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Effective Rehearsal Techniques |
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Tales From The Podium
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Written by Chad Criswell
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.jpg "A Rehearsal") Finally today I got around to reading the October 2007 issue of SBO
magazine. In between lessons I flipped through the pages to come
across a strangely titled article by Kenneth Thompson titled Keep It
Simple. As I skimmed the article to determine what exactly it was
about I realized that this was an article that I really needed to
read... Carefully!
Like many (most?) band directors I am never happy with my
rehearsals. They are often too noisy, too disjointed, and at the end
as I reflect on the day's events I can't help but wonder if I really
accomplished anything of substance during the rehearsal. Thompson's
article hits home in several places during his article, pointing out
that often my band's playing deficiencies may be my own deficiencies as
a classroom manager. Foremost among these soft spots in my teaching
method would have to be pacing of rehearsals. In the article Thompson
points out that the pace of the rehearsal is often in the eye of the
beholder. What we as a teacher may see as being extremely fast paced
may to a student seem very slow and boring. If we spend five minutes
working with the clarinets while the rest of the band sits around we
may feel like we are moving like crazy while for the other sections of
the band they are just sitting there, losing their focus.
To combat this Mr. Thompson suggests doing something that we
as band directors do not want to do. He asserts that we should not
wait for each student to master a skill in class before moving on to
the next, and that if we slow down to the lowest skill level student's
pace we are in turn telling the other students that they don't need to
practice because they can already play it! That is such a revelation
to to many people but it also makes perfect sense. We are all told
time and time again that we need to expect more from our students
(especially our gifted ones) so that they push themselves to improve.
Instead what do we do? We hold back 90% of the band to try to fix
something that 10% are having issues with. Take the little things into
sectionals or lessons, but push them during large group rehearsals.
Sounds good to me... Now I just hope I can retrain myself to do it.
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