Creative Ways to Practice Scales

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Accelerando/Ritardando – both ways. Add dynamics.

Accent unusual notes – for example, accent the 2nd of each group of 4 16th notes.

Articulations – all staccato, or different slur/staccato combinations

Dynamics – each hand a different level of sound. Also, start LH forte then diminuendo while RH starts piano and crescendos. Meet in the middle.

Formula Patterns in all keys, including melodic minors.

Intervals - Play up a third and descend by a second. Repeat.

Slurring – conscious overlapping.

Rhythms – see suggestions in any Hanon book.

Upside Down – start at top and descend first.

Boosting Intrinsic Motivation for Music Learning

Read the Full Article Here.

We often talk about motivation as if it’s merely a feeling that overcomes us. How many times have I skipped my plan to the gym to work out because “I’m just not motivated right now.” We musicians often complain of not being motivated to practice. Of course, what we’re really saying is we just don’t feel like practicing. Often we seem prepared to wait (and wait…and wait…) until we do feel like starting a practice session. Many so-called motivational speakers have caught on to this and simply try to stir up the feelings of their listeners. Those in the audience may make ambitious plans during the inspiring speech, but ultimately fail to follow through on them after the speaker traveled on to the next presentation (check in hand).

Motivation is linked to the beliefs we hold and the emotions we experience but, to quote the old Boston song, it really is “more than a feeling.” Lots of people are so attracted to music as children that they want to learn a musical instrument. Yet relatively few of them ever learn to play one well. Why? Because it entails a great deal of effort! The kind of practicing that’s required is not enjoyable. Even the most highly successful musicians admit that they do not like to practice. So why do they end up doing it anyway?

While practice per se is rarely pleasurable, many experiences within music are. Growing musically requires a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. An activity that is intrinsically motivating is one that is rewarding in itself (think…eating pizza). We do the activity for the sake of it. In contrast, an activity that isextrinsically motivated is done for a reason outside of the activity (think…drinking a low-cal meal replacement shake). We do it because of the consequences of doing it. So, is the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic important? Just because I sing along to my favorite recordings because I enjoy it (intrinsic), and I practice scales because it builds my performance facility (extrinsic)…what good does it do me to know this?

Perhaps the greatest benefit comes in avoiding burnout as a musician. When people find their musical involvement is dominated by extrinsically motivated activities, then they are in danger of quitting music altogether. I’ve heard too many college music majors say as seniors, “I can’t wait until my recital is done, and I’ll never have to perform again.” It’s sad that performance–presumably the act of sharing music with people who want to hear it–has become something that some musicians feel they “have to” do.

Here are some ways for musicians to capitalize on intrinsic motivation for music learning:

• Choice and personal autonomy – Musicians need to “take ownership,” as the cliché goes. Research suggests that musicians willingly invest more time and attention on material that they’ve chosen for themselves. Feeling empowered and having a sense of self-determination are characteristics that distinguish play from work.
• Inclusion of musical “loves” – As alluded to earlier, lots of young people choose to study music because they love music. Usually what attracts them to music is its ability to express emotions and produce powerful feelings in people. There may be a particular style of music that they’d listen to for hours at a time any chance they get. But all too often, music students find themselves focusing mostly on technical performance issues (over expressive ones), and working on music that is nothing like what’s on their iPods. Music learning is only enhanced when students connect to what they really love about music.
• Emphasizing the social of music making – Human beings are social creatures. We are driven to connect with each other in a variety of ways. For many people, this is the reason they get involved with music. Lots of teenagers choose to join the high school music program (or drop out of it) in order to be with their friends. But it’s not just goofy teenagers collapsing under peer pressure. All around the world, group music making is a central part of cultural life. Connecting with others through artistic expression is a powerful reward.

Smart Board Lesson Plans

Follow the link below to find a great website with lessons utilizing interactive whiteboards from teachers across the globe.

Smart Board Lesson Plans

Smart Music Highlights Interview

Practical Ideas for Developing a Warmer Sound

Practical Ideas for Developing a Warmer Sound in Young Bands
Mike Pearce

When you listen to your performance recordings, do you hear a band that plays accurately but with an ensemble tone you don’t like? Do adjudicators’ comments indicate that your band sound could use some improvement? Perhaps you need to work to change the tone of your young band, possibly from bright and shrill to a darker, more mature sound. Consider doing some long and short term things to change your group’s tone quality.

Instrumentation

First, examine the distribution of instrument voices in your band. Do you have an overbalance of middle and high voices, as many middle school bands do? If you have no tubas, or need more than the one you have, start there. Within the band, one place to find tuba players is in your brass sections, but some directors have had equally good luck making tuba recruitment such a big thing that mid-section flute, clarinet, and sax players have switched to tuba or added it as a secondary instrument. One of my best tuba players ever was a petite girl who found lots of satisfaction occupying a pivotal position as first chair tuba instead of being the seventh of eighteen clarinets.

To complement your tubas, further low sound can be obtained through the development of baritone saxophone and bass clarinets. Some fine sounding middle school bands utilize three or four tubas, five bass clarinets, and a baritone sax to balance sixty to seventy piece bands. When they’ve available, adding baritone horn and bass trombone players can also boost your bottom sound. As a stop-gap measure, some directors utilize a bass guitar but this practice shouldn’t be the long-term solution.

If you have a feeder program that’s failing to supply these vital low instrument players, the burden falls on you to find some way to provide them for your band. Rather than being fringe luxuries, think of tubas and as many other low instrument players as you can develop as absolutely critical to your band’s success.

“Balance Down” for a Darker Sound

In many bands, the strongest, loudest, most dominant players are the top chair flute, clarinet, saxophone, percussion, and trumpet players. It’s important to encourage their enthusiasm but also teach them to adjust their volumes to match other sections. For example, you can help them understand that the markings forte and fortissimo don’t just mean “loud” and “louder” in ensemble play, but more accurately mean play at a full volume that matches other sections. Help them listen to see if the trumpet forte matches that of the French horns and bass clarinets, or see if the percussion fortissimo balances that of the flutes. Bringing some of your higher range instruments into balance with lower voices is an important step in warming your band’s sound. Just as many bands tune by starting with the tubas and progressing upward to the flutes and clarinets, you can use the same technique to help your band learn to balance tonally and dynamically to the low register sounds. We’ve all had or heard small school bands of 25 or 30 members that had one bass clarinet or a baritone sax for bass sound. Using the instrumentation available, those bands had the potential to produce an effective concert band sound only if other members of the band knew to constantly balance down to their bass instruments.

Develop a Quality “Concert Band” Sound

Young players can be taught something that mature musicians understand well, that there are different sounds for different kinds of groups. Help your young players understand that, for a large concert ensemble to blend its many individual sounds together, all band members—woodwinds, brass, and percussion—need to play with a sound that can blend. The more players you have who over blow or produce strident, shrill, or very bright sounds, the harder it will be to get a pleasing blend with your concert band.

A good starting place may be to point out that the aggressive, forceful playing that may work well for a lead alto or trumpet in jazz band, may be detrimental in the concert band, or the drummer whose powerful playing is well suited to marching band or jazz band my be overpowering in a symphonic ensemble. As you ask upper register players to back off a bit, work to get your middle and low voice instruments to play stronger. If your budding tubists are timid, do things to draw them out. Praise, tease, bribe, demand, or whatever works, to get the strong bottom sound your band needs.

In some cases, you may need to suggest other changes in approach when your students begin to be serious about concert band playing. Drummers may need to make a conscious effort to lighten up their touch from what they’ve been doing in other ensembles. Brass players can soften their embouchures and produce tones with greater ease and less force. Wind players who start every note with an accent in order to overcome tight embouchures need to loosen up a bit. One approach is to have brass players imagine that there’s a pin head inside their mouthpieces and they’re trying to reach in and grasp it with the inner parts of their lips. This movement helps relax an “exaggerated smile,” tight embouchure, and it produces a brass sound with a softer edge. Emphasize to all wind players that any tension in their playing should be directed toward supplying lots of air from their diaphragms and maintaining support around the sound production point of contact between mouthpiece and embouchure, all without biting down on reeds or over tightening lips and jaws.

As part of your band’s daily warm up, have wind players practice taking deep breaths, then producing initial attacks without strong accents. Help them practice using full air flow with relaxed embouchures and see if the ensemble sound doesn’t improve, then work to maintain the tone quality as the band executes music with extremes of range, dynamics, and temp.

Summary

If you haven’t tried them already, try addressing instrumentation, balancing down, and developing a distinctive concert band sound, and see if the band’s concert band tone changes for the better. The payoff will be an amazingly mature sound with your young band, rave review from parents, and higher festival scores.

Intonation and the Young Band

Beyond Their Years: Intonation and the Young Band

Chip De Stefano

Playing in tune is a skill. It must be taught, developed, and polished as our students mature as musicians. Too often, particularly in young bands, good pitch is either left to chance or is so director and tuner centric that students are unable to make the on-the-spot adjustments necessary during live performance.

Intonation skills are second in importance only to tone quality. Because of this, training our students’ ears is deserving of the time necessary to do it correctly. By focusing Anthe long term, and training our students how to listen and adjust their pitch, ensemble intonation will greatly improve while the responsibility of good pitch is shifted from director to student. In addition, your students will have the skills and confidence needed to compensate when unexpected intonation issues arise in performance.

Tone First, Then Tune

Nothing is more important than the quality of sound our students produce. It’s very difficult to tune pitches with a bad sound. In addition, good tone can mask minor intonation problems. Students must have quality instruments and equipment, proper embouchure, good breath support, and the aural concept of the characteristic sound of their instrument.

When using a tuner, it’s important that the student’s instrument be completely warmed up. Students must tune their best sound. While looking at the tuner, the young student will automatically try to bend the pitch to satisfy the tuner without actually adjusting the instrument all. It may be helpful to ask your students to play their tuning pitch with their best sound without looking at the tuner. From there they will be able to get the proper reading and adjust accordingly. Click Link to continue reading.

The Problem with Music Advocacy

Posted on 28th February 2011 by Jordan Wagner

Here is an interesting viewpoint on music advocacy that may ask us to rethink our approach as to how we fight to keep music in our schools. Click the link above to see the entire text.

Have we, as an interested group in music education, damaged our own efforts simply by labeling it as "music advocacy?"

I, along with many music educators, am very thankful for "VH1 Save the Music," and other music advocacy efforts. But only those who are already passionate about the value of music education truly champion those efforts. Although the term, "music advocacy," has its place within the circle of music supporters, it is a misrepresentation in general society.

The word, "advocacy," indicates helping an underdog. It places it in a category of sympathetic efforts toward something worthwhile in need of saving. Contemplate the term, "child advocate." What pictures come to mind? Visual images of children in need pulling on your heart-strings of giving, right? We love them and want to do more for them, but invoking emotions of sympathy only reaches a few. Think of all the phrases that include the word, "advocate," or "advocacy." What is your instant emotion? pity? charity? sympathy? empathy? left-wing? righteous? desire to fight for the cause?

Why do we feel that way? It indicates a need to fight for the defenseless, vulnerable, needy. Who puts on the gloves and does the defending? The one's closest to the underdog. Those with a deep compassion and emotion connected to the victim. How do they fight for the victim? They work to bring the world's attention to the problem. They paint graphic pictures through word and images that guilt people into giving. Those most passionate for the defenseless work tirelessly, attempting multiple methods to reach the masses, but only winning a few.

Music is not the underdog in reality, just in the education system, and in lack of funding. In our efforts to improve the perception and financial support, we sabotage the greater mission to revere and admire. Music is not something to sympathize, but to admire and seek to aspire to greatness.

What if we turned sympathy into admiration? People love winners. People love champions. People want to be part of the winning team. It inspires them to go after their dream and admire those who did and succeeded. For example, I'm not much of a sports fan, but when the local high school team begins advancing to the state playoffs, I'm there with the rest of the town. Everyone loves a winner. Sound familiar?