Book 2
The second year of band instruction holds some of the most significant challenges for both students and teachers. The difficulty arises, in part, due to the approach used by most method books to introduce new concepts and skills.
Second year method books introduce challenging new skills within settings that most students do not have adequate skills to master. For instance, they introduce a new high note within a song that also has rhythms that surpass the individual skills of the majority of students. Likewise, they often introduce new rhythms within pieces that are in the most extreme registers. Students are naturally frustrated with the difficulty, their behavior deteriorates, and the teacher may become frustrated too! Teachers often abandon the method book and move to sheet music while dealing with the new concepts as they occur. It’s a difficult challenge, and yet Band Directors manage to get it done!
Band Fundamentals Book 2 offers a helpful solution to this problem. New concepts and skills are introduced within a limited range in the key of Concert B Flat. The teaching material aids you in teaching specific skills while your students learn at a suitable pace. The students will be more satisfied, and everyone will be happier. After students have successfully learned the advancing concepts from the Band Fundamentals Book, you can add more complexity using your favorite materials to augment their newly acquired skills.
As the year progresses, you can construct varying routines from the Band Fundamentals Book which incorporate multiple skills into daily rehearsal. For instance, when performing new sheet music, build your warm-up session around the skills required to perform it. There are enough exercises to avoid monotony.
There is a strong review of dotted quarter notes.
The following rhythms are presented with teaching explanations similar to what you write on the board in your classroom.
- Syncopation
- Sixteenth notes
- Eighth and two sixteenths
- Two sixteenths and eighth
- Dotted Eighth and sixteenth
- Triplets
The written explanations help your classroom instruction carry over into home practice.
- Additionally, Cut Time and Six-Eight (with emphasis on fast Six-Eight) are introduced with the most common rhythmic patterns.
- Articulation studies that offer interesting and effective tunes to develop these challenging skills for young players.
- Gradually expanding chromatic exercises which are also great range studies for brass and technique studies for woodwinds.
- The tone and range-building exercises incorporate ideas from great brass and woodwind teachers.
- A great scale sheet for each instrument which goes through five flats and three sharps and an ambitious chromatic scale.