Secondary VP’s Message Face the Music . . . Fundamentally
Cara Sommers WMEA Secondary Vice President
I
am excited and honored to have been elected the WMEA’s Secondary Vice President. With All-State auditions fast approaching, we have a lot to look forward to. Not only fantastic clinicians for our students, but honorarium clinicians, and local and regional clinicians from whom we as teachers, can learn in the band, choral, and strings sessions.
Ah, Fall. A time when we envision what the future might hold for programs in the months ahead. Mind blowing concerts? Excellent student attendance? Superb attitudes with an eagerness to learn and succeed? No broken instruments? No music lost? Fantastic lesson plans and all that jazz… Really though, by this time, we’ve all hit the ground running, and it’s going to be great.
Fall is when we get back into the routine of “school life.” Whether that means preparing our students for marching shows, auditioning for prestigious groups, or first concerts. As I look down the road this school year, I am also taking time to look back and reflect on my years teaching over the past decade.
I’ve thought about all the time, effort, and people (colleagues and students alike) who have been instrumental (pardon the pun) in helping get me where I am as a music educator. I’ve learned a great deal along the way and often think to myself, “I’m so glad so-and-so helped me with this.” In my experience, the people who help us become the best educators we can be are the ones from whom we learn the most, whether it be what to do or what not to do. I have been fortunate enough to learn from both.
You’ve probably heard before: in teaching, we often beg, borrow, and steal from our colleagues so we can be the best version of ourselves as teachers. There is no need to reinvent the wheel because chances are, someone has already done what you’re trying to do. No matter how long you’ve been teaching, you may still not know all the answers. Ask questions of music educators whom you trust and admire. Their bag-of-tricks/knowledge can be invaluable.
According to real estate agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, a broker-associate at Lyon Real Estate’s Sacramento office, the mantra “location, location, location” is widely used in the real estate world. “In a nutshell, this means identical homes can increase or decrease in value due to location…it is the number one rule in real estate, though it is often the most overlooked.” The same can be said for teaching fundamentals in music.
As music educators, teaching fundamentals should be the number one rule, though it’s often overlooked. When we are preparing our students for events and performances, it’s easy to work solely on the task at hand and forget about the building blocks that help get our groups to the next level. The level of
our performance can increase or decrease depending on how much time we spend working on fundamentals.
As a young music educator, I learned from my more seasoned colleagues the importance of addressing fundamentals every day with my students. If it’s festival/ concert season and your’re thinking, “Something is missing. We’ve worked on this over and over! Why aren’t they getting this?” Go back to the basics and make sure your bases are covered. The answer may be found in addressing the fundamentals.
Fundamentals can be categorized in several ways such as: posture/playing position, rhythm exercises, note names, scales, long tones. In my classroom, I do this with both my bands/choirs nearly every day. We discuss and memorize what I believe to be some of the most important elements in music, “The Famous 5.” No, not the Russians. These are what I call the five most important elements every musician needs to know before rehearsing/performing a piece of music. 1. Key Signature 2. Time Signature 3. Special Signs 4. Tempo 5. Dynamics
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Wyoming Windsong
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