April 30th Bb Pentatonic Improvisation/Composition Project Lesson Reflection:

Todays lesson was particularly fun, because I was able to expose students to elements of
music that they are not normally able to engage in. At the beginning of the lesson, I had students
follow me in a solfege exercise on the Bb pentatonic scale, and then we repeated an
improvisation exercise from last week, where I played melodic ostinatos for individual rows of
students and had them repeat the themes back to me. This portion of the lesson was extremely
successful, but I also think it lasted too long. We spent twenty minutes reviewing material from
my last improvisation lesson and I think it ended up surpassing the attention span of many of my
students.
After the initial warm-up, I broke students in sectional groups and had them compose 1-3
melodic ostinatos on a lead sheet that I had created. The lead sheet was largely useful (especially
since my instructions on it were specific) but some students still didnt fill it out completely, or
didnt turn it in at all. Group compositional work turned out to be especially challenging. Some
groups were successful because they were smaller and didnt have to deal with creative
differences as much, but others were larger and thus, more students could not decide on what
themes to use. Some sections (especially the flutes) had trouble hearing each other because their
instruments were not loud enough to compete with the resonance of others (such as the
trombones). In order to try and fix this, we designated a period of time (about 15 minutes) where
students were only allowed to discuss their themes, and not play them. I have mixed feelings on
how this went. On one hand, some groups were able to be productive now that they could hear
each other, but other groups completely lost engagement as they already had a couple of themes
written down, and 15 minutes of time without playing did not help this.
When I do this lesson again, I need to find ways to individualize the content so that
students/groups that work slower are able to get an entire theme written down, while groups that
are able to work quicker have more that they can elaborate on within the lesson. I could have
groups that work ahead compose additional themes or begin to arrange the themes that have been
written into their own piece (which the trumpets ended up doing on their own). I could give
groups that work slower the opportunity to work with another individual on my staff (such as
Stephanie or my cooperating teacher), to address any questions or concerns they may have. I
found it difficult to sweep around the room and help every section, and I forgot to ask Stephanie
and Greg (the substitute) for help in the matter.
Overall, todays lesson went very well and I hope to incorporate and adapt similar lessons
as I continue to teach. It is hard to introduce concepts to students that they havent been exposed
to regularly in a classroom. Todays lesson was a good first step in learning how to do this.