It's an exciting day! Today is the day that my students will take home their clarinets for the very first time. Read more about how I structure the third lesson for my clarinet class so that students are set-up for success! As the students arrive for class, I ask them to do the following: 1. Retrieve their instrument case. 2. Sit on the floor and open their case carefully, making sure that the top of the case is up. 3. Put cork grease on all of the tenon corks. 4. Wait

After spending the first lesson getting acquainted with our new instruments and learning a little about body awareness, it's time to delve a little more deeply into our interactions with our clarinets. As we move forward with instruction, it is important to remember to review concepts and skills that were practiced in lesson one. On my list of items to review include: 1. Names of each part of the instrument 2. Reciting the musical alphabet forward and backward. Today we w

In June, I teach a three week summer band class for beginning students along with my colleagues. We teach Summer Band as an entire district with teachers and students from all three middle schools coming together for the camp. There are many benefits to this arrangement, but one of the things that I love most is that the directors, for the most part, get to teach their instrument specialties. This arrangement makes for very detailed, specialized instruction for all the stu