I am often amazed at how poorly my students count music. I had one student in particular who had been playing the bassoon for three years before he started lessons with me. The rhythms he played came out almost right, but when I asked him to count something out loud, he had no clue! He […]
Continue readingMore TagYear: 2015
Simplify Your Studio – Charge a Materials Fee
Do your students buy their own music? Do you wait weeks for them to actually order it? Do you buy it for them? Do you wait weeks for them to pay you back? Are you frustrated with the time and energy this takes from you? The two best policy changes I ever made were moving […]
Continue readingMore TagTeaching Theory to Your Bassoon Students
We can’t leave it up to the piano teachers and public school teachers anymore. We need to be teaching theory to our bassoon students. When students understand the structure and elements of what they are practicing, their practice becomes much more effective. When they can look at a scale and say “Oh, that’s just a […]
Continue readingMore TagReproducible Theory Materials with Tenor Clef!
I’ve been teaching bassoon for over 15 years and have only recently added theory to my curriculum. I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t see teaching theory as my responsibility. I have had a complete change of heart! The following is a review of the theory materials I am using with many of my […]
Continue readingMore TagFree Intro to Music Theory Course at Coursera.org
Update: Since this post was first written, some of the course offerings have changed. The course described below is still available for free, but you may want to use another platform, such as edX. See this page for the most updated listings. I absolutely love the music theory and history courses offered by The Berklee School […]
Continue readingMore TagMusicandtheBassoon.org – A Review
Kristen Wolfe Jensen and her team have done the bassoon world a HUGE service by creating the website musicandthebassoon.org. The website serves as a beginning to intermediate level bassoon course, perfect for use by band directors with their students as well as students studying with traditional bassoon teachers. I once used this website with a student […]
Continue readingMore TagYoung Bassoon Students Need Recitals
My studio sponsors four student recitals per year. I think that teaching students to perform is just as important as teaching them to play the bassoon. I remember being surprised when many of my music school friends would say, “Oh, I love to play my instrument, but I don’t like to perform.” I didn’t get […]
Continue readingMore TagBassoon Lesson Assignment Sheet – FREE DOWNLOAD
I use a printed assignment sheet with my students. I fill a new one out at each lesson and have the students save the old ones in a binder at home. It serves as a great reference for fingerings, exercises, and pieces they’ve worked on and/or performed. I used to write down weekly assignments in […]
Continue readingMore TagInnovative Weekly Group Bassoon Lessons – Part 2
In part 1 of this post, I told you about my innovative way to teach more students in a shorter amount of time. Now let me tell you how it went down. Of the four students originally scheduled for the group class, one never showed up and another dropped out after two months. I had to […]
Continue readingMore TagWhy Monthly Tuition is the Way to Go
In 2013 I switched from charging a per lesson fee to charging a monthly tuition fee. I am so glad that I did. Here are my favorite things about the monthly tuition system: I can budget based on a fixed monthly amount I can build in paid holidays and sick days if I want to […]
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