Posted by jrt002
1.April 20th,
2009 11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
2. Today I observed
the high school band rehearse.
3. Mr. Siegel
started off rehearsal by allowing the students a couple of minutes to
get their instruments and get seated. While the students were doing
this he was standing at the door of the instrument closet to make
sure the students were not playing around while in the closet. Once
most of the students were in their seats he got in front of the band
and stopped the students from playing by waving his hand as if
cutting off the band. He started off the rehearsal by going over his
plan for the day which was written on the board of the room. He then
went to the three warm-up chorals that the band plays every rehearsal
in order to warm up. During these warm-ups Mr. Siegel reminds the
group of what they should be paying attention to while playing such
as intonation, dynamics, and the conductor for tempo changes. Mr.
Siegel messes with the tempo and dynamics of the pieces while they
are warming up also so that the group gets use to actually paying
attention to the director. Mr. Siegel next tuned the band starting
in the tubas and having the students come in when he cued them and
tune by ear. He then moved on to work on the piece “Lord of the
Rings” from the movie. With this song Mr. Siegel had planned out
specific parts of the music that he wanted to work on and went to
those spots first. He would single out a certain part or line in the
music and explain how he wanted it done. If the students fixed it
the first time he wanted it then he would move on to the next part.
If the students didn't do what he wanted of them then he would
explain it differently and have them play it until they had it right.
Once he fixed the parts that he had planned on Mr. Siegel then ran
the whole piece and reminded the band of all the things that he
wanted them to be conscious of while they were playing. Mr. Siegel
then moved on to the next part and had his students run the piece
“The Blue and the Gray” so that I could hear the piece since this
is the piece that I am going to be working with during the rest of
the semester. After running the piece which is about twelve minutes
long Mr. Siegel recorded two of the pieces that the band is playing
for the concert. These pieces were “Three Chorales for Band” and
“Renascence.” The point of making these recordings were so that
the band could listen to how much progress they have made with these
pieces and also what else they had to do before the concert in order
to make these pieces concert ready. Mr. Siegel then ended rehearsal
by making announcements about events that are coming up for the band
and what he wanted his students to do before the next band rehearsal.
Mr. Siegel then dismissed the band and told them to make sure they
put everything back where it belonged and to have a good weekend.
4. The rehearsal of
the band was very organized and I feel benefited the students by
being focused and not wasting any time. A good planned rehearsal is
always the best way to keep high school students focused and the pace
of the class was fast enough that the students didn't have time to
lose focus. Starting the practice out with something slow and not
too technical allowed the students to focus on musicality without
having to worry about notes. The way he reminded the students about
what they learned helped the students apply musicality to the music
they are playing for their concert. The order of his rehearsal was
very contrasting also to keep the students attention. The band
started with calm slower music and then played something that was
more up tempo. I also feel that while this rehearsal was very
productive in working on several parts of the one piece he did not
try to work on too many pieces which would probably lose the students
attention. Recording the band to let the students hear what they
actually sound like is an idea I like a lot because while listening
to music it is a lot easier to hear what sounds good and what doesn't
compared to listening for those things while playing. The students
also got a chance to develop their listening skills also though
because he reminded them before each piece what they needed to listen
for and what they were already doing well. There was plenty of
reassuring to the students and also a lot of criticism that was
needed in order to help the band improve their sound.
5. Do the students
actually benefit from listening to their recordings or do high school
students lose interest while listening to themselves?
6. I feel that I
learned a lot about how to effectively rehearse a group and I saw
things that are both affective and things that the students do not
grasp as easily. I also learned about how it takes some more
motivation for certain students than it does for others because not
all students want to be there as much as some. I feel that the
rehearsal was ran great and Mr. Siegel did a great job keeping the
students on track. A lot of the ideas that he used were similar to
what is taught to us at Lebanon Valley College which helped show what
we are learning in class actually works and how these strategies
help.
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