WSFCS Professional Development Day - October 29, 2019

Hello to my friends from Winston Salem Forsyth County!

I am looking forward to sharing some of my ideas with you today!

Here are some resources for the day:

Finger Patterns:

Full Explanation and links

Handout

My Finger Pattern Documents (Sheet Music, Explanations, etc.)


Quick Link to Violin Finger Pattern Exercises on Youtube

NCSSM Finger Pattern Playlists: All Instruments and Major Scales


The Habit Loop

All Materials


I hope you find the professional development sessions useful today!

All my best.
Scott

Pedagogy from the podium

This weekend, I have been conducting an Honors String Orchestra Festival at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. My thanks to Emily Crane and all at Austin Peay for inviting me.  It's been a wonderful event and, as a result of my rehearsals here, throughout the weekend I have been giving a great deal of thought to my upcoming educational sessions at a couple of different conferences. A session that all be presenting in coming months, including at the National ASTA Conference in Tampa, is "Pedagogy From the Podium." This is a session that I began giving many years ago while I was still teaching in Palmyra, PA, based on some of the "best" practices that I had discovered in my daily teaching life. But, as you can imagine, over the years the content and the approach have changed a great deal. 

 Those of you that pay attention to this blog know that last year I was strongly considering the anatomy of any strong pedagogy. I presented a model where there were four components of any pedagogical concept that needed to be addressed. Those components are as follows: 

1. A SYSTEM is developed 

2. The system is SEQUENTIAL

3. There must be strong NOMENCLATURE introduced to clarify the system

4. The instructor provides a HARMONIC UNDERPINNING to any skill that is introduced modified . 

So, my task over the last several months has been to consider the systems that I have developed over the past several years. As this has been in the front of my mind, I've become more and more aware of the myriad of systems that I've developed or utilized over the years. Last year, I spent a good deal of time discussing, creating resources for, and teaching about the system of Finger Patterns that I had acquired from other great pedagogues and modified to suit my particular needs. Continuing on that theme, I have become more and more aware of other systems that have become an integral part of my teaching over the years.  Some of these were developed by others, some I have modified, and others I have developed.

Those of you that attend Pedagogy From the Podium, will get a strong dose of my belief in the model for these systems, and a number of specific systems that you can use in your classroom which utilize the model. I am still weeding out the final content of these sessions, but right now these are the areas that I will potentially be addressing. 

• Ensemble Tuning
• Ensemble Playing Position
• Finger patterns as a vehicle to ensemble intonation
• Rhythmic stability and Inner Rhythm
• Watching the conductor and general ensemble awareness
• Movement and breathing into phrase
• Dynamics and the dynamic nature of ensemble playing
• Spiccato and other intermediate to advanced bow techniques
• Bow speed/placement
• Pizzicato accuracy and technique
• Musical "essence" and the art of self editing difficult passages
• Precepts of bow direction
• Bow weight as it relates to bow placement
• Bow style as it relates to historic era of composition

Obviously, this won't all be addressed in a one-hour session. So, as you can see, some of this will be "weeded out" in coming weeks and months. I hope that you find some of these topics interesting and truly hope to see you at one of the sessions. Please let me know if any of these areas particularly resonate with you, or if there is something missing here that you would like to see.  Here's what I can promise: I will certainly be thinking about these systems and my approach to the ensemble development in the coming weeks and months. I will do my best to offer specific and pertinent content for everybody who attends.

For those of you on the East Coast: stay dry and safe this weekend. To those of you here in Clarksville TN, thanks for an awesome weekend of music making, sharing, and collaborating. You all have been wonderful to work with and I know our concert today is going to be magnificent!

Peace.

Scott 

The Anatomy of Effective Pedagogy

In recent weeks and months, I have been preparing for my session at the upcoming ASTA Conference.  I am doing a session entitled Finger Patterns as a Vehicle for Upper Positions and Major Scales.  This is a session that many folks have participated in over the years, but I have added a great deal to the content for this session at ASTA.  In preparing the session, I have really been thinking about what makes this strategy effective.  In doing so, I have come up a model for effective pedagogy that I want to share today.

As I think through much of the pedagogy and many techniques that I use, there are some common pieces that I have found to be effective over the years.  My finger pattern strategy employs these and I believe that is the reason I find it to be so effective.  So, here is the model.  Effective pedagogy, in my opinion, should include the following:  It must be a SYSTEM. It must be SEQUENTIAL.  It should include clear, descriptive NOMENCLATURE. It must then put the material into CONTEXT. Let's explore each of these categories.

First, any pedagogical concept should be delivered via a SYSTEM.  We have to have a plan.  I see so many folks try to come at ideas and concepts from a variety of angles without a true plan for getting there.  I often say that good teaching is really the process of taking the complex and breaking it into smaller simpler parts.  Isn't that true?  In order to practice effectively, we must be willing to break down the piece of music: practice slowly, create etudes out of hard passages, practice the shifts, practice the string crossings with double stops, and many more.  I do that as a conductor as well.  Over the years I have developed a system for almost any ensemble issue from the podium.  Is the group rushing?  I have a system.  Are they out of tune?  I have a system.  Are they not generating a representative tone?  I have a system.  Incorrect bow placement?  I have a system. You get the picture.  So, in my mind, "system" is defined as developing a plan that breaks the complex into smaller, simpler tasks.

Next, effective systems are SEQUENTIAL.  This should  be self explanatory, but not everyone does this in their teaching.  Music is a mastery-based subject.  One must be able to effectively demonstrate or perform "A" before moving to "B."  So many teachers want to jump over steps in order to get to more complex repertoire or techniques.   The sequential nature of music pedagogy is imperative to efficient and rapid achievement.  I believe that this holds true for teaching in many or most subject areas.  But, I know it to be true with music.  Once the student masters the first step, we move on to the next, then the next, etc.  It seems so simple, but it is often forgotten.

NOMENCLATURE is the devising or choosing of names for things or tasks.  We do it all the  time in string education: "Low 2," "up bow," "third position," etc.  Any effective system requires clear, concise and meaningful nomenclature.  We have to be able to refer quickly to the concepts that we teach.  Last summer, I watched a great rehearsal run by my friend and colleague, Liza Grossman at Interlochen.  In order to get her students to sit with a great playing position, she simply said, "Rumps on the Bumps."  At that moment, everyone in the young orchestra slid to the front of their chair and held their instrument in perfect position.  She had developed effective nomenclature for a complex task.  It was brilliant.  So, as you refine your pedagogy, I encourage you to think deeply about the nomenclature that you develop and utilize. Does your set of nomenclature effectively communicate the desired result.

Finally, great teaching of specific ideas or concepts must be put into CONTEXT.  In other words, once we learn a concept, where do we use it?   When do I play in the lower half of the bow rather than upper half?  When do I shift to third position?  How low is low 2?  In my finger pattern session, this comes in the form of incorporating a harmonic underpinning to the etudes and exercises that I will share.  Playing etudes becomes MUCH more musical and in-tune when there is a harmonic underpinning.  In recent weeks, my son has been really spending a great deal of time practicing scales.  He has been using a drone, generated by his smart phone and then sending it to a killer blue-tooth speaker that he has.  While it generally drives me insane while he is practicing, I have heard it make a huge difference in his intonation.  We can put ideas into historical context, harmonic context, rhythmic context, melodic contest, expressive context, etc.  You  get the picture.  Context is so important.  

I encourage you to think about  these as you develop lessons and rehearsals in the coming days and weeks.  Stay tuned for my Finger Patterns as a Vehicle for Upper Positions and Major Scales  session at ASTA and posts in coming months.  I will be providing numerous web resources for students, teachers and parents and I am really committed to this system. There will be resources for all bowed string instruments - not just violin.   I hope that you will find it to be as effective as I have.  

Peace.

Scott

Arizona ASTA

Hello to my new friends at Arizona ASTA!

I hope you get some new ideas from our discussions today!

The morning will be The Art of Developing Passionate Ensembles and Finger Patterns as a Vehicle to upper positions and scales.

In the afternoon, we will cover Inspiring the Net Generation String Student and then weave my Pedagogy from the Podium session into the new music reading session.

I hope you have a great time and take home some new ideas!!

Best Always,

Scott

PS - Thanks to Terry Alexander for bringing me out for the weekend! And, to NS Design and D'Addario for sponsoring the trip!