Surprise! There is no secret. I’m sure you know that already.
There is only trial and error when it comes to teaching scales to young band students. Give them everything! Teach it all right this second! Be the best teacher to ever teach scales! Has that ever been you? It has definitely been me.
If you’ve been teaching longer than a minute, you know that every group, every grade, and every day is different. And, if you’re like me, you only see your students once a week for 30 minutes max.
After some trial and error over the past few years, I’ve settled on a very simple format for teaching the one-octave scale. Once students have learned at least up to note number 6, (or G, if you’re thinking in concert pitch) I use the 8-note scale to teach them the 7th and 8th notes. Bam. Easy peasy, right? Sometimes, yes. But in the case of clarinet or trumpet, I usually use their low B and C (in their respective C scale) to finish the octave.
Why? Well, as I mentioned, since I only see students once a week they don’t start to learn over the break until April or May, at the very earliest. As some instruments lend themselves to different rates of development, I use high or low notes on the scale paper so that the student can use whichever format they’ve currently developed up to. (Let’s not even get into the horn for which the B-flat concert scale sits right in the spot of either being too high or too low).
The result of my little scale project is this: the B-flat concert scale with modified high and low notes for the clarinet, trumpet, and horn – plus uses the same easy-to-understand format for all of the other band instruments.
Teaching scales for beginning band students
By using this format, students get enough information to understand the purpose of the one-octave scale without being inundated with cumbersome information that clouds the simplicity of playing a scale. They are introduced to scale degrees with easy-to-read numbers, and the letter names are there to reinforce their note-reading when learning how to identify notes by the degrees. I have to say, it’s been going very well and I’m only a little upset that I didn’t do this earlier in my career!
If you like this Concert B-flat scale format, you can find all of them in my TpT store here.
Want to read more? Check out this post on Concert Reflections, or this post about using practice logs in the classroom.
As far as practice logs are concerned, I’ve been all over the place with them for the last 8 years. I’ve used them intermittently because I found many students would just check off the boxes and some parents will just sign without asking their child what they practiced. It just seemed like there were better ways to get results, but I was struggling to find them. Often I would wonder, “how can I get my students to take their instrument-learning seriously while not taking away the ‘fun’ of playing in band?” But I would trudge along, assign next week’s practice song and keep on keepin’ on
For the last two years I have used individual practice charts that are stapled in the book. Students can earn a sticker for playing an assigned song appropriately (which I can define in a different post). But I started noticing more and more that if I don’t explicitly designate a song as a “sticker song”, then it just doesn’t get practiced and I find my frustration growing because I feel that I am doing the same act every week. Those students who practice progress quickly, but those who aren’t playing outside of their 30-minute weekly lesson are getting left behind just as fast.
This frustration in my lessons has prompted me to take a hard look at my classroom routines this year. It’s easy to blame the kids. It’s also easy to throw our hands up and say, “these darn kids don’t know how to work hard” (which is definitely not true) or excuse their behavior because of the world they’re growing up in. But really: what does a 10-year old know about practice, anyway? We send them home, we tell them to play the notes slowly and we give them packets, worksheets, and video examples. Of course I’m simplifying it, but do they know how to apply those tools?
I started to go back and forth about adding a practice log routine halfway through this school year. When I looked in my own files of old logs and thought objectively about their usefulness and how those practice logs look to a 4th grader, it clicked for me. Practice logs are B-O-R-I-N-G. Total snooze fest. And I know what you’re thinking – practice logs shouldn’t have to be entertaining. I agree. But think about this: 4th graders are what, 9 years old when they start, right? NINE. They’re little kids. They like to color, they like stickers, they like high fives and to be told what a good job they’re doing. So, I got to the drawing board – literally- and set out to make practice logs.
For me, in order to have effective practice logs, I had to ask myself the following questions:
What is the purpose of a practice log?
What do I want the students to learn from using it?
How can I incorporate a little SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) into a practice log?
So, I thought for a day or two and I came up with the following:
The purpose of a practice log is not just to write down an assignment and check of the days of practice. It’s to get the students involved in their own progress by learning how to visualize their practice routine at home, so they can actually see their progress and make the connection.
I want them to learn how to be accountable for their progress at home because learning an instrument has to extend beyond the classroom for any results to happen. If they have 0 days logged and don’t know the song, then maybe they can begin to understand the cause-and-effect relationship.
Finally, I wanted to include a small SEL section somewhere on the log where students could quickly assess their routine for that week (or month, even).
What I came up with was this:
Easy enough for a nine-year-old to fill out on their own, right?
At the beginning of each month they get a new sheet. They fill out the info and write each week’s practice assignment. My goal in using this is to have a mix of guided execution – meaning, I give the assignment but they are responsible for filling out the days of the week that they practice. I started out by having them use check marks to denote the day because my goal is just for them to first visualize and see exactly how many days they are actually practicing in a week. It’s a great way to have a conversation about the correlation between their progress on the instrument and practice at home!
After we use the sheet for four weeks, I guide the students to fill out the bottom portion of the log. They circle the face that best represents how they feel their practicing went this week, list three things that went well, and two skills they want to improve upon. I also included a section for them to leave a note for me that is private, for those students who have trouble verbalizing their feelings.
Now that I’ve been using this for over a month, I see such a difference in many of my students! Some of them are worried that I’m going to grade their practice (not the case). Some come in right away and tell me, “I practiced three days this week but I forgot to write it down”. At least now I have my students thinking in the right direction and they are buying in.
What I did not expect, quite honestly, was how this new routine has taken a burden off of me a bit. We all worry about our students, try to produce our best concerts, and balance the in-between. Since starting my new logs I now have an open dialogue with my students that includes more than just practicing. We talk about how to be a human! We talk about how to recover from a loss; what to do when we feel out of control; and how to celebrate our success which is equally as important. After all, they’re little humans, right? They need to know that when you know better, you do better. And when you do better, you feel better by being in control.
And when it comes to practice logs, now that I know better, I’m doing better, too.
If you like this practice log, you can purchase it here or visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store for more practice logs and tools for teaching music!
