saxophonica

Yesterday, I taught my little saxophone sectional. Every Wednesday since August, I’ve been showing up and helping out the Randall High School band. The kids are pretty good, and there is enough actual desire to learn that it’s exciting.  One of the kids likes to make excuses for everything, but I know she has the ability to do some of these things.

For those interested, we are working on Ferling etudes No. 18, 19, and 30. Go Texas all-state!

I got an interesting question from Ryan. He wanted to know when to stop a trill, on the written note, or the trilled note. It took some thinking, because I’d never thought of it that way. Luckily, every trill in this set of etudes is followed by a two grace notes that lead into the next passage. It really helped sort that out, but I’m sure it will come up again. I’ll have to think about this stuff.

This has carried over into my own private lessons, as Lefevre had me think about which notes I was putting vibrato on. Not something I usually think about, which was good. He’s excited for me, and I’m excited for me. I don’t know what it was, but my stuff just clicked a little bit better today. Even when I was rushing the Ibert over 15 bpm. Scary! I didn’t think I could do that that fast.

Just having taught these few lessons, I’ve learned quite a bit about myself, and its a little frightening. When I’m running around the marching field clapping and counting, trying to get kids in step, trying to get postures good, I realize that maybe I’m a bit too intense. But they (the education systems) encourage intensity in the classroom, so maybe it’s not so bad. And I’ve learned that my sarcasm needs to lighten a little, and I could stand to work on the stuff the kids are learning. I am having a good, harrowing time.