PRACTICING your band instrument 101

You may be able to predict how things in the band room have been going just by the title of this post…I’m not complaining, I’m really not.  But I have been trying to reinforce the concept of “HOW” to practice with my bandlings these last two weeks. The concept of practicing may seem simple: Take out your instrument, open your book and PLAY! But, for some and maybe even most students, those three steps can be kind of daunting. So for this week’s blogpost, I will provide some guidance as to “How to Practice.” I have already gone over this with my students, but my hope is that you can talk to your bandling about these steps and help ensure they are following through with this process so they can be more prepared and confident in their coming lessons.

1.       Make sure to have a space that is distraction-free and well-lit. Be sure to have a chair to sit in (not percussionists, though!) and a stand to put the music on.

2.       Warm-up properly. For percussionists, play 8 on a hand to a recording of your favorite song. For woodwind and brass players, play whole note/whole rests on mouthpieces/headjoints. Then go on to play whole notes/whole rests for each of the notes you know. #1.26 “Scaling the Wall” on page 9 of your book is a great song to warm-up with since it is a scale.

3.       Now start to practice the songs from your homework.  First sing the pitch names and do the fingerings/slide positions/type the notes (if you play xylophone). If you need help with letter names, write a few of them in. Please do not write in every single letter name of the pitches in your music! This will quickly become a crutch and you will never be able to read the music. Instead, pick only the pitches that you don’t recognize right away, and always write in pencil so that maybe you can erase them at some point in the week.

4.       After you’ve sung the pitches and done the fingerings/typed by yourself, see if you can do it with the recording on the CD! This will give you a better idea of how the song sounds.

5.       Now you’re ready to try and play the song on your instrument. Go slowly. Try the whole song first. Then figure out which parts are giving you the most trouble. Isolate those few notes and play those patterns slowly. Once you can play the pattern,  put it back together with more of the song. You may have to do this with more than one section of the music! It’s OK! Slowly put the whole song back together. It’s like a cord that is tangled up. You have to fix one section at a time.

6.       A song isn’t ready until you can play it all the way through at least a few times. Don’t worry if you can’t get through all of the songs in your homework in one practice session at home! It is probably more realistic to really work on one or two songs in a 20 minute practice session. Then you can revisit them in your next practice session along with another one or two songs.  If you follow this process an average of 3-4 times a week, you should be pretty well prepared for your lesson!

The two most important things your bandling needs at this stage is motivation or praise from you and time to practice. I keep trying to reinforce to the students that they did not learn how to read words in only a few weeks! The same is true for reading music and playing an instrument. It takes time! Of course, it also takes practice. Playing an instrument is one of those things in life that you get what you put into it.  Please continue to encourage your child to practice. When you take an interest in what they are doing, their motivation and pride in themselves skyrockets! Please let me know if you ever have any comments or concerns. Have a great week!

 

Amanda Storer

678-6726

astorer@nsd2.com

www.mrsstorersbands.weebly.com

What's so SMART about Smart Music, anyways?

I promised a blogpost about Smart Music this week and I am delivering! I'm sure you're wondering what this program is and why am I telling you about it? I'm telling you about it for two reasons. The first reason is because I know that many parents feel as if they are clueless about music and band and that they have no idea what happens in my classroom. I like to let you know so that you feel more informed and that you can feel comfortable asking your child questions about their lessons and how band is going. When you talk to you children about school and band, they know that you care and that you think it is important and that will help their motivation immensely! Second: If you can swing it, it would be a great investment to purchase a subscription of this program yourself and your child can use it at home with your own computer.

If you can imagine it, my first description of it is "Guitar Hero" for band instruments.  I use a projector and the music is projected onto my white board like this:

There are so many great tools for students who are practicing, especially the younger ones like I teach. My favorite part is the green cursor that pulses with the steady beat and goes along in the music where the students should be looking at and playing. I think one of the first challenges that students have is following the music. This helps train the students how to do this. Steady beat is also a challenge for students of all ages and levels. With this program, the student can change the tempo and make it slower and faster to fit their practice needs. As you can see from this graphic, they can make it so that they play along with just their part, an accompaniment track (like a rock band playing with them!),with just the steady beat, or any combination of all three choices! When they play, the program records them and keeps track what they played correctly (in green), and incorrectly (in red)!  They are given a score and if they are competitive, they can choose to try and beat their score, which some kids really like. They can also save their recording as an mp3 file! In fact, I've done this with a few of my groups and was able to email the file to those parents with email addresses.

Please know that I do not work for Smart Music or anything like that. I work for NSD2 and that is it. I don't work for any music store or anything else. I will never come at you about buying thing for my own personal gain. Please take some time to look around at the website www.smartmusic.com and find out more for yourself. I'd be happy to talk to you more about this!

Amanda Storer
815-678-6726
astorer@nsd2.com