nafmeadmin.
nafmeadminHow can I light a fire under my high school student’s butts to not be okay with “okay” on their scales? I have about half a class that just doesn’t seem to care how important scales are. They are AWESOME in every other aspect (in terms of being motivated to work), but for some reason I’m getting no desire to achieve on scales. Help!
nafmeadminYou could try stepping up the scales so that they learn two-octave scales and arpeggios in a variety of bowings, tempos ryhthm patterns. Look for some etudes, pieces or fiddle tunes that utilize longish scale and arpeggio sections, to help them see in context the necessity of good scale-playing. Start some sort of “contest” to test off on all the two-octave scales within a finite time period, with a teen-friendly reward like a pizza party. Sue
nafmeadminA couple ideas:
1. Make scales a part of your daily rehearsal. The warm-up phase of your rehearsal can easily include scales. I had a band-director colleague who had a daily regime: when the bell rang, the band launched into a series of all 24 scales-major and minor in circle-of-fifths order. He took roll meanwhile. The whole thing took only about 4 minutes.
2. Make scales a part of your audition/seating process.
3. Make their grade depend on assigned scales. This is real, measurable assessment (to use the current jargon). Certainly you don’t mark them purely on showing up.
4. Athletes do calisthenics; musicians do scales.
5. Encourage your feeder school directors to introduce and set the stage for your expectations at the high school level.
There are many scale resources on my webpage. All copyright-free and gratis. These I used regularly in several school systems over several decades.
Gabe Villasurda
http://www.stringskills.com
nafmeadminExcellent responses!
I always encourage learning scales as recipe ingredients to repertoire. Since your class is ‘AWESOME in every respect’ – introduce your scales slightly differently. I enjoy having a series of scales, arpeggios, thirds, and a special sequence with corresponding rhythms (from the music). They can help finding sequences/areas where the scales are actually utilized in the music. You are so proud of your orchestra. See if they can enjoy making you proud by learning the scales!
Best of everything!
Andrea Meyers
NAƒME Mentor
Christopher M. Johnson, Professor of Music Education and Music Therapy, is currently the Chair of the Music Education and Music Therapy Department and Director of the Music Research Institute at the University of Kansas. Johnson earned his Ph.D. from the Florida State University.
Since his arrival at The University of Kansas, Johnson has taught courses in Instrumental Conducting, Teaching Instrumental Music, Managing Behaviors in the Music Environment, Psychology and Acoustics of Music, and Research Methods in Music Education and Music Therapy. Johnson served two terms as the editor of the International Journal of Music Education: Research, the research publication of the International Society for Music Education. He is currently serving his second term on the National Association for Music Educations Executive Committee of the Society for Research in Music Education. He also served on the editorial board of the Journal of Research in Music Education, and one earlier term as the Chair for the MENC Executive Committee of the Society for Research in Music Education. Johnson also served as the Chair for the Research Commission of the International Society for Music Education.
Johnson’s research interests include applied research in music education, and basic research in all aspects of the psychology of music. He has published articles in many journals including the Journal of Research in Music Education, the International Journal of Music Education, the Journal of Music Therapy, Journal of Band Research, Contributions to Music Education, and the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, among others. Johnson has also been an active member and contributor to the Research Seminar of the International Society for Music Education and World Alliance for Arts Education.
Johnson received a university teaching award – the Ned N. Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching and received the recognition for Graduate Teaching Achievement from the Center for Teaching Excellence. Johnson was also awarded a lecturing & research award as a J. William Fulbright Scholar and recently received the Ella Scoble Opperman Citation for Distinguished Achievement from the Florida State University College of Music.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.