Thinking about the reading this week shows the
importance of building a good foundation and different ways to achieve that.
Playing an instrument involves the use of psychomotor skills, that is skills
that require both motor skills and perceptual skills. In order to for
psychomotor skills to become automatic, the skill must be practiced. Learning how
to properly handle the instrument is very important when beginning to pay an instrument.
Also, keeping students motivated to practice at home can be difficult for
various reasons. Some students live in apartments where the sound bothers the
neighbors, or the student is involved in many afterschool activities. Whatever
the reason, technology can be a useful tool in keeping students motivated to
practice at home.
When first beginning lessons, the focus is on
proper handling of the instrument. Modeling is important part of learning how
to handle the instrument properly because, “motor learning can take place when
people watch and listen without actually engaging in the motor skill” (Bauer,
2014). During the first few lessons, I focus on modeling and teaching the
students how to hold their instruments and play them with proper posture.
Technology is helpful with this. I show videos of people who display proper
playing techniques as well as videos of improper playing techniques. While each
video is playing, I ask them several questions about the person playing the
instrument. I ask questions like is the performer playing with proper
technique? If yes, why? If not, what is the performer doing wrong? How can it
be fixed? I am always amazed at how much the students pick out in the videos and
the suggestions the students come up with.
Keeping students motivated to practice is
always an issue. At first, the students are enthusiastic about playing and
practice a bunch. After about a month, the reality sets in and the students
realize that playing an instrument requires hard work and dedication. However,
there are always a few students who will stay self-motivated and will not need
extra encouragement to practice. Technology can help with keeping students
motivated to practice at home. Many method books have been coming with CD’s
with accompaniment tracks for students to play along with at home. The only
down side of playing with a CD is you cannot control the tempo. There are
programs like Band-in-a-Box or SmartMusic where you can create an accompaniment
track and share it with your students. When the student is at home, they can
choose the tempo in order to master the song. Another benefit of these programs
is you can create different practice assignment for students. Other programs
like Chromatik and SmartMusic have access to various genres of music. Students
can search for some of their favorite popular songs and lay them at home.
When working with ensembles, using programs
like Audacity can help provide feedback to the entire ensemble. You can record
a section of a rehearsal then play it back to the students. They can critique their
performance to see what they are doing wrong and what they are doing correct. This
can help with show improvement over time as well. I like to record my middle
school students at the beginning of a concert cycle. I have the students sight-read
a section of a song. I record the same section about halfway through the
concert cycle. I then play for the students the first recording followed by the
second recording and have the students compare and contrast their performances.
I then record them about two weeks before the concert in preparation for the
concert. At this point, I only play this recording to fine-tune the details
before the concert. There are three concert cycles per year. Each concert is
recorded by the school’s TV studio. I receive a copy of the concert about three
days after it is recorded and show it to my students. We critique the
performance and design a plan to make the next concert even better. Towards the
end of the school year, I play back the first recording of the school year so
they can see how far they come. I typically have to use my cell phone to record
the students due to lack of technology in my classroom. I am hoping in the
future I can add more technology to my lessons.
Bauer,
W. I. (2014). Music learning today
digital pedagogy for creating performing and
responding
to music. New York, NY Oxford University Press.
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