Jake Grimsley

Brass Tech Practicum Reflection

11-26-19

The situation I got to see this band in was a lot different than most other classes I could

have observed, as they had just had their concert the week prior. They weren’t working on any

music heavily, which meant it was a bit more of a relaxed atmosphere. In addition to that, there

was another special circumstance that affected my time there, which was that it was the last day

before their Thanksgiving break, meaning they definitely were a little bit less motivated and

wanted a bit more to just go home and relax. The way the band director, Leah Miller, handled

these situations, was to go back to some less intensive studies for the day, allowing them to stay

focused yet not have to work an incredible amount. She started by going through some rhythmic

sight reading exercises with them, from the online sight-reading factory website. The sight

reading exercises were in cut time, which was a bit unfamiliar to the students, allowing them to

not only focus on rhythm but to also focus on a new pulsing as well. After these exercises, they

moved on to sight reading a little bit from one of their new pieces they planned on using for their

VBODA assessment a few months from now. There were mostly brass players in this class, with

a few woodwinds in the mix, so due to the quantity, most of her interactions, through critique

and suggestions, were for brass players. This involved a few remindings of fingerings, although

this was given through the light of having the students come to the conclusions themselves. For

example, when a good deal of players were missing a note, she would ask them to tell her the

fingerings, therefore reinforcing the ideas in their head while also making them do the work to

remember. There were also a few reminders for breath support, which came up through out

longer held notes, often trills. Although this was a rather casual class due to circumstances
previously mentioned, there was still a lot to learn from the teacher’s interactions with the brass

players. A lot of what I found, since the subject matter for this rehearsal was rather simple, was

that the way reminders and suggestions are given out should be more specific than just telling the

students what to do. There are a lot of different ways to get students to learn more while also

getting them to come to conclusions themselves, therefore making them more likely to solve

later issues by themselves without any need for help from a teacher. Overall, there was a lot to

learn from this practicum, even with the more relaxed atmosphere that it entailed.