This is the mantra I keep saying to myself as I undertake to master at least ONE step of the tap routine we are doing in my Tappercize class. Over and over again, on my springy board in the living room which I bought just for this purpose, I try to get my feet to match up with what my mouth is saying. Not so easy. Shuffles require that you finish with a foot in the air, uncommitted to the next thing, ready to shift weight, or not. Slowly, I isolate the messages between foot and brain, and try to build up to doing two in a row, however slowly. Somewhere between the brain and the foot, a wire crosses and I am saying "shuffle", but actually "ball changing".
This wire crossing seems to multiply as I try to string the steps together, mutant DNA in my helix of instruction. I stop. Try one. Try one starting on the other foot. Try doing two in a row. Got it. Now try to keep it going. Wires cross again. This puzzles me. Why can't I tell my feet what to do? I am SAYING it out loud, for pity's sake! I back up and try one. Try one on the other foot. String two together. Try to keep it going. Say it out loud. Eventually, I manage to get maybe 4 to 6 in a row. The instructions repeat in my head, getting, finally, correctly, to my feet. Whee! I'm flying! Oops. As soon as I think ABOUT what I'm doing, instead of staying in the mantra, I goof up.
This goofing up when stepping outside my brain is something that has plagued me as a musician all my life. But that's not why I am writing today. I am thinking of my music students. As part of their instruction, I have them say out loud, and in tempo what they are doing. Reading note names, singing finger numbers, saying tahn and shh for quarter notes and rests as they clap a rhythm, or moving their bows vertically in the air as we practice a bowing rhythm are all things we do regularly in my classes. It is my belief that these activities develop an inner mantra for my students that keeps them, or gets them focused on pushing the music along and not getting stuck unable to string two or more notes together. And I think it does help. But as I have been observing my own wires crossing between brain and action, I can see my own students in my mind's eye having the same problem. As bows are going up and down in the air, I can see a couple kids completely backward-even as they are saying "down bow" they are pushing their bows up. Usually if I make smiling eye contact, they realize immediately what they are doing and turn around. Sometimes a student will CLAP on a rest when he should be putting palms out and saying Shh. But if we keep trying, and reminding them to look and focus, eventually they get it.
Once again, my own learning reminds me of how my students learn, and how they can cross wires just like I can. My job is to help them untangle the mess till they can fly too.
Showing posts with label l Music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label l Music. Show all posts
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Friday, October 15, 2010
A Room With a View.
Since Sierra Madre School expanded to include grades 7 and 8 a few years ago, the middle school part of the school population has occupied the farthest east campus in the Pasadena Unified School District. Originally called Sierra Mesa School, it was, for many years home to Maranatha High School which leased the property from PUSD. The District reclaimed it to use it for the expanded Sierra Madre grades, and the Instrumental Music program found a home in one of the many aging portable "bungalows" on the site. For awhile the Music Theater class occupied the other half of this double long structure, and it became affectionately known as "The Palace".
The Palace roof leaked, the floors has spongy places that felt like they could fall through, and at least one window a year would be broken by a stray soccer ball, but over the five or so years we were in that room, the orchestra grew from a handful of kids to a rowdy, talented group numbering almost 30. We made music in that room. Little by little, note by note, squeak by squeak, the year would progress, and by spring we would sound pretty good. Kids who could barely read notes in 5th grade got it by the end of 6th, and then they were off and running.
Each year the orchestra has gotten bigger and better. To build the program, I took to accepting pretty much anyone into the class who had a mind to be there. This could be anyone, including kids who had never played anything but maybe a few weeks of violin somewhere back in third grade and wanted to learn drums, a number of obsessed guitar players, some kids who had never played any instrument ever, and some who had not played for several years.
To accomodate this rag-tag group I would do things like take band or orchestra arrangements and pull out a part for the guitars to play, or tell the budding drummers to make up a part. French Horn parts became alto sax parts, and String Bass parts sometimes were played on Electric Bass. Sometimes I just let those guitar players sit on the porch and jam while the rest of us worked on orchestra music. Some days I opened the room at lunch and let the rockers hang in there and play electric instruments and drum set. Anything to keep the music going, to keep the kids coming back, and to make them feel that the Palace, funky as it was, was theirs.
Then in 2008 a bond measure passed in Pasadena allowing for upgrades to all the schools in the district, and, miraculously, a complete new school on the Sierra Madre Middle School site. In the plans is a whole Music Suite, with ample space for both the Instrumental Music and the Choral/Theater programs. As exciting as this is, it was still with a bit of nostalgic sadness that I packed up the Palace last spring so that we could move to another, smaller, portable on the upper edge of the campus beyond the construction zone.
Jury Duty at the end of this summer prevented me from getting into the room much before school started, but when I finally set up chairs and stands I stood back and thought, if we get 25 we'll be fine. Any more and it will be tight. Well, thirty kids signed up for Instrumental Music, and for the first three weeks the Air Conditioning in the tiny room didn't work at all. Part of that time the temperatures were hitting triple digits in the afternoons, so the orchestra decamped for a few days to the 8th grade Science teacher's room where we played Rhythm Bingo and listened to orchestral music and learned some theory. Tuesday this week, I arrived to find the AC guy just finishing up, and the room COLD!
So here we are, in our new room. 31 Students now, as we have added a couple more violinists. Our windows (which overlook the construction site where the old Palace still sits awaiting removal or demolition) will not be broken by soccer balls, because they are far from the PE field. The roof does not leak. There is barely room to bow, and the trumpet players were shy about playing out at first, because they were blowing directly into the back of the flute players' heads. But note by note, and squeak by squeak, we have started to make some music. This week we have been doing playing tests, with each student playing exerpts from the one piece we have focussed our attention on this month. This testing, which sends jitters and nervousness through the whole group, results in sudden leaps of improvement in the overall sound. Whether it's due to the extra practicing that goes on in the days before the test, or just the attention I am able to give each player when his or her turn comes to fix little problems, I don't know. But the shiver that stands my arm hairs on end when I hear this group, in October mind you, is not coming from the AC.
The Palace roof leaked, the floors has spongy places that felt like they could fall through, and at least one window a year would be broken by a stray soccer ball, but over the five or so years we were in that room, the orchestra grew from a handful of kids to a rowdy, talented group numbering almost 30. We made music in that room. Little by little, note by note, squeak by squeak, the year would progress, and by spring we would sound pretty good. Kids who could barely read notes in 5th grade got it by the end of 6th, and then they were off and running.
Each year the orchestra has gotten bigger and better. To build the program, I took to accepting pretty much anyone into the class who had a mind to be there. This could be anyone, including kids who had never played anything but maybe a few weeks of violin somewhere back in third grade and wanted to learn drums, a number of obsessed guitar players, some kids who had never played any instrument ever, and some who had not played for several years.
To accomodate this rag-tag group I would do things like take band or orchestra arrangements and pull out a part for the guitars to play, or tell the budding drummers to make up a part. French Horn parts became alto sax parts, and String Bass parts sometimes were played on Electric Bass. Sometimes I just let those guitar players sit on the porch and jam while the rest of us worked on orchestra music. Some days I opened the room at lunch and let the rockers hang in there and play electric instruments and drum set. Anything to keep the music going, to keep the kids coming back, and to make them feel that the Palace, funky as it was, was theirs.
Then in 2008 a bond measure passed in Pasadena allowing for upgrades to all the schools in the district, and, miraculously, a complete new school on the Sierra Madre Middle School site. In the plans is a whole Music Suite, with ample space for both the Instrumental Music and the Choral/Theater programs. As exciting as this is, it was still with a bit of nostalgic sadness that I packed up the Palace last spring so that we could move to another, smaller, portable on the upper edge of the campus beyond the construction zone.
Jury Duty at the end of this summer prevented me from getting into the room much before school started, but when I finally set up chairs and stands I stood back and thought, if we get 25 we'll be fine. Any more and it will be tight. Well, thirty kids signed up for Instrumental Music, and for the first three weeks the Air Conditioning in the tiny room didn't work at all. Part of that time the temperatures were hitting triple digits in the afternoons, so the orchestra decamped for a few days to the 8th grade Science teacher's room where we played Rhythm Bingo and listened to orchestral music and learned some theory. Tuesday this week, I arrived to find the AC guy just finishing up, and the room COLD!
So here we are, in our new room. 31 Students now, as we have added a couple more violinists. Our windows (which overlook the construction site where the old Palace still sits awaiting removal or demolition) will not be broken by soccer balls, because they are far from the PE field. The roof does not leak. There is barely room to bow, and the trumpet players were shy about playing out at first, because they were blowing directly into the back of the flute players' heads. But note by note, and squeak by squeak, we have started to make some music. This week we have been doing playing tests, with each student playing exerpts from the one piece we have focussed our attention on this month. This testing, which sends jitters and nervousness through the whole group, results in sudden leaps of improvement in the overall sound. Whether it's due to the extra practicing that goes on in the days before the test, or just the attention I am able to give each player when his or her turn comes to fix little problems, I don't know. But the shiver that stands my arm hairs on end when I hear this group, in October mind you, is not coming from the AC.
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