Amanda Herold

Dr. Heim

MUS_CLAS 150

2 April 2019

College Flute Observation

This was an observation done at Gettysburg College for college level flute. The room was

very open and on a well-lit stage. The focus of the lesson was to run music for an upcoming

recital.

At the start of the rehearsal, the student had tuned and warmed up. This appeared to be an

expected routine of the student. After this, the student had performed their required pieces while

the instructor wrote in comments and notes. The student focused on maintaining their frame

while playing (maintaining proper posture) and getting into character for each of the pieces. I

noticed that the student avoided rolling in and out with their flute head joint and would instead

raise their facial muscles such as their eyebrows. Additionally, the student would push the flute

away from them in order to help keep the pitch from becoming flat in lower sustained notes.

Once the student had finished performing, the teacher and student had a debriefing

session about the performance as a whole. The teacher commented on balance issues between the

flute and piano and had the student work on correcting these volume issues by acknowledging

the register the flute was playing in. The teacher discussed response issues that occurred

throughout the performance and suggestions on how to improve upon them. These suggestions

included things such as raising the facial muscles, pushing the flute out to avoid compressing the
chest, and changing the direction of the air. The instructor also gave advice from former

performances on how to get the best response out of specific trills.

During the rehearsal, the teacher always kept a positive attitude. The teacher often smiled

at the student and layered criticisms with compliments of what the student did well to avoid

discouraging them. They also reminded the student of the progress they had made and to just

“enjoy making music”. I found this to be incredibly important to remember when giving advice

on pieces that have become so personal to the students. Additionally, the teacher would also

physically show the student what they wanted and have the student mimic them. This gave the

student a model to reference when trying to visualize the teacher’s expectations.

As the lesson concluded, the teacher gave the student reminders of what they needed to

work on and what they would need to be successful for the upcoming performance. It was clear

that the teacher had earned the student’s trust by how attentively they had listened to them. The

student also had the opportunity to ask or voice any last-minute concerns.

Overall, I found this lesson to be very beneficial. As a future educator, I feel that we often

focus on what needs to be improved rather than acknowledging the progress that has already

been made. After seeing this lesson, I would like to work on sandwiching my advice/needed

improvements with encouraging things that I enjoyed in my students’ performances. I also would

like to better work at physically modeling what I want from students rather than using wordy

explanations that waste precious lesson time.

I affirm that I have upheld the highest principles of honesty and integrity in my academic work

and have not witnessed a violation of the Honor Code.

Amanda Herold