different volumes and different articulations, crescendos, and range. No music, just listening and trying to emulate and trying to develop consistency. For another part of the period we would practice counting and clapping rhythms; sometimes using a single note to play the rhythm. I used a slide projector back in those days to flash rhythms on the board. The objective here was to avoid what I call the "juggling on a unicycle" syndrome.

In speaking to other band directors I found that many were skeptical about the extent to which I carried this project. My beginners did not even receive the standard beginner book until we had done this for about three or four weeks. The band directors that I talked to seemed to think that it would be just as difficult for the beginners to assimilate all of the tasks once I did hand out the beginner books. In other words I had just set my beginners back three or four weeks. As you can imagine, it was somewhat nerve-racking because this was out of the norm and I was really putting my reputation on the line, not to mention that I might be totally messing up my beginners. And, I was starting to get comments from the parents, wondering why the beginners in the other schools were so far ahead of mine...bad news travels quickly.

The story does have a happy ending, however. As it turned out, even I was surprised at how quickly my beginners were able to run through the beginner book once it was handed out. Instead of taking the rest of the semester to complete the beginner books as most other schools did, my beginners practically sight-read the entire book in a few days. We quickly moved on to the second semester book and to second year repertoire. That group's participation in UIL competitions was spectacular and indeed there were four trumpet players from that class alone that made the UIL All-Region band a couple of years later (1st chair, 2nd chair, 4th chair and 10th). All the groups that I started in this manner have gone on to excel, not only in technical performance, but also in tonal quality. As a matter of fact the 1st chair trumpet player that I mentioned above was a tiny little girl! After the competition I was told by one of judges that he thought he was listening to a big old male high-school senior (since they don't get to see the contestants during the auditions). I owe this compliment to the fact that she and the others in her class were able to initially concentrate on tone production, including all the dynamic levels of playing.

In closing, let me say that this works for all levels. In fact we tend to focus more on single issues as the student becomes more advanced. I never understood that. Sure it's good to single out individual problems and work on them when you are totally committed to becoming a great musician, but why don't we think it's important for beginners? I feel that the most important time to really stress this is when students are first learning the instrument. It makes life so much easier and your kids don't have to go home feeling defeated, beaten up, and exhausted. If you are teaching private lessons, you are in the unique position to try this with all your students. Teach them the "break-down" method of practice and they will come along faster than you can ever imagine.

For those of you who endured the first "fantasy" part of this article, I'm sure you are still wondering what became of the circus career so I'll provide some closure for you. Of course your parents didn't let you join the circus, but you did manage to earn money performing for birthday parties, which helped you pay for your college expenses, after which you became a successful and highly motivated music teacher with creative and motivational techniques and now you are in high demand. Remember, if you are clever and dedicated enough you will be successful.

Throughout this series of articles I have mentioned a software product for private teachers, PLSoft (stands for Private Lesson Software). The reason I like to use this particular software package is that it fits so well into the private teacher's role. For instance, I have been discussing the importance of specific learning tasks, such as rhythm counting. In the old days I used to use rhythm flash cards or a slide projector to lead my rhythm exercises. Today I use the electronic rhythm flash card feature of this software. The software allows you to define difficulty levels, speed, and even the duration of the image, which I have found especially useful in diagnosing sight-reading problems. There is also great help text that includes suggestions for how to use the electronic flash cards for diagnosis and practice. I will give you an example of the depth of this feature. After reading the Electronic Flash Card help text I was able to determine that most of my poor sight-reading students did not have a rhythm counting problem… they were reading poorly because they were not looking ahead. It's kind of like when you first learned to drive - most likely you had someone tell you; "Don't look at the immediate road, look ahead at what's coming up".

Here's the software's suggested approach to diagnosing a sight-reading problem. Set your image duration to about 1/10 of a second, or even less. If your student can comprehend and play the rhythm, then more than likely he is a victim of "staring" at the note he is playing. Strangely enough I found that this at almost epidemic proportions. By using an image flash of about 1/10 of a second, the student is not able to "Stare" at the notes; the brain has to resort to a memory of the glimpse, which it can do very well when necessary. After working with the electronic flash rhythms for a while, the student learns to remember rhythm patterns at a glimpse. It's actually fascinating how much of a motivator this feature has been to my students. They love the way it challenges them - it is capable of challenging the most advanced students as well as beginners. I was surprised myself that we are able to recognize rhythms that are displayed only a few hundredths of a second. If you want to get into some serious rhythm training and sight-reading training, this is an excellent resource to use.

Once the student is broken from "staring at the notes" and begins to understand the concept of reading ahead I use a small piece of paper to cover the music as the student reads it. As soon as the student reaches a measure I cover it up. Gradually I force the student to read further and further ahead until they are reading a measure or two ahead, sometimes more (depending on the difficulty of the music). You will notice a marked improvement in your students' sight-reading abilities. Once again, the Electronic Flash Card feature is found in the PLSoft software for private teachers and I highly recommend it for working on counting and sight-reading, in general.