Ben Maynard

HAT Journal #14

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 What kind of activities could we incorporate in a lesson plan that would help students gain the ability
to select chords by ear to accompany melodies and other tunes? Is there typically enough time to fit
these exercises into a high school curriculum?
 The book mentions that sul tasto bowings can be found most commonly in Debussy and Ravel’s music.
How often does sul tasto and sul ponticello bowings appear in high school repertoire? Additionally, are
these skills that school orchestra directors should be incorporating in warm ups? If they are unpopular
in high school repertoire, is it necessary to incorporate in the warm up routine?
 What does the notation look like if the composer specifies a certain number of strokes during a
tremolo?
 Would you recommend incorporating the ear training exercises during the tuning and warm up
portions of a rehearsal? Activities like singing something before playing a note or a scales?
 What is your approach to teaching a kid who can’t match pitch or tune properly? What kind of things
would you do with the student to improve their hearing?
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 One extremely useful tool that I did not know before reading this article is the clever and effective
ways to teach students the louré bowing. This chapter suggests that the students should be played a
recording of a theme from Beethoven Symphony No. 7. This excerpt includes the louré bowing on
repeated notes, and notes that don’t change. Another fantastic teaching element of this excerpt is that
it isn’t that technically difficult so that students can have some success while making sure that they
have a solid understanding of how to perform this bowing. To show the distinction between hooked
bow and louré, students could play the eighth notes in this excerpt as a hooked bow, then play them as
a louré.
 Being a wind player, I did not know what the notation was for a tremolo before reading this chapter.
This is important to know because from my understanding, they are popular in string repertoire.
 Before reading this chapter, I didn’t have a reference of when to introduce two and three octave scales
to students, or at least start assessing them. I now understand that generally, high school orchestras
should be required to learn two octave scales. If the group is advanced, then they should be learning
three octave scales.
 Before reading this chapter, I have not thought of splitting the orchestra up and having one half play
scales and the other half play a chord. This activity can be very beneficial to students, especially
because you could potentially create a chord progression that would fit with the corresponding scale
that the other half of the orchestra would play.
 The book suggests that teachers should talk to students to distract them while performing vibrato. This
is supposed to help the students internalize the motions and feelings that are taking place when they
are playing vibrato. I have never thought that thinking about the vibrato would not help students past
a certain point. Moreover, I thought that this process just happened naturally through practice, but this
helps with speeding up the process of mastering vibrato.

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 Ben Maynard

 By the time students are in high school orchestra, they should have a solid understand of how to play
dynamics. At this point, students should be incorporating expressive and subito dynamics during their
warm ups and fundamental practice so that they can be successful at these skills during repertoire.
Throughout this process, students should be reminded about the physical elements of creating
dynamic contrast, which are bow weight, speed, and placement.
 After reading the paragraph about the pedagogy of teaching collé, I realized that one of these teaching
strategies resonates with me and could be used in my future classroom. Comparing the collé bowing to
a pizzicato appears to be simple, but extremely affective. I like this approach because the students
could practice their pizzicato while also learning or perfecting another skill simultaneously.
 Another teaching approach that I want to use in the future refers to an approach to teach spiccato
bowings. Chapter four suggests to that one way to teach spiccato bowings is to draw diagrams on the
board that represent the height and length of strokes that the music calls for. The drawings show high
and long bowings, low and long bowings, low and short bowings, and finally high and short bowings.
Furthermore, it shows what to draw if the music calls for a spiccato bowing in-between these.
 I think that giving students a few items to think about while shifting is a smart idea, especially during
the learning process. When students are learning how to shift, this may result in some of the
fundamental aspects of playing a string instrument might suffer simply because it’s new. The book
suggests that when shifting, students should think about: The thumb traveling with the hand, guide
finger is used when shifting, the bow stops briefly between notes that aren’t slurred, bow weight is
decreased when shifting during a slur, and keeping the left-hand positions that same throughout the
shift.
 One way that teachers could effectively incorporate vibrato playing in their warm ups is to first pick a
rhythm that students may be having trouble with from their repertoire. Next, instruct them to play this
rhythm with vibrato, alternating every note. This will help the students audiate the rhythm while
playing the repertoire, while also increasing their ability to play with varying vibrato speeds.