High School Proficiency

[swillafew]

Here's a teaching question: Student in top band at big school is required to arrange their own private lesson. Student has his own tuba but no foundation for playing it. He is supposed to start next week. What percentage of the lesson time would you devote to getting him up to speed on playing in every major key, recognizing and knowing major arpeggios, etc?

He has expressed an interest in teaching music himself.

I sent the parent a PDF of a warmup and I included the same stuff brass players use everywhere. I know the student is going to find these foreign. I kept the range small and the note values large.

[swillafew]

Thanks for the input. I coached him a little a year ago. He was interested then in auditioning for all state band. Illinois has a required sheet with all the majors and minors.

[largobone]

If he's just starting this year, get him started on the easy scales: Bb, Eb, C, F and go from there. Let's be honest, what are the odds this kid is going to make All-State in the next two years? Work his fundamentals first, then worry about honor bands.

[Art Hovey]

The Elephant has it right. Every kid is different. The nice thing about individual instruction is that you can treat kids as individuals. You listen to what they can do and what they can't do, and what they want to do, and try to get them to work on what they need to the best of their ability. Your first goal is to win their respect. If you can manage that the rest is easy.

[anonymous4]

EDIT: I found that - when teaching at the college level at two different major universities - I spent more time and energy on (in a positive and encouraging way, ~not~ a demeaning way) trying to help them develop techniques to GENERALLY get their $h!t together...as THAT (much more than "not being able to play the tuba very well") was the problem that MOST of them exhibited.

Thanks for doing that. What I'm about to say might take us off on a tangent, but who cares. More and more, people are outsourcing the raising of their kids to schools, or "other", so there really are a lot of eighteen year old kids out there that don't know how to do anything. I was laughed at when I said colleges need to offer a "Life Skills" course, but shoot.... They aren't getting it from anywhere else.

I guess to address the OP.... Yes, just focus on fundamentals. Also, he's talking about teaching music?? Yet he hardly can play? Really dig in there, for his own sake. It could be a situation where he just doesn't know what he wants to do in life, but he's "always been in band" so that could be the reason he wants to be a music major. I know I'm a cynical jerk, but I'm always super skeptical of upper classmen who claim they are going to be a music major, yet have never shown any real aptitude or motivation. Don't trust that he's not good enough to get accepted into a college music program! There are so many out there now (and so many profs that could use another body in their studios) that he will almost certainly get in somewhere.

[swillafew]

My wife teaches some saxophonists in our home. She enjoyed solid instruction at every level herself, and she thrives on teaching the youngest ones. Squealing sounds come from the youngest ones, and every time she says, "THAT WAS GREAT! Now, we're going to make it better...."

I have taken this to heart. Her enthusiasm for the efforts of the most halting player pays off time and again. When I did some full time teaching years ago, I was clueless about this part of it. Now I am rolling up my sleeves to try it with a fresh player.