This is an old question that band directors and private teachers have to answer all of the time from beginning students and their parents. Often times students think that their twice a week band class or their once a week private lesson, if they are fortunate enough to afford them, is all the time they need to put into music study in general, and brass playing in particular. As a retired band director and current private teacher I was always very hesitant to put a number on minutes to practice or the frequency, because students will tend to do just that much and no more.
What I do teach them to how to practice, and how to establish a good practice habit, and then commit to it consistently every week, class/private lessons not counted. Instead of focusing on the minutes on a clock, I break down the session into different activities, each with the idea of achieving some overall goal for that day. This gets them out of the mindset of just filling up twenty minutes with unstructured noise and then boom, horn goes in the case.
Not only do I teach this approach, I reinforce it by structuring lessons, and even my rehearsals when I taught school the same way. All the while I prompt students to think about what wee are doing and why we are doing it. Rather than assigning minutes to an activity, I ask them to think more about repetitions, specifically being able to repeat something without errors before moving on to the next activity.
It's a never ending struggle to keep kids focused in this way, because they (and we as adults too) are so preoccupied with our phones, video games, computers and television. Practicing a musical instrument is time consuming, because it requires an investment in that time to develop specific instrument-related motor skills. That's an old world idea that may not be compatible with today's instant gratification mindset. Any skill that requires repetition to improve on will run into this resistance, because our devices teach us that we can find answers instantly by swiping a screen or using our thumbs to key in words on a search engine.
If you want to be a good shortstop in baseball, you gotta take a lot of ground balls. That takes a lot of time. If you want to become a good trumpet player, you've got to develop the fine muscles in your face to make a good sound, supported by proper use of your air. That too takes time, through doing it consistently.
What is this structure that I teach? With brass it begins with the mouthpiece. I start every lesson, every practice session with mouthpiece buzzing. A good buzz happens when you have the mouthpiece set in the right place on the lips, which will vary slightly from one person to the next. I work to achieve a long low buzz sound using, without puffing the cheeks, then trying to make sirens with the buzz, varying the frequency of the buzz in the upper lip (the lower lip should not buzz). Later I encourage students to buzz scales as they become more advanced, or even tunes that they can buzz by ear. Only when the buzz can be made cleanly do I encourage the mouthpiece to be put on the horn.
Once the horn is assembled the next activity is to use the same buzzing technique to produce long tones on the instrument, and then work on lip slurs from one partial to the next, until they can be done cleanly. The more advanced the student is, the more involved the lip slurring can become. But again, repetition until success is the goal.
There is an old approach called the Caruso method, which involves keeping the horn on the face while playing a limited number of notes through playing or resting periods. I'll discuss that method more in a later article, but even beginning brass players can do this, and I emphasize it as a warm-up activity even for kids just starting out. Again when it can be done quietly and cleanly, that's the signal to move on.
As students become more advanced in age and experience scales may be worked on at this point, though a beginning fifth grader might only be able to play the four or five notes of a Bb Concert scale at this point. If using the Caruso approach, they may use those first four or five notes of that scale anyway, a two birds at once sort of thing.
Kids will play what they know in their song practice list, and then disregard everything else. I teach them to think of the song portion of their practice routine as a runner might think of warming up before a race. I ask them to find something that they know and like to play for fun, and invite mom and dad or others in the house to listen. Once this mini recital is over, dismiss them and then try to play the assigned lesson, song, or etude next, taking as much time as they need on something that gives them trouble. If they have questions about a note, or rhythm or something they can't quite get, write that question in pencil directly over the measure (s) that give them trouble. If they can, then skip over it and finish by playing what they can to the end.
I also teach kids to have closure. Never end a session by feeling bad about your playing, Go back and find something that they know or have fun playing, and play it a couple of times. Maybe change the tempo, or do something different to it that they can play without mistakes. Sometimes young brass players will fatigue here. That's okay. Play to failure and them stop!
Not once here did I emphasize emphasize time elapsed. If all these steps are taken, even at the most basic level, thirty to forty minutes will fly by. That's a good structured expenditure of time. And the good news is that as the player advances more material can be added to expand the session.
I always teach students to set a little goal for themselves every day they go into a practice session; perhaps a better buzz, learn one new note or fingering, play a note that they haven't reached cleanly before, or maybe even just holding a tone for longer than four or eight beats without gasping for breath. With these type goals in mind, the session now has a purpose other than just blasting random notes for ten minutes, or playing Hot Cross Buns for five minutes. Structure is the framework for developing progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment