I am starting what hopefully will be my final year in pursuit of a doctoral degree in multiple woodwinds performance (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone). Today I kicked off five days of written comprehensive exams. In addition to a musicology exam and a music theory exam, I have been preparing for woodwind-related test questions such as these:
Define and explain the following pedagogical concepts, and thoroughly explain.
Give a thorough history of the [instrument] from its earliest days to the present. Include important performers and pedagogues, compositions, mechanical developments, and so forth.
List [x] pieces for [instrument] and [piano, orchestra, chamber group, unaccompanied, etc.]. Fully describe each piece, including dates of composition, composer’s biographical details, title of each movement, difficulties of the solo and accompaniment parts, and other relevant details.
List [x] pieces for [wind quintet, reed trio, Harmoniemusik, saxophone quartet, etc.] and provide all relevant details.
Give biographical data of the following [performers, pedagogues, composers, instrument makers, etc.] and describe their contributions to the instrument, its music, and its performance tradition.
List and discuss important orchestral excerpts for [instrument].
At the small, regional university where I teach, it is common for incoming instrumentalist music majors’ entire previous musical experience to be limited to junior high and high school band. Few have had private instruction prior to entering college. (Although this has obvious disadvantages, I’m not complaining: our program isn’t trying to position itself as a highly-selective conservatory, and our new students generally arrive eager to learn.)
One thing that seems to surprise some prospective students is that we have different views about what I consider “auxiliary” instruments. For example, it’s common for prospects to identify themselves as bass clarinetists, or as tenor saxophonists. Some of these students have never even attempted to play a B-flat clarinet or an alto saxophone, and sometimes show little interest in doing so. They started on bass clarinet or tenor or baritone saxophone as beginners in the public school band and haven’t played anything else.
At the university, I don’t have bass clarinet “majors” or tenor saxophone “majors,” but neither do I have majors in B-flat clarinet or in alto saxophone. I do have majors in clarinet or in saxophone—that is to say, majors in the whole clarinet family or the whole saxophone family.
Since most of my students don’t have prior exposure to serious solo pieces and are taking a less-performance-heavy degree path like our major in music education, I like to focus on core repertoire. For clarinetists, that means probably 95% B-flat clarinet repertoire, perhaps with a few pieces for A clarinet done on a borrowed school instrument or played in a transposed arrangement. The idea of a “primary” member of the saxophone family is a little sketchier, even for classical study, but certainly a large majority of the central repertoire calls for the alto. For a student who has a strong affinity for an auxiliary instrument, I am happy to make sure they get to do a little extra solo repertoire or ensemble participation on that instrument, but at this point it doesn’t make sense to me take them through a four-year degree playing, say, nothing but bass clarinet.
A large fraction of our student population is made up of first-generation college students, and many depend heavily on financial aid and part-time jobs to meet tuition and housing costs, so blithely “requiring” them to buy professional-quality instruments immediately upon matriculation generally isn’t a feasible solution. And I obviously can’t expect high school band directors to steer all their students toward “primary” instruments in the event that they decide to study music in college. Ideally, those students would all be taking lessons while in high school, and those teachers would prep them on what to expect, but that isn’t a reality in this area.
It’s tempting to draw a hard line—nobody blinks when a professor at a top music school insists that his or her students meet specific equipment requirements—but certain of my students genuinely cannot afford to buy another instrument within the timeframe of college acceptance to college graduation. The university serves an almost exclusively regional student population, and is generally more focused on boosting enrolments than on tightening down selectivity.
At this point I don’t have a great solution to this problem. I try to make sure that prospective students understand the situation as early as possible and encourage them to start saving. I tell them that I can work with them now or after they arrive on campus to help them find a good deal on an acceptable instrument. I try to spread the word to high school band directors so that they can start dropping hints to students who seem bound for college-level music study.
I welcome some discussion on this. Am I old-fashioned to expect my saxophone majors to play mostly alto and my clarinet majors to play mostly B-flat, especially if they are headed for public-school band directing instead of performance? How firmly can/should I insist? Are there ways to better serve and accommodate (but also educate and challenge) college music majors who see themselves as “bass clarinetists?”
During the month of October 2001, I observed the private teaching methods of music professors at Brigham Young University. Though each professor’s methods differed in some details, the underlying principles of effective teaching were very similar: first, provide an environment in which the student is comfortable and undistracted; second, provide clear objectives, including honest evaluations of progress; and third, provide needed motivation.
My students learn to follow a conductor in their large ensembles, and how to work with a pianist on their individual repertoire. (The latter is a situation in which—unfortunately—the piano part is sometimes treated as secondary to the “solo” part.)
But in chamber ensembles they learn how to make music in a group of equals, which is a very different ballgame. In a chamber group, every member is responsible for listening critically, making adjustments, matching, blending, and finding their own best ways to contribute to a cohesive, unified performance. And non-music-specific skills are developed here too: respectful exchange of ideas, balancing of personalities, cooperation, compromise. There’s no leader per se who makes judgment calls, arbitrates disputes, or takes charge of the artistic vision.
Sometimes it seems like student chamber groups get treated as less important than solo repertoire or large/conducted ensembles, like they are auxiliaries of the band or orchestra, or pick-up groups good only for recruiting run-outs or potpourri concerts, or a way to trick students into putting a little more mileage on their instruments. This is a mistake. Chamber music experience is critical to a complete musical education.
Groups should be appropriately challenged with the quantity and difficulty of repertoire performed, just like they are in their solo repertoire and their large ensembles. I think the ideal is for each mature chamber group to put on its own full-length, well-balanced recital at least once each semester. (We aren’t currently requiring that at my small, regional university.)
Groups should get regular coaching from faculty, but time rehearsing on their own is crucial to the experience. And by “rehearsing” I don’t mean just run-throughs: students should be spending rehearsal time discussing musical decisions together. (Depending on the group’s maturity, some of these decisions may need to be ratified in subsequent coaching sessions.)
And, as with any educational pursuit, I think the risk of failure is part of the process. There are powerful lessons to be learned when student groups make inappropriate repertoire choices, fail to make good use of rehearsal time, or otherwise fall short of expectations.
It’s exciting to see the maturity, confidence, and musicianship that my students develop in chamber ensembles. Take chamber music seriously as a part of a well-rounded musical education.
I’ve taught lots of woodwind lessons, from beginner to college level. Here are some things that I look for in a good, successful lesson:
Has the student made progress since the previous lesson? If things sound the same as last time, that’s not a good sign. I can tell when students are focusing their practice time on improving things about their playing, instead of just mindlessly playing the piece over and over. If we discussed specific things that needed improvement, have those specifics improved?
Is the student in lesson mode? In other words, are they warmed up, with their instrument and all their materials ready and organized, with a pencil, and in the right mental space? Are they rested, fed, and otherwise in condition to play their best? A distracted or frazzled student isn’t in their best state for a good lesson.
Does the student have questions, observations, or requests for help? Everybody learns differently, but it should be rare for a student to engage deeply with assigned materials all week long and then have no curiosity, no goals still out of reach, no identified problems that need solutions.
My university students are sometimes unconvinced of the value of their core music curriculum. Like most music programs, the core at my school includes music theory, applied theory (aural skills like sight-singing and dictation, and piano/keyboard skills), and music history. Most of my students will be educators, like I am (most of them will teach music at a middle or high school level). Here is just a small handful of the ways that, as a teacher, I use my undergraduate music skills on a daily basis.
Evaluating student performances (aural skills, theory, history). Sometimes when I pick out a wrong note in a student’s performance, they express amazement that I have so much music “memorized.” I don’t. But I can follow the score and tell when what I’m hearing doesn’t match.
Preparing lectures, presentations, program notes, and so forth (theory, history). What makes this repertoire piece, this composer, this technique, this performance practice important? Context is crucial.
Selecting appropriate repertoire (history, theory). A good student recital or ensemble concert needs to balance the students’ educational needs and the audience’s attention span. And even once the repertoire is chosen, a broad-based musical education is key to differentiating between published editions.
Arranging, adapting, transposing, and transcribing music for soloists or ensembles (theory, aural skills, keyboard skills). This can be elaborately creative or simply functional. But every working musician and music educator at least needs to be able to take a given piece of music and make it work for a different instrumentation, taking into account instrument ranges, chord voicing, and balance.
Making and communicating interpretive decisions (theory, history). Good interpretive decision-making can mean following the “rules” with strictness, or making informed decision to bend or break those rules. Understanding the canon—insofar as one exists—of performance practices, and having the vocabulary to discuss them with precision, helps tremendously in either case.
Demonstrating musical effects for students/ensembles (theory, aural skills, keyboard skills). Good music teachers don’t let the instrument(s) collect dust, even if their primary outlet is as a conductor. Music is an aural tradition, and a “picture” is worth a thousand words. (“Instruments” in this situation includes the voice, for singers and non-singers alike.)
That list is teaching-focused; as a performer I use all of those skills just as much, if not more. Study hard!
Best wishes on your comps Bret!
Helen