Week 11 Lesson Review

This week's featured lesson will be my 7th grade general music class from Thursday. Pretty much the entire class was taken up with the students trying to learn how to play a few simple melodies on the piano. In the end, I think all of us got frustrated as the second melody proved somewhat difficult to teach and to pick up for first-time piano players. It was definitely one of those, "how will I do this differently tomorrow?!?" kind of lessons. Mr. Suzelis offered some suggestions and then helped the next day in teaching, though the real teller of how well my adjustments go will be Monday at my next evaluation as half the class was out for an activity.

The main issue during the lesson wasn't so much the rhythm as it was the melody and the fingering as they have to use their left index finger and then switch to their right hand. What Mr. Suzelis told me after class was that he usually does the second section last since it is the most difficult, though he also said he tried to suggest it during the class when it became evident that all involved were becoming frustrated; I just didn't hear him! I was trying to make adjustments and challenge the students to not give up and to problem solve, particularly in reading music. A student asked me how "it ended" and so I asked him the same question back after pointing him to the melody on the correct page "how does it end?" My reasoning was helping them to help themselves rather than just giving them the answer. I mean, if they leave music class and have no concept of how to read music, what have I really accomplished other than putting a bunch of facts into their heads they're likely to forget fairly soon?

Another adjustment I tried to make, which I should've done from the beginning, was simply breaking it down to even smaller phrases. When we worked on the next phrase during Friday's class, I did that and we had some better success along with help from Mr. Suzelis in teaching the end of phrase two.