[Trombone-l] musicianship question

[Charles De Paolo]

Stupid stuff that's worked for me:

1. Send them home with favorite recordings.  Ask them to copy what they hear. (i.e. "Listen!")
2. Sing to them. Be really passionate, pitch and tone quality be damned if need be. Use the exercise as a way to show the changes of intensity that make a phrase go.
3. Form them into chamber groups and drill home musicality as their coach. On a more initmate scale, it's easier to get your section leaders and others to get with the program.  They can then pass on the knowledge to their colleagues.
4. Let them really exaggerate musical lines, then back them off (in band as well as in sectionals and chamber rehearsals).  Go way overboard so they get the idea, then tack them back to a more appropriate interpretation.  They'll likely think this to be silly at first. But what you're trying to do is "stretch their interpretive envelope" as it were, so that when you relax, they wind up where you want them to be.
5. Do musical basics with them such as leading over the barline (4 goes to 1 and so on).
6. Point out antecedant and consquent phrases and have them apply the appropriate dynamics. Then, make them point them out to you and play them to you in a question-answer format.
7. Throw a paper plane and ask them to play what they see (paper planes make wonderful swoops and dives, much like a good phrase). OK, if that sounds too silly, use your hands to demonstrate the "flight path" of a favorite phrase throught the air.  Have them imitate that on their horns.

All these have been succesful strategies for me with brass quintets, jazz bands, large trombone choirs, and any number of individual private students.  Good luck!


---Chuck

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jay Sheridan 
  To: trombone-l at samford.edu 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 2:34 PM
  Subject: [Trombone-l] musicianship question


  For all those that do any teaching, how do you teach a student (or group- band/orch etc) to play musically? I have tried several different ways, but none seem to be working. I have a group that can perform rhythmically and in tune, but is lacking musically. The group in question is actually a choir, but I usually think in trombone terms when talking to them anyways.

  Thanks

  Jay Sheridan
  Director of Music
  Upper Scioto Valley Local School
  McGuffey, OH
  jsheridan at usv.k12.oh.us
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