When you’re too sick for a lesson

ByBret Pimentel

Sometimes I have students cancel their lessons due to seemingly very minor, manageable health concerns (physical or mental). Other times students drag themselves to lessons when they are clearly miserable and contagious.

The better approach is clearly somewhere in the middle, but my newest college students are usually living away from their parents and the formal rules of high school for the first time and sometimes aren’t used to making those judgment calls on their own.

Here are some informal guidelines that I use:

  • If (a) your physical or mental health is going to prevent you from playing at your best, or (b) you are contagious, don’t come to your lesson.
  • Contact me as far in advance as you can before your lesson to let me know you won’t be able to come. If your lesson time starts and you aren’t here, you will fail that lesson unless there is some genuine, immediate emergency (such as you are in an ambulance).
  • In normal cases, canceling or rescheduling lessons due to illness shouldn’t happen very often, maybe once or twice during a semester. If it is regularly happening more than that, then (a) your health situation might be unusual, and it may affect your ability to graduate on time with the grades you want, or (b) you may not be taking adequate care of your health.

It’s easy to let your physical and/or mental health slip a little when you are on your own for the first time. Make smart choices about nutrition, sleep, exercise, sun exposure, sexual activity, social life, mind-altering substances, prescriptions, and seeking medical help and/or counseling. Develop these into habits as good as, or better than, the ones you had before college. If you’re not sure where to begin, your university likely has resources available to help you (ask your advisor or someone in the counseling or student health center).

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    University of Northern Iowa offers new multiple woodwinds degree

    ByBret Pimentel

    The University of Northern Iowa is now offering a Master of Music degree with a multiple woodwinds (3-instrument) emphasis. A few points of interest, according to degree information from their website:

    • Students take 6 credit hours of study on a “primary” instrument, and 4 hours on a “secondary” instrument, and must “demonstrate proficiency” on a third. Presumably the third instrument must either be at a suitable proficiency level upon entering the program, or the student must study the instrument without the additional credit hours counting toward degree completion.
    • Students using oboe or bassoon as one of their three instruments must take an appropriate reedmaking course. This, I guess, means that students choosing both oboe and bassoon must take both reedmaking courses. And the reedmaking course must be completed even for the “demonstrate proficiency” instrument, which might not be part of the student’s coursework.
    • Students choosing flute or clarinet as primary or secondary instruments must take an instrument-specific pedagogy course, or presumably both if flute and clarinet are the primary and secondary (or vice versa).
    • There does not appear to be any special requirement (such as pedagogy or reedmaking) if saxophone is chosen as one of the three instruments.
    • The degree recital must include performances on at least two “of the five” woodwinds. Oddly, it is not specified that these must be the primary and secondary instruments.
    • Audition information from elsewhere on the UNI Music website does not make clear what is required for admission to the program.

    See my hopefully-comprehensive list for more North American university/conservatory degree programs in multiple woodwind performance. (And please contact me if you see anything that needs to be added, removed, or updated!)

  • Buying a new instrument for college-level study

    ByBret Pimentel

    If you are preparing to start a college music degree, you may need or want a new instrument. I strongly suggest that you contact your professor before making this purchase. Every professor is of course different, but here are some things that you are likely to discover in most cases:

    Photo, Andrew Shieh
    Photo, Andrew Shieh
    • The professor will be happy and relieved that you are seeking their advice before making a purchase, and will be anxious to work with you on finding the right instrument. They have seen previous tragedies involving students arriving on campus with new, expensive, and totally unsuitable instruments.
    • The professor will likely encourage you to start the semester with your current instrument, even if it’s not really college-worthy, so that you can take the necessary time to pick out a new instrument together. The professor will in many cases want to try out instruments with you to help you pick out the very best one.
    • The professor in many or most cases will have a variety of suitable makes and models in mind, including some (relatively) budget-friendly options. They are likely to have a favorite—probably the model they play on themselves—but will likely concede that the same instrument is not suitable for every single musician. Still, some may require a specific model.
    • Serious college study will require a professional-grade instrument. If you are window-shopping at a music store or online retailer, you can likely assume that anything marked “student” or “intermediate” will not be adequate for the rigors of college study. On the other hand, be aware that not everything labeled “professional” by the seller is high-quality enough for true professional use, even if it’s that maker’s top-of-the-line model. Additionally, instruments that were genuine professional models several decades ago might not be considered such anymore.
    • You may need to prepare yourself for some sticker shock. Depending on your personal financial values, it may be appropriate to use student loan funds to cover this educational expense.
    • The professor’s opinions may not jive with your opinions, the opinions of your old private teacher or band director, or opinions you read on the internet. Be prepared to learn your professor’s way for now, and make better-informed decisions on your own after graduation.

    The same advice holds true for mouthpieces and other paraphernalia. Have a great semester!

  • What I would do differently as a college music major

    ByBret Pimentel

    Believe it or not, some of my college students make mistakes that seem somehow familiar. If I could go back to college (and graduate school) and do it all over, here are a few things I might choose to do differently.

    photo, m00by
    photo, m00by
    • Embrace my teachers’ approaches. As readers of this blog know, I tend to be a bit opinionated about woodwind playing, and as a student I was sometimes too quick to dismiss what I was being taught. A better approach would have been to learn enthusiastically and immersively my teachers’ playing styles, thought processes, equipment choices, and philosophies, mine them for every bit of value and wisdom, and wait until later to make better-educated decisions about what to keep and what to discard.
    • Invest more time and effort into fundamentals. Like many students (and professionals?) I spent a fair amount of practice time focused on learning an étude or repertoire piece, as opposed to learning to play the instrument and to make music. The recitals and concerts I was so fixated on at the time seem much less important now, but the time I could have spent working on basics of tone production, finger technique, and interpretation would have paid nice dividends in the years since.
    • Listen to more music. Mostly I did pretty well at attending concerts on campus. And I went to a few things in the community. And I checked out a few recordings. But why let such a large percentage of my musical intake be performances by other students, or by the professors whose playing I already knew well? What if I had made a point of listening to something new every day, even for a few minutes? What kind of musical depth could I have developed by listening to 365 great woodwind players per year?

    Study and practice smart!

  • Grading student practicing

    ByBret Pimentel

    Each week I have my university woodwind students submit a report on the number of hours they have practiced, and I award them points based on that number. (They are additionally graded on how well their lesson goes.)

    I don’t think points-for-practicing is an ideal situation, and perhaps not necessary at some more competitive, more performance-oriented schools. The students at my small, regional university have a range of backgrounds and ability levels, but certainly for some the idea of an intensive practicing routine is new and challenging. This approach helps keep them incentivized (bribed? threatened?) to practice several hours per day, until hopefully it becomes a self-motivating habit. Or, in some cases, it helps them realize that their commitment level isn’t compatible with the degree program.

    I use a simple formula for grading practice hours. Each student has a weekly practice hours target, which varies depending on the degree program (or, more precisely, the number of credit hours of lessons: more for performance majors, fewer for music education majors, etc.). If they put in that exact number of hours, they get 100% of the points. If they put in half the hours they get 50% the points, if they put in one and a half times the target they get 150% of the points, and so forth.

    (hours practiced)/(required practice hours) × (possible points) = (grade as a percentage)

    That gives them essentially unlimited extra credit if they want to go above and beyond, or lets them practice a little extra during slower weeks so they can free up some time for weeks that are busier with midterms or band trips.

    Practice reports are due every single Monday of the semester, even holidays. This works better than having them report hours between lessons, since sometimes things get moved around in my schedule and it ends up being more or fewer than seven days between lessons. I have streamlined the reporting process quite a bit by using the university’s LMS to automatically administer a weekly “quiz,” which looks like this:

    For Thanksgiving break in November and spring break in March (each a full week with no classes) I have been collecting practice reports, and treating them as pure extra credit. That way I’m not punishing students who spend those vacation days with family or who need a break from the instrument. But the students who are serious about playing usually put in a pretty solid effort during those weeks and earn a nice grade bonus for it.

    When I explain this system to other educators I often get asked about honesty. I haven’t found it to be a major issue. That might be partly because of my students’ background and upbringing (it’s the Bible Belt), and maybe partly because lying turns out to be pretty unsustainable: if their reported practice hours don’t seem to match their level of achievement, I start asking tough questions.

    When I was a first-year undergraduate music major and not yet fully convinced of the importance of practicing several hours per day, a nudge/threat from the music department scared me into changing my ways. But the sudden “motivation” to apply myself a little better soon started paying off. As I had more and more success I felt more and more inclined to practice because I got more and more out of it. Ultimately, I learned to enjoy and even crave the hours in the practice rooms. It’s exciting to see my students making that same transition.

  • Dr. P’s Practice Club: using Facebook to acknowledge student achievements

    ByBret Pimentel

    I’ve been using Facebook this school year to semi-publicly acknowledge my university students who are meeting their minimum practice requirements:

    I’ve gotten a lot of questions about it from Facebook friends who are music educators, so I thought it might be worth discussing here.

    The concept is pretty simple:

    • When my students come in for their lessons, I ask them to self-report their practice hours for the week. My students are good kids (born and raised in the Bible Belt), and I generally just trust them to report honestly. I also have them keep practice journals, which would at least slightly complicate fibbing about their hours.
    • If they meet their minimum weekly requirement (it varies: more for performance majors, less for music education majors, etc.) they are automatically inducted into “Dr. P’s Practice Club” for the week. At the end of the week I post their names on Facebook and on my office door, plus usually a running tally for those who have made it for several weeks in a row. There are, at this point, absolutely no benefits or privileges to “club” membership other than a little recognition (and, of course, a week’s worth of improvement).
    • I also use Facebook to give public kudos to students for their recitals, ensemble performances, and competition participation and awards.
    • Most of my students have become my Facebook friends, so I can “tag” them when I post. This means that they get alerted that they have been mentioned in my post, and certain of their Facebook friends and mine will also be able to see it. For some of the students, this may include classmates, other music or non-music faculty, friends studying music at other schools, authority figures from work or church, and even parents. Read More “Dr. P’s Practice Club: using Facebook to acknowledge student achievements”

  • Private teaching methods of university music professors: Observations, analysis, and application

    ByBret Pimentel

    Introduction

    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.

    1. Provide a comfortable learning environment

    A comfortable learning environment includes a trusting and secure student-teacher relationship, proper facilities and equipment, and a distraction-free environment. These allow student and teacher to concentrate on the lesson, prevent unnecessary stress, and promote optimal performance. Read More “Private teaching methods of university music professors: Observations, analysis, and application”

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