Together again, Martha Hilley and Fred Kern.
For the second plenary session Fred Kern and Martha Hilley combined their creative and expert talents to present a variety of practical suggestions to add creativity and effectiveness to music teaching. Kern opened the session with a strategy for practicing using a variety of sounds from a digital piano. Using J. S. Bach's Two-Part Invention in A Minor, Kern advocated using two different sounds for the subject and accompanying material to aid in more discriminating listening. In this demonstration, Kern used a nylon guitar sound for the subject and a clarinet sound for the accompanying material.Second, Kern suggested another listening activity with the second movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. Pulling a string while the music was playing, Kern had a member of the audience cut the string at the end of each phrase. At the end of the first section the length of the strings help communicate the presence of two short phrases followed by one longer phrase. Additionally, the tactile learning experience may increase the effectiveness for some students.
Third, Kern presented a framework for creating an "instant ensemble" from an elementary arrangement of a popular song, "The Way You Look Tonight," with teacher accompaniment. In this "instant ensemble," Part 1 would be the student part as written; Part 2, the student part one octave higher; Part 3, the right hand of the teacher accompaniment; and Part 4, the bass line of the teacher accompaniment.
Hilley started her portion of the session with an idea for maintaining communication with students in between lessons. Using PowerPoint, Hilley presented an interactive tutorial for "Barry," a student who had conquered the challenge of uneven eighth-notes in his previous lesson. The PowerPoint presentation, which was emailed to Barry, contained audio-clips of four rhythms that Barry was to dictate. Hilley believes this allows a teacher the opportunity to "send herself home" with the student. Both students and parents will appreciate knowing the teacher thinks about students not only during the lesson time.
Hilley's second idea, "Seeing is Believing," encouraged teachers to help students find the patterns in a piece of music to aid efficient learning of repertoire. This was followed by a suggestion for teaching improvisation. With the rhythm notated for the student and an accompaniment from a recorded disk, the student uses the root of each harmony to create the melody of the improvisation. The second time through, the student might add the third of the chord, then perhaps all three notes of each triad. Hilley stressed the importance of providing the student with enough structure to feel comfortable with improvisation.
In her next point, "Have I Really Used All That Theory I Learned?" Hilley described a way to let students provide the structure for their own learning. In her piano classes at The University of Texas at Austin, she will walk to the board in the front of the room and write a Roman numeral I followed by a bar line. A student will provide the Roman numeral for the next measure. The students continue to provide Roman numerals for each measure until eight measures have been determined. These eight measures provide the basis for the day's improvisation.
In the concluding part of the session, Kern advocated using children's literary books as resources for a variety of activities. Kern suggested having the student make a soundtrack using the recording of their method book to accompany a children's literary book. The session concluded with a PowerPoint presentation of a book containing visual descriptions of "America, the Beautiful." The piece was performed and the corresponding scene from the book was displayed. Kern suggested this would make an excellent addition to a student recital, providing variety and an aesthetically enriching experience.
Summary by Steve Betts
Steve Betts teaches piano, piano pedagogy and fine arts at Southern Nazarene University, where he also directs the SNU Handbell Choir Betts received a B.A. degree from MidAmerica Nazarene College, M.M. degree in piano performance and pedagogy from Wichita State University and a Ph.D. degree in music education from the University of Oklahoma.
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| Author: | Betts, Steve |
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| Publication: | American Music Teacher |
| Geographic Code: | 1U7TX |
| Date: | Oct 1, 2006 |
| Words: | 675 |
| Previous Article: | Beautiful teaching. |
| Next Article: | Basic technical training for the early level student. |
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