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What do your kids musical teachers assign for practice (esp woodwind)


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My dd's teacher usually assigns 6-7 songs per week. My dd practices for 40 minutes per day but we find that she is not truly mastering the songs. For example some of her tones might be off, or we don't have time to use the metronome to make sure that she's perfectly on beat, or she may not be connecting the notes (ie there's a gap in between)

 

So her teacher just keeps trucking along...still assigns 6 songs per week.

 

Is this the way it should be? I mean I know that "truly master" just can't happen with a 4th grader but I would think we should get to the point where each song at least sounds pretty before trucking on.

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What kind of songs are these? Are we talking about 1-2line songs or exercises in a learn to play book? My kids' piano teacher mostly just has them keep moving through the book until they get to the point where they are able to handle longer more complex songs, then they get a special performance piece or two to polish in addition to the method book work. Perhaps you could suggest she start working on a performance piece she could continue to improve from week to week?

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Our teacher assigns:

3 minutes bowing exercises

scales

5 technique exercises (can be songs, but typically only about 1- 2 lines long)

2 songs that are 2-5 pages each that they work on for 10 weeks for the term recital

This work takes about 30 minutes 5x per week

 

We are expected to do sight reading, aural/oral work, and theory on our own time.

 

If the student does not do an exercise up to snuff, then it is not a pass and he has to work on it again the following week.  About half the exercises are a pass after one week, but my younger has had a single exercise last for 6 weeks before it was a pass.  The teacher says something like "Well, that wasn't a pass was it?  How about you work on it for another week, ok?"  Then explains what needs to be improved.

 

I will say that not all teachers are of equal quality.  Ask me how I know.  Unfortunately here, the best ones are the most expensive!

 

HTH,

 

Ruth in NZ

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Answering with the caveat that music lessons for us is purely for enjoyment and DS is not tested in any way. He participates in recitals and those are for enjoyment also. Assignments (both theory and practical) are given weekly but DS's teacher is quite laid back about how long it takes for him to master the content.

 

When DS was younger, he was basically assigned two or three one to two-page simple piano pieces to be practiced over one to two weeks. Just trucking along with the basic level books. Now, he has three to four longer and more complex pieces per week with one or two of these requiring up to five or six months to master. And periodically he goes back to review some of his older songs to keep his repertoire fresh. This helps a lot because as he reviews, his playing improves too and he picks up little things he might have missed before. DS also periodically adds other songs of his own choosing to the routine. So for example, he might have some regular songs from the instruction book, then due to his love of jazz, he might be assigned pieces like Linus and Lucy and some by Joplin which took him easily 6 or more months to get right. Then for fun, DS might look up scores of pop culture themes like Jeeves and Wooster or The Simpsons or The WhoLock theme and ask his teacher for pointers to playing them and because his teacher is very open to adding DS's choices, those are sometimes added as assigned pieces too.

 

He practiced for about 30 minutes about 5 days a week when younger but these days it takes easily 60-75 minutes (also 5 days a week), sometimes longer. DS sometimes needs months and months before getting a piece to sound really right. Because it's for enjoyment, we just let it be.

 

DS's teacher is also a woodwind expert so I can convey your questions to him if you have any. He is very nice and helpful. Just let me know!

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It depends on the goal of the exercise. My son's piano teacher will drop a song before it is mastered because in his opinion my son has learned what the song was meant to teach. It might be a chord or a specific fingering move etc. If the student learns that skill then time to move on. Esp if it is one of those 1 min songs in a lesson book, there isn't much reason to linger. But, most of his stuff is practiced for 2-3 weeks. My older boy, 13, keeps his songs for much, much longer. I hear those things in my sleep!

 

I did have a friend whose kid's music teacher would assign songs and not reschedule another lesson until those songs were mastered and perfect. It was kind of weird and the kid was NOT self motivated so those lessons stopped pretty quickly. That teacher wanted to teach a particular type of student and that was her prerogative.

 

It might be a good idea to ask the teacher directly. He or she might have a very good reason or not. But you won't know if you don't ask. 

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These songs are very short.  She only started two months ago!  She is only on page 12 of her first book.  Some songs are very pretty songs that you and I know.  Others are the usual insipid marching tunes we all wish would disappear.  

 

It's not that these are all songs worthy of an audience but that NONE Of them are getting mastered even nearly to the point of being beautiful.  When she was doing online flute lessons, I remember some of her very first songs (Suo Gan comes to mind) were just lovely, and pretty by the time she had learned them and practiced them.  It seems to me that she should have a few song sin her pocket to play for herself or her relatives, which are played well.

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My ds generally is working on 3 pieces at a time. We call them his "learning pieces" and they are the ones that he is actively learning new material on -- learning the notes, working on the dynamics, etc. Each week he and his teacher discuss his goals for each of those pieces for the coming week. Once a piece is mastered, he continues to play it every day for at least one month. Sometimes he masters a very easy piece in one week; often it takes several weeks. He plays a mix of music in different styles, plus accompaniment and improvisation, so it's quite varied in how long he works on each one.

 

In addition to working on his learning pieces, he plays through his repertoire. As mentioned above, a newly mastered piece is played every day for at least a month. Older pieces he plays once a week, and even older ones once a month.

 

To make good progress on his learning pieces and keep his repertoire fresh, he spends one hour a day, 6-7 days a week.

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As a violin instructor, my early violin students usually have about 3-4 songs per week. One is a memory work piece for focusing on technique, one or two pieces that introduce new notes/ rhythms/ bowings, and one classic piece for focusing on style/articulation. That's what I expect they can master in a week... If they don't, we stick on it.

 

Talk to your dds teacher... It may be that he/she is focusing on something other than musicality at this early stage, which sounds ridiculous. I'm totally speculating, but the basic physical requirements of the instrument might be the teacher's focus -- building stamina and breath control.

 

Stella

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If you're using a band method book that has 150 exercises in it, I wouldn't be too worried because the skills repeat and some pieces aren't actually meant to teach something for "your" instrument. You're just accompanying the lead instrument in that piece. If it were Suzuki flute, that'd be a different story. If you look through the book, hopefully there will be some flute pieces that your dd could learn and have in her repertoire. I'd talk to the teacher and ask.

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In my experience (this is mostly from learning as a kid and teaching as a young adult, as I haven't got far with my kids yet) you are generally practicing pieces on at least three different levels. There's challenge repertoire that you are working on to increase your skills, there's consolidation/polish repertoire that you can basically do but are trying to get up to performance/'finished' standard, and finally there are revision/fun pieces that you have already mastered but go back to from time to time because you enjoy them and it's nice to always have something 'ready'. I feel that the latter are an important aspect of practice because it just isn't fun if the moment you master something you have to drop it completely to start on something else more difficult. Kids don't like to feel that they are always struggling; they need to experience the feeling of playing something with ease both for their own satisfaction and to see that their work has paid off.

 

But as others have suggested, definitely speak with the teacher about this.

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Very helpful!!! Thank you!!! I will tell my dd to pick two songs that she already knows and we will ask her teacher to please work on those to mastery as well as learning new ones. That makes sense. Her teacher is also still getting to know my dd and has adjusted several things accordingly so this is still part of the process. I like it that her teacher doesn't want her to be bored, and also that she adjusts according to the student to a certain extent. She might view this as a welcome next step for a new student. My dd would like to have 2-3 songs she can play with her aunt or for visitors. And it would give her a sense of accomplishment.

 

I will also remind my dd to always play 5-6 "old songs" each day as a practice. That builds confidence and keeps them fresh.

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