On the surface, Do It!: Play in Band appears to be a great resource to implement in the beginning band classroom: music of many different styles, time periods, forms, and nationalities is incorporated into the method book, it includes not one but two CDs of accompaniments for students to play along with, and opportunities to improvisation using different methods abound. However, upon digging deeper into the text, one may find that the book is flawed in several critical ways. This text contains both good and bad elements of a beginning band method book, and if an instructor is willing to supplement the book with their own exercises and sequencing, the book could yield positive results for your beginning band students.
Not to be short-sided this method book does have redeeming qualities that the band instructor could take advantage of. As mentioned before, the variety of music used in this text is quite extensive. Music of all different styles from the United States is used, as is music from other countries in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Within these different musical styles, the variety of musical forms incorporated is also good, as ethnic styles, such as polka, as well as other standard musical forms like waltzes and ballads are used. In addition, many of the exercises – such as the “Listen and play” tunes – throughout the book encourage students to use the accompanying CD, which contains quality sound models for the students to hear, reinforcing ideas for good tone production. Other helpful elements included towards the beginning of the book include a simple practice journal and illustrations and instructions on developing the basics of proper embouchure, posture, and hand position. As an added bonus, the represen...
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...ng students establish good, fundamental, subdivided rhythmic pulse. This being said, this book should not be completely taken out of the equation when choosing a method book for your classroom. The lessons involving improvisation and composition are very valuable and could be easily extracted from the text and used with a different method book. In addition, this book’s adept teaching of beginning percussion is desirable, and some aspects of the percussion lessons would be very useful for beginning band students. With these benefits as well as drawbacks in mind, one could choose to teach with this book and do it effectively, given that he/she devised a logical sequence of the exercises and information available in the beginning of the book, which may or may not require supplementary materials such as providing correct harmonies to exercises teaching the first notes.
Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, Inc. Miles, R. (1998) Teaching Music through Performance in Band, Volume 2. Chicago, IL: GIA Publications, Inc. National Band Association (1997) Selective Music List for Bands, 4th Edition. Nashville, TN: National Band Association.
Band teaches life skills. Where independent thinking is the model in most academic classrooms, teamwork is essential in band. Band students learn to work with and for each other. The three R’s in band include Respect, Responsibility, & Reliability. Our students learn to appreciate one another for their individual talents and their contributions to the organization as a whole. They learn positive social skills –the most important factor in our program –where we teach such qualities as confidence, pride, and self esteem; all values that will serve these young people well throughout the course of their life. Citizenship, team motivational skills/leadership skills, time management, organization skills, dependability, and honesty are instilled into band members. Band teaches students to face challenges and strive to reach higher and higher goals.
The history of the Concert Band and Wind Ensemble will be reflected through a timeline of events, including an analysis of significant events, groups, composers, and advancements. When society envisions a Wind Ensemble, talented musicians, grand music halls, and difficult arrangements typically come to mind. However, a modern-day Wind Ensemble includes a variety of musicians, each with positive and negative aspects. In society today, music is greatly appreciated and accepted. It is considered an honor and a privilege to expose our ears to the music.
Percussion instruments are by far the most dominant of the four major instrument families. There are many different types of cymbals and drums, which are ...
The way drum corps members perform is deeper on a cognitive level in the brain. The performer has the music in their head while marching and this requires two different parts of the brain. A way to help with the intensity of cognitive power used is through relaxation training or “insight therapy”. In one study, “both the cognitively based treatment program and the behavior-rehearsal program proved effective in reducing musical-performance anxiety”(Kendrick, Craig Lawson, & Davidson, 1982) . These methods reduced performers’ negative self talk. This gives the members a smoother
George Helmholtz, as the head of the music department at Lincoln High School, is very determined with his regular students and the gifted musicians of the band. Each semester and year at school he dreams of “leading as fine a band as there was on the face of the earth. And each year it came true”. His certainty that it was true was because he believed there was no greater dream than his. His students were just as confident and in response, they played their hearts out for them. Even the students with “no talent played on guts alone” for Helmholtz.
Beck, John. Encyclopedia of Percussion. 2nd ed. New York: Taylor and Francis Group, LLC, 2007. Accessed May 15, 2014. http://books.google.com/books?id=8U83AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
In band, you learn so much more about how to read music, understand it, and apply that knowledge
Throughout the semester, various styles of music and the aspects of culture associated with these styles have been analyzed. Musical elements such as dynamics, texture, form, timbre, melody, instruments, etc., have been used to thoroughly explore each kind of music from different areas of the world, with an emphasis in music from Africa, India and Indonesia. These aspects of music go far beyond just music itself. Culture also plays a huge role in music and the accompanying musical elements. Each country and culture has a different style and distinctiveness that add to what makes the music of that certain culture unique. Music in Africa may differ dramatically from music in Indonesia or India not only due to those certain elements but also due to how it is interpreted by people and what it represents for those people. In addition to this, what one may consider music in one culture may not be music to another. These differences have been made apparent in the several demonstrations that we have been exposed to in class.
Lehman, Paul R. et all. The School Music Program: A New Vision. (1994). Reston, VA. Music Educators National Conference.
With hundreds of years of evolution in the study of elementary piano, nowadays materials of this sort have been widely available, perhaps even gone rampant. This article argues the effectiveness of solely relying on certain elementary piano methods to teach, without the incorporation of a more holistic approach to piano playing. The beneficiaries of the renowned Taubman approach to piano technique are mostly injured concert pianists, conservatory students, and piano teachers, people who already have more or less a certain degree of piano proficiency. Since Taubman approach is so effective in helping intermediate and advance pianists, I would like to experiment the application of it to young beginning children’s piano lesson. Seeing that systematic materials for young beginner based on Taubman’s approach are extremely limited, my goal is not only to incorporate part of Taubman’s ideas to the standard beginning teaching, but to suggest a way to make it an essential part of teaching, using existing beginning materials. This article will discuss how the Taubman Technique can be systematically taught, learned in young beginner’s lessons with traditional materials, using the Alfred’s Basic Piano Library lesson series as a model.
Around the country many younger trumpet students have started playing the trumpet with a lack of formal teaching other than their band directors. Trumpet students that are not receiving private instructions are often not expose to proper practice and fundamental techniques that will help them develop at a relatively quicker pace. Because of this, many students will develop bad playing habit that can take months or more to fix. In many cases young trumpet students are also not aware of the bad habits they are creating which can be worse than the bad habits themselves. This project will provide beginning trumpet students with a basic daily practice routine for those who don't have access to a trumpet teacher. This project will be aimed for your typical middle school trumpet student who has been playing at least a year in band or privately. This project will give them a weekly schedule full of exercises that they can do each day to help them establish a solid foundation for their trumpet playing. This project will also give the student helpful instructions as they go through each exercise.
Wharram, Barbara. Elementary Rudiments of Music. Ed. Kathleen Wood. 2nd ed. Mississauga, Ont.: Frederick Harris Music, 2010. Print.
... pitch, and embouchure. It’s merely the mastery of these three principles that requires practice and patience. The reward is understanding how to play what is, in my opinion, the most beautiful of band instruments. The enemy is discouragement. Yet as Amy Duncan, my unintentionally-inspirational band teacher director, would say, “Every wrong note you play is behind you. Music is in time, and time never stops. It always moves forward.”
Many people do not often realize what the most revolutionizing and most important instrument is. In fact, this instrument can be found in every style of music in some way, shape or form. The one instrument that fits this criteria is the drum. According to the Harvard Dictionary of Music, a drum is a generic name for instruments that consists of skin stretched over a frame or vessel and struck with either hands or sticks. Drums are membranous. In other words, a drum has something inside of it, or a "membrane," that gives it its sound (Apel 247). There are many different types of drums, and each drum has its own place in different styles of music. For example, a tympani drum, also referred to as a kettle drum, is mainly found in classical styles of music,