Boring Band Camp

[fluteguy18]

Hey everyone!
I am starting this thread looking for some advice. I was hired recently to teach at a local band camp. This marching band unfortunately only has two [2] piccolo players, two clarinetists, and about 6 saxes. Quite a small woodwind section. I was hired to teach the piccs, and when I recieved my instructions from the band director, I was absolutely shocked about what he was asking for.

Because there are only two of them, and both of them are fairly new to the switch from flute to piccolo, their tone is suffering. They can get a sound out, and play the notes and rythms, however their tone is lacking. Thus he wants me to work on tone studies to help them achieve a better sound and to project more. So, in my 3 hour long sectional with them, I have to spend at least 1.5 hours working on tone studies alone..... preferably two hours....

It is driving myself and the two players absolutely nuts. Tone studies are boring enough as it is, but when playing around 2 hours of them, it is revolting. I would spend more time on the music, but their part isnt very hard, and they can already play it rather well.

Any ideas for how to make tone studies fun? I am at a loss with finding fun ways to do tone studies.

I am trying to keep it interesting by offering compliments and constructive criticism, and by interjecting bits of piccolo pedagogy. But, this job lasts all week, three hours a day, and I am running out of ideas. I really want to do a good job because for my area and age/qualifications, I am getting paid rather well [roughly 20 dollars an hour-- players in the area with doctorate degrees only get paid 30 dollars an hour for this type of thing].

Any suggestions would be great.

[flutegeek1992]

when I give lessons, I have us play in a round of sorts. We go up and down scales, I start on the root, and my student plays the 2nd, etc. We have to play 8 counts, and the other has to immediatly come in with the next note. This helps with counting and tone. You could do this. When working with my flute choir, we do rounds, one person starts on C, the second person starts when the first gets to E, etc. They're always a third behind. Its fun to do. I'm not sure what else to offer...just make it fun! Make it a game. See who can hold the note the longest without wavering on pitch. We used to do that in elementary school as a contest. Now I relize my teacher was teaching us valuable things. If only I knew that then...

[apicultrice]

Hi!

I had all piccolos with one band camp this year and last, and there are a few things that we did for tone development. We did long tones and a lot of scales in rounds, like the person above suggested. Also, we did a lot of singing of parts and even singing and playing, which seemed to help. We sang and spoke in different "character" voices just to talk about the way that different throat and mouth positions can affect the tone quality and color.

We spent some time working with tuners and creating intonation charts, where we mapped out the pitch tendencies of each note. Actually, to start, we do breathing exercises, some stretching, and some exercises where we focused on the use of the abdominal muscles and talked about how to support the sound with the abs. We did crescendo/decrescendo exercises, fortepiano exercises, octave "stretches"/flexibility (like from De La Sonorite) and some articulation exercises. I have a Brad Garner double tonguing exercise that I love and would be happy to post, if you like. I'm not sure if you've seen the Pat Morris/Trevor Wye practice book for the piccolo, there might be some good stuff in there. I don't have it, though. We did technical scales in all major and minor keys, and played games where we had to use a different style or character for each key - through varying articulation or tone color (which is difficult on piccolo, obviously, but is more to get them thinking outside of just moving fingers and playing a scale).

Lastly, I am really big into improvisation and we played some improvising games as well as a few "just for fun" games to keep up the energy level. I can send links to any of those or descriptions, if you're interested.

Ah, band camp! Anyway, hope some of this is helpful.

[fluteguy18]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try some of them, but am not expecting a whole lot. To be completely honest, niether of these players are at the level of playing that they should be in regards to counting and rythm. But, I will try some of these things.

[apicultrice]

Well, none of those exercises are really too difficult to grasp, as long as you can explain them clearly. Scales, maybe, but when I have groups with not-a-lot of scale knowledge, we just stick with the basics and maybe branch out near the end of the week.

Rhythm games might be fun, using pie syllables (ap-ple pie, straw-ber-ry pie, choc-o-late pie) or ice cream syllables. I'll sometimes use those and we sing them in different voices (usually I want them to sing them in deep voices, although we try for all different kinds just to have a little fun and illustrate the differences between throat positions) and then play them slowly as tone development exercises.