One of the first objective of any band director's year is clear, although sometimes can be Mission Impossible: Get instruments into hands as smoothly and quickly as you can. Fortunately by day 2, all band classes had instruments assigned and music passed out. We were ready to go! Woohoo!
As I mentioned in my last post, one of my big goals for the year is for students to own ALL of their playing, not just when rehearsing music for a concert. We also started this on day 2 with a brief discussion on why warming-up is important and how to warm-up properly. (On a side note: taking more time to talk after being ready to play was a bit challenging-- everyone is tired of talking about procedures and logistics, particularly after doing nothing but that on the first day. But the few extra minutes of discussion paid off big time.)
For the why, I found it really helped my students to think of it similarly to doing a larger physical activity; like playing a sport or getting ready for a major physical feat like moving heavy items. When I asked what do you do before you take on a physical task, the answer was second nature: you stretch. If you don't stretch, you get injured. My anatomy kids took it a step further and talked about what exactly happens with your muscles, and how they can tear or strain if you aren't careful. (It was SO cool to hear them bring in knowledge from other classes!)
From there, it was easy to connect the dots: You need to care for yourself before you take on a physical task that takes a great deal of energy and effort. And that sentence right there is the *epitome* of playing an instrument. The size of the muscle, large (posture) or small (finger agility, facial muscles, etc.) makes no difference. The bottom line is we are training our muscles to do something that is not natural; both care and attention are required if you're going to do it right. If you're going to invest the time and energy to be here and play, going the extra 10% to make sure you're gaining something out of the experience is far better than wasting the 90% you've already spent to be here.
After the why, we talked about the how. How do we do it? How do we make sure we're warming-up correctly? What can we do? Students had GREAT ideas about exercises to ensure we are getting the most out of our warm-up and setting up with the right things leading into the rest of rehearsal. We talked briefly about what a circuit work out was before we picked 2-3 items from our "how" lists to flow together and create a "circuit warm-up" of our own. By day 4, some students were starting to get creative: coming up with different variations of familiar exercises, changing up the order of the circuits, even finding creative names...
Warm-up used to be the one part of rehearsal I dreaded because students seemed so apathetic toward them, but now... it's a completely different experience. Because they see the opportunity to accomplish something, warming up is no longer a "busy work" item-- and it's FUN! I'm so excited to continue using these and using them to take student-led warm-ups to the next level: the full group! (To be continued... :) )
As I mentioned in my last post, one of my big goals for the year is for students to own ALL of their playing, not just when rehearsing music for a concert. We also started this on day 2 with a brief discussion on why warming-up is important and how to warm-up properly. (On a side note: taking more time to talk after being ready to play was a bit challenging-- everyone is tired of talking about procedures and logistics, particularly after doing nothing but that on the first day. But the few extra minutes of discussion paid off big time.)
For the why, I found it really helped my students to think of it similarly to doing a larger physical activity; like playing a sport or getting ready for a major physical feat like moving heavy items. When I asked what do you do before you take on a physical task, the answer was second nature: you stretch. If you don't stretch, you get injured. My anatomy kids took it a step further and talked about what exactly happens with your muscles, and how they can tear or strain if you aren't careful. (It was SO cool to hear them bring in knowledge from other classes!)
From there, it was easy to connect the dots: You need to care for yourself before you take on a physical task that takes a great deal of energy and effort. And that sentence right there is the *epitome* of playing an instrument. The size of the muscle, large (posture) or small (finger agility, facial muscles, etc.) makes no difference. The bottom line is we are training our muscles to do something that is not natural; both care and attention are required if you're going to do it right. If you're going to invest the time and energy to be here and play, going the extra 10% to make sure you're gaining something out of the experience is far better than wasting the 90% you've already spent to be here.
After the why, we talked about the how. How do we do it? How do we make sure we're warming-up correctly? What can we do? Students had GREAT ideas about exercises to ensure we are getting the most out of our warm-up and setting up with the right things leading into the rest of rehearsal. We talked briefly about what a circuit work out was before we picked 2-3 items from our "how" lists to flow together and create a "circuit warm-up" of our own. By day 4, some students were starting to get creative: coming up with different variations of familiar exercises, changing up the order of the circuits, even finding creative names...
Warm-up used to be the one part of rehearsal I dreaded because students seemed so apathetic toward them, but now... it's a completely different experience. Because they see the opportunity to accomplish something, warming up is no longer a "busy work" item-- and it's FUN! I'm so excited to continue using these and using them to take student-led warm-ups to the next level: the full group! (To be continued... :) )
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