This past week, albeit short (teacher work day on Friday!), was stressful but productive. As hard as it is to believe, I am already more than halfway finished with my first placement at Miami Coral Park Senior HS. It has been a whirlwind month, but I am finally becoming comfortable with what I am doing and establishing a rapport with my students. I am really enjoying my time here, and will definitely miss the experiences and the students when I move to an elementary setting after spring break. Here are a few take-aways from the week:
Differentiation in Symphonic Band
This was my greatest success this week. After last week’s struggles with finding ways to engage the students of all ability levels in the symphonic band, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I put together a simple arrangement of the popular Taio Cruz song “Dynamite” early in the week, tailoring the parts to the ability levels of my specific players. The short arrangement was a smash hit with the students, who were engaged in learning the rhythms they needed to know to be able to play the music correctly. This was also the topic of last night’s #MusEdChat discussion – I look forward to hearing others’ ideas on this topic.
One of my more problematic students (a drummer, of course…) became specifically excited by this activity. This student, who can barely read music at all, immediately went to the marimba with a pair of mallets and tried to figure out the background figures that he knew from hearing the song on the radio. It turns out this student has an incredible ear! He had figured out the correct notes in all of ten seconds, and was playing along with the music. After class, I was sure to provide positive reinforcement and encourage him to continue studying music notation. I told him that with an ear like his, there was nothing stopping him from being able to put together arrangements like I just did except his own knowledge of notation. He seemed very excited by this idea. By no coincidence, his behavior has improved since that talk.
Noteflight in Keyboard Class
I am currently working on a composition project with my two General Music Keyboard classes, focusing on AABA Form. The students are learning how to utilize form in their compositions, and have spent the past week and a half working on their compositions by hand. I had hoped the students could be composing on Noteflight from the beginning, but we don’t have constant access to a computer lab that the students could use. This week, though, I introduced the Noteflight system to them. They should be finished with their handwritten compositions by next week, and I will be sending groups of 5 at a time to the computer lab to begin putting their music into the system. My hope is that they will enjoy having a keepsake of the project!
Conducting
I am becoming much more comfortable on the podium during ensemble rehearsals, specifically with the Wind Ensemble. We are one week away from our pre-evaluation festival performance at Florida International University and two weeks away from our Music Performance Assessment. I am very excited to be conducting the march with this ensemble, and I am pleased with my improvements in terms of my listening skills on the podium. I am noticing a lot more errors, and hearing problems before they occur. I can’t wait to perform with the ensemble next week!
If you have any thoughts or suggestions on any of these ideas, I welcome your comments! Until next week!
About Andy Zweibel
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