Practicum Log #3

For my last two practicum I was placed in a beginner percussion class. On my first visit I

was simply observing. The class began with a structured warm-up and technique exercise. All of

these intro exercises were done in a non-verbal manner. The teacher would model the rudiment

on their own drum pad and the students would follow. Once they went through all of the

assigned rudiments they transitioned into an exercise from a method book that had a backing

track. It seemed as though the class had been doing this for a long time as they seemed to know

exactly what was coming next for each section of this portion of the class. The class overall had

a few behavioral issues but they were handled quickly. The class then moved to playing written

pieces of music. This rehearsal was fairly foreign to the ideas that I had been previously exposed

to. A metronome was put on for the entirety of the rest of rehearsal without any pause. The

ensemble rehearsed sections many times in order to match each other’s technique. The instructor

expected the members of the ensemble to already be able to play the music at this point and they

were not quite up to the standard set. The students had not put in the personal practice assigned.

This made the atmosphere in the room a bit off for the remainder of the rehearsal.

On my next visit I was allowed to instruct the ensemble on one of the pieces they are set

to perform soon. I was given about 10 minutes of time to help the ensemble with said piece. I

decided not to change their norm of the metronome. In hindsight, I probably should have. I

believe the focus on extreme rhythmic accuracy opposed my goals of musicality and ensemble

awareness. The students did not warm up to my instruction quickly, but after some time, they

seemed to follow my teaching style well. In the time that I had, I believe that we accomplished

quite a bit in terms of overall playability of the piece. The pieces of the puzzle were much closer

to actually fitting together than they were beforehand. This teaching was quite different to
anything I had done before. In the past, I have at least been familiar with either the students, or

the type of ensemble that I was teaching. In this case, I really didn’t have these luxuries. I am

proud of the fact that these curveballs did not affect my teaching ability to a noticeable degree.

Overall, I was happy with how it turned out.