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Range with young students


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Daniel Lombard
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:01 pm    Post subject: Range with young students Reply with quote

I have a student who is a freshman in high school, but hasnt been playing very long. He cant play much above third space c. I have given him some basic exercises. I have told him how important it is that he practices every day, even for just a few minutes, but according to his parents he does not do that. Any advice on how to help him with range and how to get him to practice more often?
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HERMOKIWI
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 1:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The reason people don't do the things they know they need to do in order to be successful is because they don't want to do them. It's not your job to make your student want to practice/become more proficient. Your student has to bring that desire with him/her. Just because we love playing the trumpet doesn't mean your student feels the same way or will ever feel the same way. Playing trumpet isn't for everyone.

I think you simply talk to the parents, explain the problem, explain the result that can be expected due to the problem and ask them what they want to do. I also think that you set some standards in terms of the effort you expect from your students and if they don't meet those standards you discontinue working with them. Your reputation as a teacher depends on whether and to what extent your students excel. So you have a big stake in whether your students put forth the effort necessary to excel.
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Andy Del
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 3:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Part of teaching is to inspire and motivate your students. Sure, some will not take it on board, but others, who are seemingly without promise, can be reached and that can see them start to work and achieve.

So called teachers who are 'my way or the highway', without considering the student's needs are not teachers.

cheers

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CJceltics33
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 4:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Likely, your student does not practice because he feels so much behind compared to the rest of his peers. He doesn’t enjoy playing because he is unable to play as well as them. If he was the best player in his high school band, surely he would be more enthusiastic about practicing.

I suggest you find ways to motivate him. I’d go two directions with this. First off, set goals.

“If you practice this material just 5m each day, your range will be x in x amount of time”

Or similar. Next, show him the super cool possibilities on the trumpet. Show him a Maynard YouTube video or a great jazz video or even a fast Hummel 3. Demonstrating cool things would be even more beneficial. Play a tricky piece for him. Oh and you could play your fanciest mouthpiece during lessons and motivate him that way.
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Craig Swartz
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 5:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does the student have any real need to play any higher? That, or a desire to often can change behavior. If he's merely playing a 3rd part in a so-so HS band, he probably has adequate range and endurance. As a teacher you might try to move him to a bit higher "comfort level". Do you play any more range-challenging duets with him? Is he using Smart Music on some things he might think are "cool"? People generally need some sort of reason or see some reward for changing behavior or adding skill sets. If he's not in to playing the instrument and you've sought to try to help him turn on the inner motivation switch with no results, it might be time to bail. There is the old "Serenity Prayer", after all.
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Proteus
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 6:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Part of teaching is to inspire and motivate your students."

"I suggest you find ways to motivate him."


With all respect - no. Speaking as an ex-high school band teacher and private trumpet teacher, our job is to instruct and inspire. That's all we can do. Motivation must come from the student.

John Holt, whom many consider the father of homeschooling in the U.S., firmly believed there are two (and only two) real reasons for learning:
1. You need to (as when I rebuilt the water pump on my motorcycle because I didn't have the money to have the shop do it); or
2. You want to (as when I returned to playing trumpet in 2009)

Anything else is artificial, meaning externally imposed.

Cheers.
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Rompson
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes, in the end motivation can only come from the student, but can't they become inspired enough to get motivated?
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Billy B
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 8:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

9th grade is the new 7th grade.
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cheiden
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seems to me that a lot of this hinges on exactly how long the kid has been playing. By the time I was a freshman I had been playing for 4+ years and had been able to reach 2nd ledger line C for two years. If this kid is in his first year of playing then 3rd space C isn't completely unreasonable, and I wouldn't get hung up on the lack of range.

I agree that your best bet would be to try and find ways to help the student enjoy playing.
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pepperdean
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 02, 2018 11:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We don't know enough about this student. Is he being forced to play in the band? Is he lazy? Does he have low self-esteem in general? Does he lack faith that practicing will help?

If you could "trick" him to do some practicing and then point out the improved results, that might be all it takes to spur his motivation.

Alan
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Billy B
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2018 7:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

pepperdean wrote:
We don't know enough about this student. Is he being forced to play in the band? Is he lazy? Does he have low self-esteem in general? Does he lack faith that practicing will help?

If you could "trick" him to do some practicing and then point out the improved results, that might be all it takes to spur his motivation.

Alan


In the end the motivation and discipline to succeed must be reinforced by the parents. In today's world most parents think their responsibility ends with transporting and paying for the lesson.
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Daniel Lombard
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 04, 2018 3:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

his parents seem to try pretty hard to get him to practice. and he is unable to even be in band right a class conflict, as well as not really being able to keep up with the rest of the band. He told me his goal for lessons was to be good enough that he can comfortably play in band next year. I have tried to find things he would enjoy playing and be inspired by, but his lack of range/general ability has made that difficult. I feel i'm in a catch 22. Want to find things he'll enjoy playing but he needs to do the more boring technique work first.
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Crazy Finn
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 04, 2018 4:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Daniel Lombard wrote:
his parents seem to try pretty hard to get him to practice. and he is unable to even be in band right a class conflict, as well as not really being able to keep up with the rest of the band. He told me his goal for lessons was to be good enough that he can comfortably play in band next year. I have tried to find things he would enjoy playing and be inspired by, but his lack of range/general ability has made that difficult. I feel i'm in a catch 22. Want to find things he'll enjoy playing but he needs to do the more boring technique work first.

That's nice to have a goal, but unless a student is willing to actually WORK toward the goal, it's pretty meaningless.

Parental support is important, but in the end, the student has to actually be willing to work at improvement and not just expect it to magically happen. To simply practice with the same level of interest, attention, and focus as one has when doing menial tasks like taking out the trash or getting the mail won't cut it. One doesn't see significant improvement unless practice has some modest level of focus and purpose rather than just making trumpet sounds for 30 minutes.

As a teacher, you have to adapt and see what you can do to get improvement and generate interest and motivation, but in the end, you can only do so much. You can't do the hard work of practicing for them.

As far as motivation, I find it hard to be motivated without a ensemble of some sort to engage in. There have been stretches of my playing career were I have been without a group to play with and frankly, I didn't play very much. That might be part of the issue for him.

Mix up exercise with fun melodies. Fundamentals are important you have to be able to apply them to simple musical lines in order to get much benefit from them. Technique is not strictly divorced from making music.

If he hasn't been playing long, then he's essentially a beginner. Treat him as such. Work on things that you would work on with an elementary student. There are plenty of band methods that give you things to play that are below "C". In the "Standard of Excellence" series, you don't even get to third space C until page 22, I think. Lots of things to play, there. Maybe he feels it's beneath him, but it's not if he can't do it. I wouldn't get too hung up on range.

In the end, if he wants to actually improve to the point of holding his own in the band, he's got to put the time in and not just say he wants to get better but actually do the work to get better. That's up to him.
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Brad361
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 7:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The truth is, there are some students who simply are not interested enough to put in the practice time required to make much progress. I believe my job as a lesson teacher is to help them become interested, but sometimes I don’t accomplish that, and there can be multiple reasons. Lack of parental involvement, the particular kid’s peer group (“........why are you in BAND, that’s geeky......”), the fact that learning an instrument generally does not give a kid instant gratification and requires WORK, etc. And again, I’m not letting myself off the hook here, sometimes most of the fault IS the teacher.

There are students who start out like this, and later make a turnaround, but there are some who just don’t.

Yes, the teacher absolutely has responsibility here, but sometimes it just doesn’t happen, and few kids will make enough progress in order for playing an instrument become more fun (such as the OP refers to, enough range to play anything beyond the simple melodies in a first year band book) with next to no individual practice time at home.

Brad
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trptcam
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 12, 2018 1:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any updates on how things are progressing for the kid?

Some great tips in this thread. Hope they worked!
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Rod Haney
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2018 7:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When in 6th grade I started in the band. Our school had 7-12 in same building and it was a rather rural location, but we always had 90-100 band members. There were some students very involved in music and 3-6 would make all-state band each year usually, these were our 1st and second 1st players usually. Most second players could play their parts, and the 3rd and 4th chairs were learning to progress usually young or were just not that serious about the music or their performance and enjoyed other aspects of the band. The social aspects (we were rural) or the traveling for festivals and competitions. Believe it or not some loved to march and our band never lost a marching competition in or out of state. In the summer we had a 3 week band camp, in marching season we averaged 6-8 hours a week rehearsal. There were many people who just enjoyed the social aspect. But thanks to a wonderful director everyone got some good experience from music. Many of us were good enough when we left the band to pursue music careers and a few did successfully. I’d just let the kid learn to love what experience he can get and give encouragement, he will let you know when and if he wants to get good. Find out what kind of music the kid likes and show him how to play a few licks (easy) with that ?? Just dont put your expectations or the parents on the 🧒.
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jhahntpt
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2018 10:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Billy B wrote:
9th grade is the new 7th grade.


I cannot tell you have painfully accurate this is. Students are so behind where they need to be in my district. I don't even mean in music! There is such a stark difference even from when I was in their position 12-13 years ago. I don't ever expect everyone to be the best student but by the time students get to high school they cannot handle themselves in and out of the classroom and everyone is apathetic towards everything.

back on topic though, I have a private student who I'm told is made fun of during band at school when he can't play something by a couple of people. That makes him never want to play but he insists that he loves music and trumpet. I've tried to assure him that people are only mean when they're insecure about themselves. and that ANYTHING is better than not practicing, 5 minutes a day all week leads to more improvement than 45 minutes once a week. So far it's working, we'll see at his lesson today...
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royjohn
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PostPosted: Mon May 14, 2018 12:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No one has mentioned the possibility that there is an embouchure problem here. I would look at how and where he is placing the mpc, whether it is a good size for him, how he uses an embouchure motion, etc. Maybe do a little buzzing off the mpc too see what pitches he can reach, then sneak on the mpc and horn, etc. Third space C is not that high.
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Brad361
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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2018 5:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jhahntpt wrote:
Billy B wrote:
9th grade is the new 7th grade.


I cannot tell you have painfully accurate this is. Students are so behind where they need to be in my district. I don't even mean in music! There is such a stark difference even from when I was in their position 12-13 years ago. I don't ever expect everyone to be the best student but by the time students get to high school they cannot handle themselves in and out of the classroom and everyone is apathetic towards everything.

........


No KIDDING. And I think there is a reason: kids today are being raised (in many, but certainly not all cases) to believe that they are entitled to reaping the rewards of hard work without doing the hard work. Show up, put forth little to no effort, get a participation trophy. And God forbid that any kid EVER experiences anything negative or unpleasant, the entitlement mentality dictates that everyone should always feel fulfilled and happy regardless of circumstance. Kids who never experience any of life’s realities become adults unequipped to handle them, and today’s generation is not the first to be raised like this, adults who were raised with these attitudes are now raising their kids in the same manner. It’s been going on for some time now.

I had a student’s well intentioned parent tell me recently that she “begs” her kid to practice. Yep, “BEGS” the kid, I had to bite my tongue. And this was not the first time a parent has told me that they “beg” or “plead” with their kid. Another beginner kid’s mom told me that he is suddenly now intent on making the top band.....after spending most of his entire first year never taking the horn out of the case at home. And of course, she just bought him a brand new Yamaha Xeno. I do understand that my job as a teacher is to motivate students, but there is only so much I can do in thirty minutes per week.

Funny, I don’t remember my parents ever begging me to do or not do anything. Ever.

Until these attitudes change, we are will have a society of unaccomplished, lazy and unhappy people, we are doing a tremendous disservice to a generation of kids.

Soapbox dismount, sorry for derailing the thread.

Brad
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RandyTX
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PostPosted: Tue May 15, 2018 9:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Since where on the "Not In My Back Yard" train, maybe it's worth sharing this... once in a while I sit in with a community band (there are a ton of them around here). Usually it's a wide mix of everything from 80 year old comebackers to recent high school graduates.

I remember one particular occasion, sitting down next to a younger player with a letter jacket on, with UIL patches on it from maybe 4-5 years earlier. I was thinking "oh, this is probably a pretty good player."

Then, a few minutes later, the youngster in question leaned over and started asking me how to finger various notes, then writing them in with a pencil over the note heads on their part.

I was thinking 'how did you ever do well in competitions without knowing how to finger an F#?' but I've since come to understand that they are often taught these parts by rote, without actually learning how to read music. They somehow memorize the music, almost certainly with the help of a private lesson teacher, or perhaps just a band director, so they can 'fake' their way through the audition process.

Don't even get me started on reading meter changes in music correctly.

Really weird, and I'm not at all comfortable with the system being played that way. "The ends justifies the means" doesn't seem to cover it adequately.
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