I have a little group of teacher/musician friends that I affectionately think of as my fan club but really we support each other in playdays, concerts, exam accompanying, advice on all professional (and quite often non-professional) matters and many other things. In fact Cambridgeshire has an incredibly effective network of like-minded teachers and if you need advice it shouldn't take long to track down the right person to ask. Many of us are now self-employed due to changes a few years ago and sadly in the news in recent weeks other areas are threatened with cuts that will affect music making in their area. However this has made us all more determined than ever to make sure we do a good job in all aspects of our work and to cope with the difficulties that we may face.
One of these 'difficulties' is getting pupils to learn scales and over lunch five of us swapped tales about our worst offenders ("no, F major does not have an F sharp in it") and also our best tips. Jess R realised that there was a lot of untapped available time in car journeys so she suggests that pupils have a Tupperware box with all of their scales and key signatures on cue cards in it so that pupils can at least revise what is in each scale even if they can't play their instrument while travelling along to ballet, horse riding or Brownie Guides. Margaret gets pupils to colour in a piano keyboard template which can then be 'played' silently. I guess this would also work in the car! Jess B gets pupils to improvise in the key that they are learning. I like to play penalty shoot out scales with groups of pupils where I alternate giving a pupil a scale to play. If they do it well they score and if they don't they miss. If there is no clear winner after 5 goes it gets decided on a tie-break.
We don't always talk shop though and had a great pub lunch. We all had dessert and I spent the rest of the afternoon feeling just a little too full. Harp practise was managed but just Manha de Carnaval and devising an exercise to help with the next of the studies I want to master, called A Firm Fist. The main point of this is to play three-note chords with fingers 1, 3 and 4 in the first half and 1, 2 and 4 in the second so it is not all straight-forward triads. I have worked on it before and it makes my fingers hurt!
I went round to Pat and Martin's and after a quick chat and some tea and cake we got onto rehearsing Pat's three violin pieces. The Handel Minuet started off quite well. Naturally I wasn't quite sure what to expect although I have heard grade 1 violinists before. I was not disappointed and Pat's notes and rhythms were well in place. There were a few very small slips but when you have years of experience on the flute (and two months experience on the trumpet!) you do have higher expectations and Pat knew she could do better. I made a small suggestion of aiming for the first beat of each bar as this will help it move on. The second time through was better but thinking about the first beat of the bar means less thought on which finger goes where! There is a huge amount of co-ordination required! Next up was the Sandman by Brahms. Again, this is lovely and Pat has some nice shading in the dynamics. Finally Pennsylvania 65000 was a fun romp. I think Pat will do fine. To my ear I feel they are all passable but I know what it is like to be the one performing and the little doubts that creep in need to be addressed in a positive way. We then all went off to the CWB rehearsal and had a jolly time with conductor Viv rehearsing their piece for Sunday's programme as well as a few other pieces for their April concert. It is such a lovely atmosphere there and one of the most supportive groups I've seen in rehearsal.
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