How to Teach Practice Skills

How to Teach Practice Skills

Ed Dumas

When I began my teaching career way back in 1984, I realized fairly quickly that I was going to need to show the students how to practice their instruments. When I was a student in the public education system, I was fortunate that I had the benefit of private lessons for several years before beginning post-secondary music education studies.

Yet it was not hard for me to see that the students and families that I was getting in my first years of teaching could not afford that luxury. It did not take a rocket scientist either, to see that it was not going to get any better any time soon.

Still, I knew that if my students were going to have any success on their instruments, they were going to need to be shown how to go about practicing on their wind instruments. I knew that not everyone was going to take up the challenge of an organized home practice regime, but if I could show them some basics, I figured they would at least stand a better chance of developing some better skills on their instrument.

I could also see that telling students to go home and practice was not the answer. Many students seemed like they wanted to build up some skills in their instrument. It just seemed to me, though, that they had no idea of how to begin to do this. Many could not even see that practicing their band music over and over was not getting them where they wanted to be.

So, the question is, how does a secondary band teacher begin to show band students who are NOT taking private lessons how to practice as if they were taking private lessons? It is the function of the private teacher to show and teach their students WHAT to practice and HOW to practice their instrument at home so that the students can increase their skill on their band instrument.

How was I going to explain this problem to a full class of band students on a wide collection of instruments that have different problems with sound production? How could I show students how to practice in such a way that the students would come to class with a bit better skill set each day so that eventually we could tackle the more complicated and therefore more fun concert band music?

Technique Book

I knew right away, then, that the band classes had to be more than just a rehearsal class of the concert band music. If all I could do was talk about what the students should do for themselves, this would not suffice. They needed to be shown how to practice. For band students, this does not mean watching me practice some exercises on my instrument once, so that they could then apply those ideas to their instrument.

No, showing the band students how to practice means having them practice together as a group on what they need to do to improve. They needed to show this to me, not me show it to them. This “Learning By Doing” then, meant using a technique book to run some exercises so that the students would get a glimmer of what they should be doing on their own, and this one idea is the biggest argument for the use of a technique book in band class. Students will not practice their instrument if you do not show them WHY and HOW to do it on their own, and that means doing it with them in band class.

The first book I chose to fill this role was I Recommend by James Ployhar, published by Alfred Music in 1972. Later I switched to Foundations for Superior Performance by Richard Williams & Jeff King, published by Kjos Music in 1998. For a good comparison of four of the best-known band technique books, see Top 4 Band Technique Books for more information.

As part of this decision to use a technique book, I committed to spending at least some time in every band class playing out of the technique book. Of course, there were always days when this was simply impossible due to extenuating circumstances. For example, on days when it was now one week away from a concert and the school suddenly decides that it is going to have a fire drill right at the beginning of your band class, maybe the best choice is to forgo the technique book that day to save your concert.

Still, I would say that on about 90% of band days, we successfully ran the time in the technique book before we turned to play our concert band music. And, I would say that on most days that we worked some in the technique book first, we spent on average about 25% of our available class time doing just that.

For new young teachers that are devoted to producing the best that the concerts can be, it might seem like a large commitment to spend so much of our available time working from a technique book. Yet, for me, it always seemed like it was not enough. I expected that in future years I would be requiring less rehearsal time if I could just get in a bit more technique/skill-building time with my students. To a large extent, this plan worked over the long haul, so now I encourage new teachers to take the long approach to student learning and make sure they are using a good technique book every day in their class.

Be Careful What You Say

I was always kind of worried that the actions that I was trying to set up with the students would be undermined by a few careless words said too often. For example, I was worried that my showing the band students how to practice on their instrument using a technique book could be undermined by me in the middle of rehearsing a great piece of music by asking them to practice the piece of music like crazy until it comes out right.

As a result, I had many slogans that I used in band class consistently which helped shape what I wanted the students to do. A good example is “Don’t practice the band music! Instead, just practice the instrument and then come here and PLAY the music!”

Now if you use a statement like this you will need to qualify it so that the students understand that it is a matter of emphasis, not exclusion. Explain to your students that you want them to spend more time doing skill-building exercises like scales, arpeggios, tonguing, slurring, fingering exercises, and so on.

Sometimes, though, they will still need to woodshed a small passage of band music to get it right because the particular composition is so difficult. In cases like this, the students should “star” the small passage for practice, and once it has been worked up, remove the star so that they are not just practicing the band music over and over again, as this will not improve their instrumental skills.

Another great saying that I used often was “Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until it cannot go wrong ever again!” The difference was that an amateur might practice a piece of music that contains say an F# for the trumpet players when they are not used to playing F#s. They then practice that piece of music enough times that they can now remember the F#s. Instead, though, a pro would practice the G Scale (F concert) so that they no longer have to think about every F# that comes up because now they are used to playing in the correct scale.

That brings me to the idea of default scales that I have talked about with students many times. Most young band students play in a default scale of Eb, which means that if something were to go wrong in their fingers with a particular piece of music, they would likely “default” back to the key of Eb concert. So, a likely error for trumpet players would be to forget to play a B natural and instead play a Bb which is in the default key. Flute players would mistake an Ab when it should be an A, and so on across the band.

The reason that students play in a default key signature is that so much of the band music from the first few years is written in the key of Eb. Students then sometimes come to view all of their music as “In this piece add in a Db,” or “In this piece take away all the flats.” These kinds of “mind talks” will often be forgotten when students start working their way into the music, and will then result in those “errors,” which are just a reversion to their default key signature.

At these moments, explain to students why it is so very important that they practice ALL of the various keys, majors and minors. The intention is to get rid of any sense of a default key so that playing in the far-afield keys is no more challenging than playing in the key of Eb. You know that you are approaching this point in your playing when you correct accidentals without thinking about them, by adding in forgotten sharps or flats in keys where they should have been present, but a scoring error was made leaving them off.

An example of automatically correcting for publisher errors would look something like the following. If you are playing in the key of G and an F# should have been present but was forgotten by the publisher. This would leave an F unmarked by either a key signature or an accidental, and you unthinkingly add it back in during playing it because you now recognize that the key you are playing demands it. This demonstrates that your default key signatures are beginning to crumble, which is a good thing.

Taking the time to explain these complex ideas to students is not time that is lost. It is time that is well invested in them understanding what they should practice at home, and what the expected result will be. It will begin to pay off handsomely over time.

Assign Playing Tests

Use little play tests to encourage students to develop skills with their instruments. For example, if you wanted them all to learn the A Concert scale, a surefire way to make sure they are all practicing it is to assign it for marks. Students all know that what is graded is what counts, so just telling them to practice it will unlikely motivate everyone to make it happen. Putting some marks on it will.

Don’t forget to also use play tests on technique studies other than scales. Scales studies are easy to put marks on and that is an excellent thing. But don’t forget to use counting studies, tonguing studies, finger pattern studies, and so on. Mix it up, and you will get better results. Also, use more frequent and smaller play tests to keep the focus where you want it to be, which is improving their skill on their instrument.

Now some cautions here about using playtests. Some students are very shy about playing in front of the class. If that is the case, you may need to offer them an opportunity to play it for you outside of class time. But when that happens a lot, you should take a little time to examine why it is that so many students are shy about playing one at a time in class. Is the culture of the class set up well so that everyone will support each other instead of ridiculing each other for mistakes? You might need to encourage a better culture in the band class at first, especially if you find your school contains a lot of “competition for attention.”

Another caution with using playing tests is to avoid using the band music too often. Again, going back to the idea that students will value only what you put marks on, they will not value their technique book if you only test the band music. As their skills rise, the students will come to enjoy the band music more anyway just because they can perform it better. So keep encouraging the technique book and everyone wins.

Don’t Forget All Aspects of Practice

Don’t forget to do tonguing practice, slurring practice, counting practice, lips slurs for brass, fingering patterns, register leaps for clarinets, and so on. Try to hit on as many different components of becoming a great musician as you can so that you are not just worrying about the scales (pitches) and forgetting many other areas.

A great technique book can help you with this coverage issue because great books contain many different kinds of studies. Investigate many technique books, and then find one that you are comfortable using which contains many different areas of study for your students.

Demonstrate to Your Students

Sometimes one of the easiest and fastest ways for students to learn is for the music teacher to pick up an instrument like theirs and show them what you mean. For example, as a trumpet player, it was very common for me to pick up a clarinet and play for the students what a chromatic scale on a clarinet looks like using the correct pinky keys just above the break, or the correct Eb key down low so that they are not “sliding” on the keys.

Yes, to do this you might have to take a little time to work out the problem on the other instruments that you do not play as a specialty. But, keep in mind that you are not being asked to play it to professional standards. Just play it well enough that you can show what you mean to your students with fewer words. If you cannot learn it, you might have trouble convincing your students that it is important enough for them to learn it.

It was extremely common for students to ask me “Can you play every instrument in the band?” They would often ask me this after picking up an instrument that was different than the one I normally play. My usual response was, “Well, I can play all the instruments badly, some more badly than others. But, I play one of them well.” All you need to demonstrate is a need to build up skill on their band instrument. If you still need to develop some skills on more instruments to help those demonstrations, take the initiative to begin. You too will find out that it is quite fun to learn more instruments!

Use Instrument Specialists

One of my favourite ways of developing practice skills in my students was to put them in front of specialists who played their chosen instrument. Having a flute specialist come in to talk about and show students what to practice on the flute was an excellent use of flute players’ time. It would not be such a good use of time for say, the brass players, or the clarinet players.

So, when using specialists like this, allow the specialist to meet with only those students playing the same instrument. Do something else with the rest, or just run a regular rehearsal without that section for this one day.

Having a band retreat is an excellent way to get an instrument specialist in front of each section, all at the same time. If you can find a place where you can take your band students away for a few days to work only on music things, using a couple of hours for some specialists is time and money well spent. Just don’t ask your specialists to solve your problems with a particular piece of music. That is not going to help you much in the long run.

If you are planning a retreat with band students, suggest to the specialists that you do not want them to go into the band music during this clinic time. Instead, ask them to show your students whatever they can in the time they have, just the things the students need to do to develop as a musician. Perfecting the band's music is likely not one of those things.

Ask your specialists to show the students HOW they should practice to improve on that instrument. Very often these folks will then express their happiness about this request because quite often they are expected to do just the opposite. The instrument specialists often see what is missing in student playing abilities, but would be frustrated that they were not given the leeway to make it better. As the teacher, it is best again for you to take the long view, as it will pay off much bigger in future years.

Talk About True Method Books

Finally, talk to your students about what a true method book is. That is a book that is written for only one kind of instrument and has specific exercises for just that one instrument. A real method book cannot be used in the band class like your chosen band technique book. Method books will not be transferable to other instruments and they will only make sense to the one instrument they are written for.

For example, almost every band teacher regardless of the instrument specialty has heard of the “Arban’s Book” for trumpet. This amazing book was written with specific exercises for trumpet players to do to help them learn skills on their instrument. But using the lip slurs from Arban’s book on clarinet would do almost nothing for clarinet players. They do not have the same kind of harmonics issues as trumpet players. The reverse is also true in that doing register leap exercises from a clarinet book will not help the trumpet players one bit. This is the nature of a real method book.

Each time you call in an instrument specialist to work with your students, ask them to provide you with a list of books that they have used to help develop their skills. These would be the books that should be recommended to your students. It does not have to be a long list, just a few good ones will do. Over time you will create lists of books for every instrument in the band, and this will become an excellent resource for your students. Feel free to contact a Tapestry Rep for help with this as well!

So, next time you are rehearsing in the middle of a challenging piece of concert band music and you are getting frustrated, stop before you blurt out “Did you guys not practice this at all since the last time we played it?” Take a minute or two and examine what it is they need to learn to get over this challenge this time and every future time it arises on other pieces of music.

Once you can figure out the problem, you can likely figure out what you need to do to encourage your students to start taking steps in the direction of solving this challenge. If you can name the problem, like playing correctly in the key of A, you can likely figure out what to do to get them to solve that problem as well. If you do it well, your students will already contain that solution for the next time they encounter the key of A.

 

 

 

Correction: Last week in the article “Top 4 Band Technique Books” I incorrectly stated that “The Fussell Book” was permanently out of print. I likely made this assumption due to the Victoria store where I access materials not having a copy in the store. The book is still available to order for anyone that is currently using it. My apologies for the error. Thanks to Kathy Fester in Coquitlam for pointing that out. I still stand by the comments that The Fussell Book uses difficult transposition methods for young players. 😊

 

Ed Dumas is a retired band director who taught his entire career in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District. Ed is now living with his lifelong partner Laurie, and their little dog Sprocket in Parksville, BC.  Ed & Laurie also work as Mid-Island reps for Tapestry Music while enjoying making music in retirement.

 

You can find Ed’s other writings for the MusicED Blog at: https://www.tapestrymusic.com/news.aspx

 

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