The musical diet - solo instrumental edition

Repertoire can become a contentious issue among teachers. There are so many things to consider in order to provide appropriate repertoire. If you can hold up repertoire and answer yes to these questions, then your repertoire stands up to the test.

• Is it at an appropriate level?

Repertoire should be achievable, but should still provide a challenge. If it is pitched too high, a student will soon become frustrated and defeated. If it is too low, the student will be bored.

This becomes awkward for those of us who teach in small groups. The ideal situation is that those groups be as close in level as possible. If this is not the case, here are some strategies for dealing with repertoire:
Add challenges to the existing repertoire. Some students are struggling, but others are sailing through, so add in a new teaching point (perhaps some trills or other ornamentation at cadence points, create more complicated rhythms) or use those composition and harmony skills to create a counterpoint/duet part or an introduction.
Provide a 'challenge for the week'. This is more applicable to younger students who are working from method or repertoire books. If most students are just coping with the assigned work, give out a 'challenge piece', a non-compulsory section of the practice for the week which is pitched well above the current work. (I often don't even give this to the student in question, but the group in general. The students know who the strong one is and do not need it spelled out to them every week.) In this case, depending on the student, it is often okay to provide something pitched much higher than the current work and with concepts they may need to research themselves (a new note, etc).
Provide extra material for the student on a long term basis. This might be a separate piece, it might be a different book entirely. You may choose to hear the student play through it every few weeks (perhaps even during pack up time or before lessons start). It is good to have a knowledge of what is available outside the standard repertoire and books you use just for this purpose.

• Is is balanced?

I will once again be using a food-related analogy here, since food is one thing that has been drilled into us and we deal with every day. Repertoire, a musical diet, is no different to consuming food. A diet that is nothing but vegetables is bland, boring and uninspiring. It is not healthy because it is not balanced. A musical diet consisting of nothing but scales and exercises does not create musicians. It is no longer art. Similarly, a diet of chocolate and cake is going to render us unwell. A musical diet based entirely around Disney playalongs is not going to create musicians with a consistent degree of technique and cultural understanding.

There is nothing wrong with Disney playalongs at all (I find them quite educational in that the students are excited to play them, and therefore practice them, and they often use techniques that students may otherwise have shied away from). But they need to be presented alongside scales, technique building and repertoire that has artistic merit.

• Is it educational?

What are the teaching points in the repertoire? Does it have any?

The best teachers can pull concepts from almost any repertoire. In reality, we should be using repertoire which already has these concepts built in. This particularly applies to students still in the early developmental phase of learning their instrument.

Students need relevancy. If you are going to teach them about semiquavers, back it up with repertoire that includes semiquavers. I often find myself bouncing around a book rather than just blindly following it in order as I like to ensure I am following a path of consistent progression and I like to keep all the 'relevant' repertoire together.

Try to extract extra educational points from the repertoire. Give students the task to find out 5 facts about Mozart during the week you are doing Symphony no. 40. Explain why so many pieces are called 'Minuet'. Demonstrate how a sequence works when it appears and why it is helpful to recognise patterns like that.

• Is it preparing the students for others areas of their musical education?

Students learning in school programs will often be expected to play in band by either their second semester or their second year of learning. For some instruments, this is not an issue - brass, clarinet, saxophone. For instruments in C (flute, oboe, bassoon, double bass), the notes used in a lot of band pieces often do not line up with the typical progression of learning.

There are teachers who insist on sticking to their guns and teaching every student as though they are only ever going to play in lessons. In reality, those students become disadvantaged and frustrated when they can't understand why the band director is picking on them for not knowing the notes. As educators on those instruments, it is important we set the students up for success in whatever environment they find themselves in. If this means creating worksheets and exercises to fill in the gaps that your chosen tutor book doesn't cover, then go for it!

This definitely applies to areas other than band. Your student has been asked to play at their church - do you help them with the music and perhaps give them extra materials to help with any difficult concepts, or do you tell them it's not part of the plan? Some students will always be attracted to performing publicly - make sure they have touched on repertoire that can be used for this purpose. School wants an assembly item? Head off any disasters by making sure students have had a chance to play ensemble music in lessons before you present them with the duet they are going to play in front of the school. Students' instrumental learning needs to be transferrable or it loses relevancy and meaning.

Does your repertoire stand up to the test? Good repertoire is equally as important as good teaching - get the best tools for the job!

Music in education...why?

On Monday, Australian conductor and music education advocate Richard Gill published this article.

In this current world of standardised tests and, interestingly, what seems like an ever-decreasing amount of desk time for students as the curriculum becomes loaded with 'school responsibilities', why are people such as Richard Gill advocating for mandatory inclusion of music in the school curriculum? There are plenty of reasons (often given by administrators) as to why we shouldn't have music - time, space, funding and specialist teachers are the ones heard most often by those of us in this business.

Music is one of the few subjects which crosses into every learning area.

Music is an art.
This one is a given. It is creative. It demands artistry. It requires a mix of technique and emotion.

Music is a science.
How is sound produced by simply running a bow across a string? What is pitch, and how does a student identify or define it? Without science, and the integration of scientific concepts into the learning of an instrument, there is no music.

Music is a language.
Many musical terms are in Italian. Some are in French or German. The reading of music itself is another language that students must learn in order to engage in music. Whether it is traditional written music, or Kodaly method sol-fa, there is language to learn and apply. Students who don't even speak the same language can communicate through music.

Music is maths.
Music consists of pulse. In pulse, there are divisions. There is also measurement. The rhythm of western music relies on the division and multiplication of basic pulse by two (basic symbols exist for notes with beat lengths of 8, 4, 2, 1, 1/2, 1/4, etc). Students must apply fractions and ratios. Students must understand how tempo relates back to real time.

Music is a social science.
Music is present in every culture. And culture is present in music. Students studying music history will learn about some of the great composers and works that were linked with major world events. Cultures have distinctive musical styles which students learn to associate. Ethnomusicology is becoming a large branch of Western musical understanding, and is finding its way into classrooms.

Music is technology.
If there was ever an area of study that was evolving as fast as technology could keep up with it, music would be it. Music students are using smartphone apps in their practice and lessons (tuners and metronomes) and software in their classes (notation, sequencing, editing). They are downloading, recording, streaming and creating music. Music and technology are like peas in a pod, and the two help students link what they consider 'relevant' to their studies. It enables them to stay engaged as it builds on what they know and understand.

Music is a sport.
There is a physical-ness to making music. Singing and playing wind instruments requires good breath control and capacity. Some instruments are kinetically demanding, such as bowed strings and percussion. There is motion in all of music. Playing an instrument requires high degrees of coordination and fine-motor skills.

A subject that crosses this many learning areas must surely make for a balanced curriculum. It is a way of validating those learning areas which are often kept so cleanly in their pigeon holes by showing students that they have real world applications.

Aside from providing a balance and spread to the curriculum, we must make mention of the other important life skills that music provides. It encourages teamwork. Students must work together to stay in tune and in time. There is often no 'leader' and no one person should 'stick out' all of the time. Students must be relied on to pull their weight and not let the team down. At the same time, there can be opportunities for leadership and mentorship. Music is one of the few areas in school where students from multiple year groups work together. Students learn to work with others older and younger than them, and adjust accordingly. Responsibility is another valuable skill - being responsible for your team, for your instrument and music, for your schedule and for your own learning.

Music not only provides a balance to the curriculum, it provides support. In this academic-focused era that we are in, should we not invest in something that has been proved many times to improve student learning and results? The so-called Mozart effect is real. In addition to the research, enough evidence lies with the musical prowess of the schools with renowned academic results. If you look at the schools with the highest-level ensembles in any school band, orchestra or choir festival, then compare it with a list of the top performing schools in leaving exams, there will be a correlation. While it might be thought of as a chicken-and-egg scenario, there is no denying that the link exists.

Consider the investment in your child's music education. If your school does not have a music program, ask why not. If your school does have a music program, encourage your child's participation and support wherever possible.

I will leave you with this little gem that has been floating around social media:

Scales are like vegetables...

...you might not like them, but they're good for you.

Anyone who has ever been a student of mine will have heard me utter this every time I sense a complaint about scales is about to occur. Younger students often don't understand why we do scales, but have often had the vegetable rule drilled into them from a young age!

Scales (and other technical work) are necessary for development and progression. Teachers don't just make students do them because they are mean and because they had to do them when they were that age. We do scales because:

• Lots of music contains fragments of scales and other technical passages
• Scales help cement certain finger and/or embouchure changes (i.e. you don't have to wait until a hard fingering passage turns up in a piece of music and THEN have to worry about how to do it, because you've already worked it out!)
• Scales are good for warming up fingers, mouth, air and brain before we play music
• Scales are a good way of learning and using new notes as soon as we learn them

Most students will take this with a grain of salt. Even if the idea of scales 'makes sense', there is still the perception that 'scales are boring'.

If you have to eat vegetables, you want them to be in the tastiest form with the most variety possible, right?

If you are stuck in the 'scales are boring' mindset, try these tricks:

• Write all the scales you know (or need to know) on small pieces of paper. Do the same with the rhythms/speeds/articulations you are playing, but keep them separate. Draw one from each pile - this will match up a random scale with a random style and keep each scale fresh and interesting.
• Still on rhythm - find an interesting rhythm in one of your pieces (or invent one) and play all your scales in this rhythm. Not only does it become a new challenge all by itself, it is MUCH more exciting than straight quavers.
• If you ever have chance to warm up with others (in group lessons, mass warm-up sessions, etc), play scales in rounds. Leave a two-note gap between players. The harmonies it creates are glorious!
• Play all of your scales from the top downwards, then back up. This is surprisingly harder than it sounds, and is more often than not the cure for those who can play scales brilliantly on the way up but fumble on the way down (believe it or not, this is extremely common).
• Speed challenge - think of this like a scale version of the beep test. There are so many ways of doing this - you could focus on one scale in one session and use your metronome to see how fast you can get, or perhaps take a set of scales at a set speed and advance by 5bpm or so each day.
• Create melodic patterns with your scales. A common one, using C major as an example, is [C D E F, D E F G, E F G A, etc]. Another is [C D E C, D E F D, E F G E, etc]. Not only is this more interesting than simply running up and down aimlessly, but some of these patterns often turn up in pieces, particularly Baroque and Classical music. You can even use the order of the notes in the scale to create random patterns, trying to stay in order at all times.
• Learn a couple of 'cool' scales such as modes and blues scales to scatter amongst your 'everyday' scales (if these are not already your everyday scales).

We still need to know our scales in their original form for assessments, exams and general knowledge. But these techniques, interspersed with standard scales, not only relieve the boredom that scales can induce, but may also help in the long run.

Happy technique-building!