Saxophone Prep Lesson

I observed Millikin Professor Perry Rask when teaching a prep lesson to a freshman in highschool. A lot of the things he had her doing were almost the same to what he has students in his studio do. He had her play scale exercises out of the Le Gamme book. She was having troubles because he was asking a lot from her but she eventually got it down with some help including slowing it down and going through rhythm exercises with the scales.
After scales, she worked on an etude she was doing for an upcoming Solo and Ensemble contest. Before working on that, Perry had her do a few vibrato exercises to warm her embouchure up for the etude. When doing this, he explained to her why she was doing the exercise. One thing that is consistent with Perry's teachings is that he always tells you why you do the things he has you do in lessons. Whether it is jazz, classical, or scales, there is always a reason for the exercises covered. After she was done with the vibrato exercise, she started playing her etude. She was still having trouble with getting her vibrato up to where it needed to be so she had her visualize it. She is also a bass player so her had her act as if she was doing vibrato on bass. When she got back on her instrument, her vibrato was instantly better because she had the visualization in her head.
After working through the etude for a while, she began to have problems with fumbling her fingers on faster notes so Perry had her do rhythmic exercises on the passage. What this includes is doing different rhythms through the passage to get her fingers use to the notes.
Overall, the lesson was very productive and it can be seen that Perry changes his lessons according the nature and ability of each of his students. There is consistency with the exercises used in each of his lessons but he adapts to what each student is able to accomplish and makes the lesson specialized for that specific student.

Oswego High School Choirs/ Music Theory

I had the privilege of observing at my high school, Oswego High School, and it's choirs under the direction of Frank Tieri. Although it is not a choir, Mr. Tieri also teaches an AP Music Theory course as his first class of the day. In this class, they were studying for an upcoming test so he decided to play a game where the class was divided into three teams and once asked a question, a member of the team must rush to sit in a chair before answering the question. Whichever team sat in the chair first and gave the correct answer, they would win.
This was a very good game to play because it got the students up, moving, and thinking early in the morning. The competitive nature of the game riled up the students which gave them a more positive energy when leaving the class. Not to mention the game was a great study tool for thinking on the fly because the students were forced into thinking quickly if they wanted to win the game.
The next class was combined choir. Being the biggest choir in OHS made up of around 80 students, combined choir can be a challenge for most teachers. Along with having many students, Mr. Tieri also opens this choir up to students with learning disabilities so there were 5 student that fit that category. The wonderful thing about Mr. Tieri is that he opens up his class to these students and makes it an inclusive environment where they can be themselves, yell, and scream. Mr. Tieri just moves along and works with them the best he can while also including them in with the rest of the students in the choir. The students spent most of their time in sectionals because they just had a concert and had just recently received new music. By giving them sectional time, Mr. Tieri allowed the students to work through their own parts with people that had the same part as them on the piano. All of the students in his choirs are required to know basic skills on the piano so they know how to practice effectively.
One problem with sending students out to sectionals in such a big choir is that there is more of a chance of students goofing around and not getting things done. By putting certain students in each section in charge, they have accountability for one another and thus get more things done.
Most of the choirs throughout the day were on a similar schedule with running sectionals aside from the school's top choir, A Cappella Choir. A Cappella Choir was working on music because the next day, 8th graders from two neighboring junior high schools would be coming and doing a concert with the members of the choir. AC was working on the 8th graders' music and making sure they had al of the parts down in preparation for the next day so they would have the ability to help if needed.
Overall, it was a very productive day at OHS and I could definitely tell why Mr. Tieri is so widely admired for his teaching. His teaching styles and how he adapts to each class according to the certain abilities of the students was wonderful to see. A lot of new teachers are so focused on what they are doing instead of thinking about the students and it was refreshing to see an older teacher truly caring for the well being of his students.

Rochester High School

When our Into to Music Education class visited Rochester High School on April 11th, I didn't know what to expect. My high school band program was very big having 2 freshman bands, 3 upperclassmen bands, 3 jazz bands, and a marching band. Walking into the Rochester band, it was easy to tell that there was a very big mix of talent within the group. There were a few students that were very engaged with everything that the band director was saying, but it was apparent that some students were distracted by their phones or the homework on their stands. The students did not even try to hide their distractions and it was apparent that the band director was okay with them. After the rehearsal, Mr. Jones said that he knew about all of the distractions but did not do anything about them because he realized that there was no point taking the students away from their priorities when it wasn't for the good of the class.
Another thing I observed was the fact that Mr. Jones is a very hands off teacher. The entire saxophone section was reading a repeated rhythm wrong and he didn't do anything to change it. There was no real teaching involved because there was no whiteboard or visual aid for the students to learn from. The class seemed like more of a rehearsal more than an actual class for learning. It would be understandable if it were close to the concert, but there was no concert near.
This was kind of disheartening to see because there was so much potential in the room if only the kids had the motivation to apply themselves. Without having the motivation of learning and getting better, they found their distractions more appealing.
Mr. Jones revealed to us that the percussion section is very elite and hard to get into. Most of the time, there were one to two players that were sitting on chairs in the back doing nothing. The talents of the students were not being used to their full extent and instead they were forced to sit there and do nothing for most of the rehearsal. So the kids that are having difficulties are not being worked with and the kids that are talented are not being used to the best of their ability. It was a very strange sight to see when the class was only dedicated to rehearsing and not teaching.