When planning to teach a new selection that includes a tricky rhythm, I suggest teaching the rhythm separately before sight reading the piece.
Pre-Band Instruments: Opening New Opportunities for Everyone
Beginning band instructors spend a lot of their time at the end of the school year recruiting future ensemble members.
Prepare Your Ensemble by Creating Musical Context
It’s no secret that detailed lesson planning is a great way to produce immediate results. However, this planning can take student learning to the next level when combined with long-term goals.
A Job and a Friend: What Every Student Needs to Stay in Band!
Retention is a topic that is important to all of us, as it can impact the quality of our band programs and our job security.
Music Education Philosophy I Learned on the Job
What we learned while earning a degree in music education only cracked the surface of what’s needed to be an effective teacher.
Classroom and Rehearsal Tips for Choral and Instrumental Programs
Having enjoyed more than thirty years in choral classrooms, I’ve had lots of experience with what works, and what doesn’t.
The Singer’s Spark: Motivating the Whole Student
As the school year begins we all have plans of grandeur. Who among us hasn’t thought, “This is the year my ensemble will get superior ratings,” or perhaps, “This year, everything will come together just in time for the musical!” Imagine taking all these goals – and your students – on a metaphorical school bus ride.
Beginning Jazz Improv Strategies
Beginning improvisers need our support. We can give them a blues, mixolydian, or dorian scale, but a scale is not a strategy.
Help for Your Beginning Jazz Rhythm Section
Rhythm is fundamental to creating the feeling for any genre of music. It is therefore vital that the rhythm section create the appropriate rhythmic feel and style of swing.
Mix It Up: Take a Fresh Look at Those Same Measures
Sometimes you reach a place in your ensemble rehearsal where woodshedding a few difficult measures is no longer fun – or effective.