Sydney Seed

MUED 304

Adapt-A-Peer Lesson #2

Objectives:

a) Student will improve technical accuracy by singing notes before playing them.

b) Student will differentiate between slur, legato, accent, and staccato verbally, and

demonstrate a difference while playing.

c) Student will self-correct technique when prompted with questions.

Procedures:

Students will:

Inform student that he is not allowed to use the piano to check pitches. If he needs help we

will problem solve together

a. Sing a concert F, and a 5 note scale

b. Exhale and complete the “yawn” breathing exercise.

c. Sing concert F 5 note scale again, and then buzz a FM 5 note scale, and then buzz FM.

d. Play lip slur exercise.

e. Play FM scale in Slur 2 tongue 2 exercises

f. Talk about what syllables or key words he uses to play or describe “legato”, “accent”,

and “staccato”.

g. Sing those syllables in a lead exercise “legato” “accent” and “staccato”: ||- - - -| ^ ^ ^

^| . . . .|| Buzz same exercise. Play exercise on chromatic scale

Informal Assessment:

a. How consistent Chris is at singing and playing C?

 b. How stylistically appropriate are Chris’ articulations?

c. How capable is Chris of solving his own problems?

Reflection

The lesson ran longer than I was anticipating, but I think it was because Chris had great

feedback, and ideas on the questions I asked him. The lesson felt very fluid and chronological,

and his tone and abilities improved over the course of the lesson.

The coolest part of the lesson for me was when Chris started to play the lip slur exercise,

couldn’t get the notes to speak, restarted still without success, and then a little frustrated stopped,

adjusted his posture, and played it clearly. He did this all on his own! He solved his own

problem. We talked about this process after. I asked him what he was thinking about, and he

said he wanted more air support, so he fixed his posture, and took in a “yawn breath”. It worked

for him.

I was really impressed with how immediately Chris played beautiful legato, accent, and

staccato notes on French horn. I don’t know what he was capable of doing before the lesson

because we had never talked about articulations before, and since you talked about limiting the

number of negative repetitions I started by talking through the articulations and equating them to

clarinet to have something to transfer to French horn. I think getting really specific about the

differences was helpful. Chris used the word “air” when he was talking about accented notes,

and I asked him to be even more specific. What about his air? Then I asked him to sing what he

described, buzz what he described, and play what he described, and he had this beautiful horn

call type accent. The quality and taper of the sound was better than some of the horn majors here

at JMU.
 I should have been more aware of the time. I’m still trying to decide if I value holding

myself accountable to finishing my lesson plan, or if I’m okay with not having time to go over

transpositions. We never got off task, and I would say Chris did most of the talking after I

prodded him with questions, so I think that’s okay.