Favorite blog posts, January 2018

Just a few to share this month:

Student-selected online woodwind pedagogy articles, 2016 edition

If you are teaching a woodwind methods course, you might be interested in my book.

Last fall, I had students in my university woodwind methods course select, evaluate, and vote on some online woodwind pedagogy resources they might like to use as future public school music teachers. (My blog is off-limits.) Once again, I’m going to share a sort of edited/curated version of the results.

This year, the votes got spread around quite a bit, but there were three articles that the class especially liked:

  • Top 10 (+) Things That Beginning Clarinet Players Do Wrong and How to Correct Them, by Marilyn Mattei. My students were impressed with the troubleshooting ideas and solutions-oriented thinking. They successfully identified some areas that differ from what I teach in class, and made some thoughtful comments weighing the differences. They thought, correctly, that some of the exercises and techniques would be best used in a private lesson or sectional, rather than in a full beginning band rehearsal.
  • Teaching the Beginning Bassoonist, by Terry Ewell. This is a repeat favorite from last year. (I may need to figure out a way to ensure that future classes don’t just recycle previous years’ selections from these blog posts.) My students appreciated the provided lesson plans, the level of detail, and the reassuring tone directed toward non-bassoonist band directors.
  • The Flute Embouchure, by Bradley Garner. Students liked the depth of information, but disagreed on its presentation: some found the text clear and straightforward, but others found it dense reading.

A number of other articles got fewer votes. I’m listing, without additional comment and in no particular order, a few of those that I agree are worth a look:

What I want my class to get from the assignment is a sense of how to sift through the information (“information”) available online, taking into account the author’s credentials or sources, a common-sense evaluation of ideas, and applicability to a particular teaching situation. Be careful out there.

Favorite blog posts, June 2014

Favorite blog posts, April 2014

Favorite blog posts, September 2013

Here’s what I liked on the woodwind-related blogs this month:

Enjoy, and keep writing good stuff!

Favorite blog posts, August 2013

Read these excellent mostly-woodwind-related blog posts from the past month, and thank me later:

Favorite blog posts, July 2013

Required reading:

Favorite blog posts, May 2013

Here are some high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from May, in no particular order.

Enjoy! If you have some favorites that I missed, please share them in the comments section below.