Rehearsal Strategies
Education is what survives when what was learned has been forgotten.
Student Motivation
Motivating students can be difficult at times. The task is to get to a point where students are motivating themselves and those around them. Students have the power to change the culture of an entire school, not just in the band hall. Set high standards and challenge your students. Hold them accountable for excellence until they begin to hold one another accountable. Build leaders; student leadership and ownership is key to a successful culture in your band program. Be consistent with your schedule; avoid cancelling rehearsals after everyone has made plans to be there. Students rely on and thrive on consistency and structure. Encourage student retention, no matter the skill level and praise your students consistenly. Always make them feel better when they exit your room than when they came in. Students should feel that they are important to you and to the band program; build their self-esteem.
Structuring a Rehearsal
Pacing in a rehearsal is a challenge at times. As musicians, we always look for what is not going right and want to stop and fix it right away. This is not always the best practice, however. If your rehearsal is structured towards developing the players, many if not most of the usual problems will take care of themselves (the students will have the ability and knowledge to take care of it). If it is not written down, it will not get done. Create TEKS based lesson plans and then make your rehearsal agenda from that. To monitor progress, informally assess every day!
Tone
Daily Drill
With any daily drill, it is not necessarily the notes on the page that will develop the players, it is the teacher who brings it to life. So, don't do a warm-up unless you are actually going to work on the skills contained within. Without your guidance, doing a warm-up for warming-ups sake can do more damage than good. Why are you doing what you are doing? Where is it going to take you? All warm-up exercises should be a practice in playing with musical nuance. A good rehearsal is going to happen with thorough planning using your objectives and goals as your guide.
Breathing ExercisesIncorporate some kind of breathing exercise into the beginning of your rehearsal to get that air moving. This is great, but then it must be applied to the instrument. The intake of air should be slow at first, so as not to tense up, and then you can move to quicker breaths maintaining the same 'soft' body. I like to do exercises that require a variety of counts to inhale and then to exhale. For example, 8 in 8 out; 4 in 8 out; 4 in 12 out; 4 in 16 out; 2 in 8 out; 2 in 12 out; 2 in 16 out; then 1 in with all of the out patterns. In all of these examples, the student should never take air in so quickly that they are holding their breath waiting for the exhale counts. It is all in one smooth motion, in then out.
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Focus on the Fundamentals
There is no shortcut to achieving a great ensemble sound. It won't matter how much time you spend on learning music; if the fundamentals aren't sound, then the music will not sound good. It is very important to lay the groundwork during the beginning band year when you have students in smaller groups and can focus on air, embouchure, and tone quality. By the time your students are in a performing ensemble, they must have the basics down so that you can build on top of that.
Matching Pitch
Always intone a reference pitch before the students play, otherwise they are just taking a shot in the dark. Have the students audiate the pitch (hear it in their heads) before humming or singing the reference pitch, then have the students begin playing to match the pitch. Just getting the right note is not enough, they must center the pitch in the most resonant part of the sound and then adjust for tuning. So, quality and energy of sound is key. If you use tuners on the stand, make sure it is one that will show the student the resonance on the sound, like the Tonal Energy Tuner. Not only do the students need to match the reference pitch but they also have to engage their levels of listening skills to create a homogenous ensemble sound.
Long Tones
Once students are playing with a centered sound and the ensemble sound is where you want it, then you can begin to move from one note to the next. Every note must have the same quality as the original and students must always come back to the original reference pitch. Create a pattern of breathing, singing, lip vibrations (if you do that), and playing. You will be able to evaluate the following musical criteria using this process:
- tone quality & pitch center - does the pitch produced match the drone and is the sound smooth, even, and free of noise?
- timing - do the students start their sound together? Is the energy at the front of the note the same energy at the release?
- balance - can you hear instruments in the proportions that you want? Is everyone contributing equally? Are you teaching them to listen through the ensemble to the people or sections that you assign?
- musical direction - can you hear the air moving through and between the changing notes and energetic on the release?
- technique - check posture, instrument position, embouchure, & make sure they are not tense when they play.
- style - is there clarity of articulation, are students using the assigned syllables to articulate? Is there instant sound relative to the air on the start and release?
If done correctly, this is a thorough process that will take some time, especially when you begin to use it. You must be OCD about tone quality and very detailed when working on the long tone study. If you don't want bored children during this exercise, make sure that you are very detailed and determined with your comments and constructively intense in demeanor. Play all warm-ups the way you want your students to play the literature that you pick. If you want them to shape phrases and play in tune with dynamics on their music, then they need to make a habit of it in the warm-up then transition it over to the music.
Shane Goforth just did a clinic on this at TBA using the Harmony Director and it was very good. His students sound great and they are all in!
Remington's
This exercise should be added only after tone quality and flexibility is established. For young players, perhaps a modified version so they aren't overlooking the importance of tone, air, flexibility, and musicality just to get the right notes. As with the other warm-up exercises, this should be approached in a musical manner.
Chorales
Chorales are a good way to work on levels of listening and playing. These listening skills are the basis for the ensemble sound you are wanting to achieve. Students need to get really good at tuning and blending unisons and octaves before they begin tuning other intervals. Using a scale exercise is a great way to help develop that skill as well. I use a 3 note or 4 note chorale that my students can play in any key. It is simple but allows us to work on many listening and tuning skills.
Technique
Lip Slurs
Flexibility is an important part of playing a wind instrument. Lip slurs are a good way to continue working on tone, range and flexibility. As with the long tones, work to play your lip slur exercises musically. It's difficult and might not sound good at first. But as your students develop, you will hear the difference in their sounds and the way they approach the literature. Be careful not to set the tempo too slow or too fast; 100 bpm is a pretty moderate tempo. Use the same breathing that was used in the long tones.
Flow Studies (VC Studies)
I think of this is as a combination of long tones and lip slurs. This is great for air flow, air direction, phrase shaping, flexibility, and range building. Approach this exercise just like the long tones and lip slurs. For younger players on all of the exercises, have them playing in a range where they can work on the air, tonal , and musical aspects without struggling with range. Range should be a gradual process.
Scales
Work on scales using the same techniques as you used in the other exercises. Use one octave scales or even tetra-chords if you are trying to get your student to learn all 12 major scales. Remember to have them play as if each scale were a phrase in a piece of music. Start with one scale and begin adding to that each day, putting 4 counts between each scale to exhale for 2 and inhale for 2. Don't limit your students to just major scales, add minors and modes as well. Scale interval exercises are a great way to develop finger dexterity and technique and you can incorporate interval tuning as well.
Rhythm Reading
Make sure that you have a counting system in place and be consistent in using it. Rhythm counting and quick rhythmic recall is crucial to developing the individual musician and the ensemble and should be part of the curriculum. Rhythm charts, slides, and method books are widely available. It is ok to simply have students internalize the rhythms that you are working on, rather than always having them look at a piece of paper. Students should have the ability to count/read in any time signature both simple and compound, and should be able to write the musical rhythmic notation in any given time signature.
Articulation Exercises
The first thing that needs to be considered in an articulation exercise is the articulation syllable that is assigned to each instrument. For proper clarity, the articulation within each section must match. This will be very helpful later when you transition to band literature. As with the other warm-up exercises, this one should be done with the same process and be a musical exercise. I like to land on a whole note after each rhythm sequence to have the students keep the air going. Remember they must play through and between the articulated rhythms. Start simple and gradually add more challenging rhythms as the basics are mastered.
Musical Markings
Sight-read a variety of styles of music to give young musicians the opportunity to develop skills with a variety of articulations. Practicing scales in varying slurred/tongued passages is also beneficial to develop facility with a variety of articulations.
Musicianship
Style
A great way to teach musical style is to model for the students on your instrument. Have them vocalize on a given syllable the style you wish to achieve. Use your scales as a way to incorporate articulation styles and to increase their stylistic vocabulary. Clearly define the 4 basic note lengths and use your own 'catch phrase' to easily communicate this style. For example, an accent is more air energy at the front of the note, a staccato is a short lifted note (50% sound, 50% silence), a marcato note is a long lifted note (80/20), and legato is full value or a touching note. Be sure to practice with a variety of consonants at the front of the articulation syllable. Also, make sure they know what tenuto note is. It looks like a legato marking, but can mean something different depending on the context.
Phrasing
Musical phrasing is like telling a story. It has inflection, ebb and flow, and rise and fall. Give student musicians guidelines on how to shape a phrase; how you want sustained notes and repeated notes treated, etc. Allow students the opportunity to express themselves by asking several students to play the same phrase as they feel it. It could be that you end up with many versions of the same phrase, and none are wrong! This helps the students find their own voice to become comfortable adding their personal touch to the music they play. If you are playing a transcription of a choral work, make sure that you study the choral version and use the 'lyric phrasing' from the choral version to guide you in determining the phrases in the instrumental version.
Musical Markings
Student musicians need to have an awareness of the markings outside the staff as well. Many times the music is so challenging that it is all a student can do to simply keep up with the notes and rhythms. If this is the case, you didn't do a very good job of selecting your literature. Make sure your students do not have on blinders when it comes to the musical markings outside the staff; this is what gives the music character and can be a guide to the phrasing as well.
Dynamics
Dynamics tend to be the most overlooked aspect of performance. Either there are no dynamics performed or they are performed without regard for tone, intonation, blend, or balance. All fundamentals must be present when performing dynamics. As stated in the previous page, dynamics must be performed with good tone, tuning, blend, and balance; everyone moves at the same rate so that no individuals come out of or leave the texture. The mechanics of playing dynamics have to do with maintaining the speed of the airstream while controlling the volume of air released. This is a technique that is developed over time and should be part of your daily drill in order for young musicians to execute properly. In addition, range of dynamics is very important. The softer palette of dynamics tends to be the most overlooked, probably because it is the most difficult to execute.
Band Literature
Finally! Well we are out of time kids, we will try again tomorrow. Work to make your warm-up time as important to the students as playing the literature. They have to understand that by spending time where it is needed, the music they play will be a lot more fun and enriching. Once you begin to add band lit to the rehearsal, make sure the students make the connection between what you did in the warm-ups and what you will be doing in the literature. The time you invest in working on the fundamentals in the warm-up will pay of exponentially when you begin learning new music.