bandman

What is really necessary for a high school band member to learn about music? What is really necessary for them to learn in middle school? Do we ever take into account why a student joins band, and studies music?

As this school year starts I’ve been giving this much thought. Is it really necessary that a student be able to play 7-10 scales when he leaves middle school? If a student plays well in class, doesn’t hold the band back, participates well, and is not a discipline problem in any manner, so what if he doesn’t want to learn all the scales.

I was speaking with some of my former students this week and they all said the same thing. They loved me, they loved the band, they even loved playing the classical/military band style music we played, but they hated certain things.

We had certain things we did in our warm-up every day, and scales were included. We did an exercise once per week called solo-soli (band plays a scale followed by solo student playing the same scale until all band members played the scale). I gave scale grades once per week, and with the metronome set at a fair pace we could do the entire band in about 5-minutes. I always thought they enjoyed it.

One of these former students told me he would have rather played 3rd part on everything and never played by himself in front of the class. He said his Priest asked him to read at mass and he said no because it brought back memories of band tests. The strange thing was that this kid always sat at the top of the section and was a great player.

His comment was; “I loved band because I got to play music and be with my friends. Why did we have to do all that other stuff?”

I know it is necessary for the development of the entire band, but I hated to admit that the kid had a great point. The others said it was like he wanted to learn football in PE class, but never cared to be on the football team. I understood, and I was speechless.

By the way – the former student who didn’t like all the playing in front of the class. He came to see me because he wanted to donate some instruments he picked up at an estate sale to my band. He said when he saw them at a good price he knew I would put them to good use! I must not have hurt him too bad because he still thinks about me 10-years after he left my class.

Siegtrmpt

That's the million dollar question and one that I struggle with from time to time. As a private teacher I view my first job as helping my students be successful, contributing band members. I try to separate the need to know from the nice to know stuff so the students have no surprises when music is given to them and also don't spend a lot of time on skills they'll never use. Of course there is much more they could be doing (jazz improv, orchestral music/transposition)and we go there when they have the fundamentals that will help them do well in school band down solid. I try to give them concise and meaningful lessons so they can get a lot done in 30 minutes or so. That's about what most of them are able and willing to devote to it. I try to get a sense of what they're really going to do and then nudge them for a little more. For those that will go on to play in college or as adults I make sure to cover at least concert pitch transposition and give them some assignments in the Real Book and the Top 50 Orchestal Excerpts book so they'll have a starting point in going those directions if they want to. Anyway, this is the latest version of my philosophy which seems to get revised pretty often based on the idealism vs. reality theme.

tpter1

The need to know versus what we want them to know versus when they need to know it is a big question.

It is important to me that kids leave able to be conversant musically; that they can participate in community band if they want, that they are appreciative of many different types of music and support arts and live music; are able to play for church (which may include transposing from time to time). Is it imprtant that they know 15 major scales plus minors in all 3 forms to do so? No, not really, but it is imortant that they know G# and Ab sound the same and are fingered the same. That you can count 9/8 in 3 or in 9 or asymmetrically.

Then again, is it important that we know genus and species? Why does the average person need to know trigonometric functions?

The answer is because that makes us human. We challenge our students intellectually because it allows them and causes them to grow. Like a muscle, we need to train our brain and stretch it or it gets weak. Applying old information to new situations forces us to learn and reinforces what we already know.

To summarize my point of view: because that's what is required for success in our subject area. Band/music are fun subjects, and they are different because of the relationships we build while playing and the relationship we build with the subject itself. But to enjoy that relationship, we need to be proficient enough to speak the language. Fun via success...but success comes at a cost.

trpt2345

I don't think there's ever enough. I want my students to know more and play better every week. Until they know enough that I can't teach them any more and they find someone else. It doesn't happen all that often, but sometimes it does and that's the best. But I expect everyone to get better all the time. Scales? There are only twelve. What's the big deal? Students already know 26 letters of the alphabet and multiplication tables, twelve scales are nothing. If the student can play something, then can they play it more beautifully? Can they transpose it? It never ends. I am not in a "band program" per se but I direct three bands and I want them to play better every year.

Michael McLaughlin

Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.
Wallace Stevens

bandman

Is this a fair comparison?

My daughter plays softball for her school team. During the summer she chooses to play “Rec ball” instead of select ball. She is good enough to play “select”; in fact she was chosen to play All-stars.

She chooses to play “Rec ball” because the competition is not taken as seriously. There are a few weeks, and weekends, of All-star tournaments, but for the most part it is just for fun.

What if a kid joins band because music is supposed to be “just for fun”? What if his mom or dad got him all pumped up about “how much fun it is to be in band”?

My kids can play! In my entire career my bands have made less than a superior rating ONCE. Concert ratings don’t mean anything to me (a well trained monkey can play the same 3 songs over and over until they get it pretty near to perfect), but I must say that I’m proud that my students also earn superior ratings in sight-reading at festivals. You can’t sight read unless you are fundamentally sound!

I just was totally stunned this week when a fine band student, one who always seemed to love my class, told me that some parts of it were more serious than he liked. He was in music “just for fun”.

I know there is no right answer to this question. It just made me think really hard about trying to make music more fun for my students. I do have bad news for them! The will still be doing fundamentals, including those nasty scales that everyone hates. I’m an old dog with very few new tricks. I just think that I need to keep a better pulse on how my students feel about their overall band experience.

Manny Laureano

Scales and arpeggios are tools, in my opinion. They are vitamins for the brain as are patterns that students learn based on knowing as many keys as possible, classical and jazz players alike.

Now, middle school is another thing. I don't think they need to know ALL of them but a majority wouldn't kill them either. By the end of high school, a student that knows all the major and minors is going to have an easier time transposing and playing jazz than one who doesn't, all things being equal.

ML

trumpet blower88

The one thing that I never liked was "Scale Test". I'm perfectly fine with learning all the scales and what not, I was just never a beliver of testing on them. It wasn't untill my senior year of highschool that our assistant directior (he worked mostly with the 'middle band' at our school) started teaching us scales in a more fun way. He turned it into a game, not a test. Not even a competition, although, you could look at it as a competition for bragging rights, but our chair placement was not based on it. Every day we would try a new excersize dealing with scales, not really just a scale, but more like just playing around within the key and every now and then a scale would be tossed in there and we would all play it with no problem.

What I liked about this way of teaching scales, was that it wasn't mandatory. If you just wanted to be in band for fun, then you can sit out while we work on scales if you want. It started out with only 4 or 5 of us that played these "scale games" each day, but the other students started to realize that it was fun, we wern't really working on scales, we were just having fun with them. So within a couple weeks everyone was playing and learning their scales.

I honestly hadn't memorized my 12 major scales untill my senior year. I just never really thought it was that important because I could play all my music fine, but it really did come back to bite me in the butt when it came to regional and all-state auditions. But now, I know them all, and I don't even remember actualy "learning" them, and "memorizing" them. We just played these little games with them so much, its just natural now.


I know I'm still young, and havn't even started any college in music education, but I think thats the key to teaching music. Just keep it fun. I don't think music can really be "learned" or "taught", its just something you do. And the more you do it, the more fun you have with it, the more you're going to improve at it. I start college in 2 weeks, and maybe when I take my music ed classes I'll find out I'm compleatly wrong, but I really think the job of a music teacher is more to encourage the kids to play more and to get better, and they will learn everything as they go on their own. The teacher is more of a coach.


Ok, I'll stop writting now because I feel that I'm just sort of blabbeling, but maybe that makes sence to someone....

W Scott

No, trumpet blower has it right that the key to learning, in musc, is too make things fun and connected. Scales---yuk, right? Until you play some of Longonottis etudes where he sticks scales as runs right in the middle of the etudes. Or Clarkes Technical Studies which are just variations of scales. These are ways to catch the kids attention and show them how these tools fit in the musical world.

I'm 45 and I wish I would have had a teacher who would have taught us this way in band. I just learned the other day from my trumpet teacher that 're' is Italian for 'D', and that the little ditty 'do, re, mi, fa, so, la, dee, do' are the eight notes of an octave in the Italian language. So, on a piece of music was written "Trompette in Re'---what's that, he asked? It clicked! Trumpet in D, written in Italian! I have so much catching up to do.....

cornetguy

As a Sub and adjudicator (some are opnion some are just from what I see)

1. Students need to know how to read notation and finger the instrument by the end of their first year (you would be surprised at how many 3rd year plus players I have seen that still write it all in)

2. By graduation from HS they need to know all scales MS (8th grade)I would be happy with 4#-5b's major, minor and chromatic scales also include arppegios.

3. Exposed to great literature, through playing and listening. I really like the John Kinyon arrangements of theme from_________ it introduces the students to Brahms, Haydn, Handel etc in a way that they can play it. I see so much disposable music in the schools.

4. probably the biggest single weekness that I see is tone production a lot of problems here not just on brass. Students should be getting a characteristic tone on the instrument by MS I think.

5. Learn to pay attention to details dynamics, articulation, terms, other expressive elements.

6. Transferance of Learning what is learned in one piece can apply to other pieces as well.

7. Learning to play like self rather then copying the teacher

tpter1

All this talk about 12 scales...there are 15 scales, 12 fingering patterns. Splitting hairs, really, but that's how it is. I feel very strongly about giving the kids all the goods, the right way.

If we don't test our students, in one way or another 88, then we don't really know what they know. Your assistant director was testing...you just didn't know it.

We need to tailor our instruction on a per-student basis. If I have a student who is interested in a career in music, his/her level of instruction is quite a bit different than the kid who just wants to be in band "because it's fun". We can make scale learning fun...it is possible. But what to do with them when we finally have our kids who know 15 scales. The application of that is what makes learning them worthwhile. Why move the woodpile for any other reason than to move it? Why know 15 scales? Because your music demands it. Because your vocabulary requires the knowledge and use of specific words (keys). Because the world is not in the key of Bb concert, thank goodness. Why should a percussionist know a lesson 25 or swiss army triplet? Because it's their vocabulary. Those are the tools that enable successful music reading ability and minimize frustration.