How do you help your students prepare for an important audition? Have you tried making etudes the focus of an entire lesson plan?
Of course, etudes have all sorts of applications to your concert repertoire. Helping students learn phrasing, lyricism, and technique will pay dividends come concert time, and might help your students secure that coveted honor band position as well. It would be difficult to make etudes the focus of every class, but spending time teaching students how to practice etudes on their own will help make sure that their at-home practice is effective, engaging, and efficient.
We’ve built a free lesson plan you can use with SmartMusic featuring famous vocalises by Marco Bordogni. While these might not transform your last-chair trombonist into a prodigy overnight, the vocalises offer a great introduction to etude playing and help develop musical skills that will benefit your ensemble.
Most importantly, teaching students how to practice will help students improve faster.
This “Teaching Technique with SmartMusic” Lesson Plan Also Includes:
- Space for you to customize the plan with your own state standards, extra materials, and supplemental exercises (like from your method book).
- Sequenced activities that show students the importance of starting at slow tempos and staying focused on musicality.
- A suggested homework assignment that continues the in-class work with Vocalise #3.
Creating a custom rubric is important for evaluating tone production and other aspects of technique. While this plan doesn’t have specific instructions for doing this, we can help you create one in SmartMusic. Here’s how to build a custom rubric.
Don’t have SmartMusic? You can easily get started free.