My trombone prof thinks I should start teaching

[TexasTBone]

I was very flattered recently when my trombone prof and some others told me I should start teaching. They suggested I look to start working with younger students like middle and high school, and maybe even some community college kids who are behind where they should be.

I'm looking for any resources or recommendations y'all might be able to offer for how to approach teaching. I wouldn't want to be one of those teachers who finds some exercises and has every student do the same thing. I've had that done to me and it was counterproductive.

Did y'all just dive in and let the experience with each student guide you?

[Wilktone]

Nice! Teaching lessons is a great way to also learn the material yourself. Having to explain how to do something really helps solidify what you know in ways that simply practicing doesn't always.

There are a number of textbooks you can check out related to brass pedagogy. If you're doing the music ed degree track you'll probably need to take the brass methods class anyway, so find out what text is being used for that class. Back when I taught that class I used Guide to Teaching Brass, by Dan Brachelder and Norman Hunt. I'm not sure if it's still published. I didn't agree with everything suggested in there, but there was plenty of good information that might help get you started.

Did y'all just dive in and let the experience with each student guide you?

Mostly. Since you've got access to your current trombone professor you've got an experienced teacher to bounce ideas off of. Back when I was a grad student the office where I taught lessons was next to my trombone prof's office, so I could somewhat hear him teaching different students and he could hear what I was working on with mine. By this point much of my own lessons were focused more on pedagogy, how he taught and why. He also liked to ask me questions about my pedagogical interests and often assigned me students out of his studio because he thought that it was a better fit for a particular student.

Good luck and have fun teaching!

Dave

[2bobone]

You will be amazed at the insights you will encounter into your own playing technique when you try to put them into words for another to implement. Fascinating ---- and extremely rewarding !

[elmsandr]

You will be amazed at the insights you will encounter into your own playing technique when you try to put them into words for another to implement. Fascinating ---- and extremely rewarding !

This reminds me of a great scene from a Douglass Adams book (talking about early computers over dinner at a university):

'There really wasn't a lot this machine could do that you couldn't do yourself in half the time with a lot less trouble,' said Richard, 'but it was, on the other hand, very good at being a slow and dim-witted pupil.'

Reg looked at him quizzically.

'I had no idea they were supposed to be in short supply,' he said. 'I could hit a dozen with a bread roll from where I'm sitting.'

'I'm sure. But look at it this way. What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?'

This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table.

Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your own mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a
stupid machine can deal with, you've certainly learned something about it yourself. The teacher usually learns more than the pupil. Isn't that true?"

"It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils," came a low growl from somewhere on the table, "without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy."
...

Boils down to the teacher needs to learn more about the process and subject than the student to teach it.

So, generally, back when I thought I might do such a thing, I taught discount lessons to beginners to early High School students. I mostly followed the formats of my own lessons and picked a few basic elements to work through over time. When a student had issues with breathing, we did similar exercises from when I had a breathing issue... was it perfect? No. Did I learn a lot more about the words used in those discussions? ABSOLUTELY. These were probably better for my musicality than a lot of my own lessons, as they required more critical thinking and definition. Did I have a book or two that I like them to have, sure, but I didn't care if it was the same book or different student to student, we all need something different and at younger ages there's plenty to work on without needing to focus on the canon.

Over time, I had a handful (8-12?) that I transferred on to a local pro as they became more advanced. I got great feedback from him that I had introduced them well to a great number of exercises. Establish some fundamentals and the vocabulary and work on establishing what good sounds like.

For me, the best part of most those early lessons was giving a model of a close up good sound, a real feedback of what in-tune means, and teaching how to work on something. None of these are a given and they are almost impossible to teach in a large group band setting.

Doing this, for you, will probably not make financial sense. You'll probably feel like you are losing money with the time spent. But it is worthwhile for processing your own learning.

Cheers,
Andy

[harrisonreed]

I taught for a few years a long time ago. With young kids, the best first step is to find out something they can get excited about musically. For some kids it was jazz, for others it was their lion king book. Sometimes you have to find them a hero. There was a high school girl I taught who liked classical music, but didn't really like the trombone. I showed her some videos of Megumi Kanda, and she made a hero out of her.

But there won't be much investment in fundamentals or your teaching if the kids don't have a hero or a goal.

[Ozzlefinch]

What you do as a teacher is not important. It's what the students do that matters. Learn how to create a lesson plan with clear and measurable learning objectives.

I think too much emphasis is put on how a teacher teaches instead of focusing on how the student learns. Pedagogical and andragogical methods are there to create a learning environment for the student, not to make the teacher comfortable.

It's a very deep topic. So deep that I'm working on my doctorate in the subject now.

Lesson plans and learning objectives. Trust me on this.

[boneagain]

I have not seen any mention of a "first do no harm" consideration.

A repeatling theme I have seen with fellow students (back in the day) and with my own students (back in a somewhat less remote day) is the need to unlearn well-meant fundamentals for the mechanics of playing.

Embouchure recommendations are a good example. I have received and observed recommendations ranging from "squeeze your lips together hard" to "keep a big, open aperture in the middle of your lips at all times." Some of the recommendations, like the extremes above, have been extremely counterproductive.

Another theme that can get in the way is "Wittgenstein's Ladder." The Wikipedia article on this is great. A good example is "blow the note to the back of the room." In MANY cases that is a useful metaphor for learning good air support for a note. In ALL cases it is a physical impossibility. In SOME cases students take it too literally and end up with air management problems a later instructor has to sort out.

One thing that makes "do no harm" difficult is that there are SO many RIGHT ways to do just about everything on trombone. If you hold off to try to find THE right way, you will never teach. As in so many things, it's all about balance.

[Kdanielsen]

Be kind. Be patient. Be humble.

You’re only the guide (make sure both of you know this).

[BGuttman]

I remember reading in some conservatory prospectus that students were expected to learn how to teach their instrument. It was considered a part of the musical education. Probably a good idea since many musicians have to make ends meet by teaching lessons.