Beginning Band Lesson

Last Monday I had the opportunity to teach a mock beginning band lesson for clarinet. When I started planning, my first concern was, what do I know well enough about the clarinet to be able to teach? The answer was nothing, so the first challenge was finding the instrument and figuring out some basics. I got my hands on a clarinet, learned how to put the mouthpiece and rest of the horn together. Having a basic understanding of how the instrument functions, I was able to make a squawky sound and play a few notes quickly. I knew, however, that I would not have time to put together the horn and play a melody in the first short lesson so I needed to decide what would be covered.

Initially, I intended on showing the student how to put together the entire instrument without playing at all. After thinking about it, I realized that if I were that student, I would want to make sound in that first lesson. I then changed my lesson's direction to setting up a mouthpiece and making a sound. I had an objective to "assemble the mouthpiece... once assembled, make a basic sound." Which, really was two objectives. I made a supplemental worksheet about mouthpiece assembly that the student could use at home to practice.

I ran through the lesson and felt good about it. I thought putting the mouthpiece together was a good first goal, and something that any student of the clarinet would need to learn how to do. Unfortunately, I left my clarinet on the desk at school so I was unable to model for the student. I felt that I did a decent job talking them through the setup, but ultimately I was at a loss not having the instrument with me to demonstrate. Also, although my objective was to assemble the mouthpiece, I think the student would have thought it was 1. Assembly 2. Memorizing part names (reed, ligature, mouthpiece) 3. Make a basic sound. Maybe even 4. Understand what embouchure is.

If I were to do this again, I would provide the objective that the student should know how to put the mouthpiece together. They would complete this, and given the time available I would casually begin to make sounds with them, mostly so they can get a little closer to the fun part of this music-making process. At the end of the lesson, I would request simply that they come in for the next lesson being able to put the mouthpiece together. Over time, I would expect them to have the different parts memorized and be able to describe proper embouchure, but probably not after one lesson.