Help Needed: Best Way to Present Tuba Student Progress Visually?

[Inkin]

Out of curiosity, what do you put in your spreadsheet? What data do you find interesting to track to represent student progress?

My initial gut reaction to this was that feels like hard data is anethema to art. As a baseball fan, the numbers explosion of the past 25 years has been interesting and eye opening and honestly I felt pretty bad about it in the beginning too, but now it is pervasive and normal. Still I couldn't really fathom applying that to music. There is a huge distance between a little notebook that says "Bordogni #3" and a list of dates and hard data fed into charts/dashboards. I know my kids complain about MusicFirst as some sort of software they have to use in school for band. Is there useful data out of things like that? I've always assumed it was just a way for one band director to manage so many students while maintaining the rest of the band program. I've never thought of it as _good_.

[gocsick]

One silver star when they can Oom and a gold one for Pah.

Seriously though... from a pedagogical standpoint (of course I don't teach music).. I've only found progress charts like those to be practical for tasks that could be quantified in some way. Probably good for keeping track of daily practice and what skills were practiced but not really assessing progress.

[Inkin]

Weird. I guess I should have quoted the original post that is suddenly gone. It looks like I'm replying out of nowhere! There was an original post in here asking about using Tableau or other chart/dashboard tools for tracking student progress. Honest.

[arpthark]

Weird. I guess I should have quoted the original post that is suddenly gone. It looks like I'm replying out of nowhere! There was an original post in here asking about using Tableau or other chart/dashboard tools for tracking student progress. Honest.

It was some link to a weird Indian website. I think the OP was an AI text spambot.

[Inkin]

Ha. I didn't even click on the poorly formatted link thing. Just thought the text was interesting. I guess I'm sucker!

[russiantuba]

I would be VERY cautious about this, and personally, goes against a lot I believe, and I will share part of my teaching philosophy.

At the end of my DMA, when I was entering my first adjunct job, a local non-music educator (his father in law is a world renown euphonist) and brass band tubist told me that I should adopt the British model, where I have specific solos and exercises per semester of study that students have to play. This actually bothered me a ton, because it caused me to have a flashback to my undergraduate. When I entered, I had good ability to get around the horn, good range, etc (I would say good technique by most definition, but to what I define that now with perfect clarity, I have re-named it). I remember my 2nd jury piece, I did the Gregson (2 movements), and it was a great fit. However, the first semester, my teacher, a wind band conductor and trombonist, gave me the Lebedev, and I struggled making music out of it (favorite piece to teach musicality on now). She was using a handout from the 1970s similar to this, and she was confused that I was able to do a piece on the junior level list but struggled with something on the freshman level. Also, 9 etudes a week on top of that assigned.

As I have taught more, there is no 1 piece fits all method. I recently had a high school sophomore trombonist play the DeMeij T-Bone Concerto, did amazing, but he would struggle with the David Concertino. I normally assign works that are a a bit higher, that addresses one (or a few) weakness to achieve, or shows a lack in their fundamentals.

To answer the question--I guess you could quantify scales, like by sophomore year 3rd semester (barrier exam), you have to have all major and 3 forms of minor scales at 1 octave for music education majors, no slower than quarter = 80 performed in quarter notes, and have a scale progress chart to track that, assigning new ones of the minors that progressively get harder.

One of my goals as a teacher, part of my philosophy, is to strengthen musical awareness. Basically, I attempt to make the student hear what I am hearing by asking questions, giving a couple bits of advice to get there, but having them hear from a sound/aural perspective, and get them to master it, while moving the mastery bar, like a dog trying to chase a bone, but since it is being pulled, that they won't ever get. However I do want them to experience success, and what good should sound like. Ultimately, I want a student to hear what I am hearing, be able to be their own teacher, and experience success. Each journey is personal and shouldn't be made to fit a mold. Presenting it visually WILL make them feel they aren't living to expectations, when they might be exceeding overall.

Going back to the original question--to measure progress visually and aurally, here is what I require on senior students' recitals at minimum. Some areas may be combined

--1 major or significant work originally written for tuba
--a piece composed or in the style in a different era (Baroque, Classical, etc)
--a piece arranged or self composed by the performer that highlights the adaptability of the tuba, presented on music notation software (I urge many to combine this with a different style of piece, to give employers a physical and aural product of their work and arranging knowledge through technological application).
--1 piece that is performed unaccompanied or with fixed media accompaniment (or live media, but I don't have the expertise to do the live part of it)
--tubists who have an F tuba must play at least 1 work on the contrabass tuba
--euphonists should play a theme and variations solo
--tenor trombonists must play a piece on either alto or bass trombone
--highly encouraged but not required--a piece that showcases their instrument in a style that isn't classical.

[bloke]

It seems to me that structured studio teaching has the advantage of setting a minimum level of progress, but also the advantage of being able to un-harness those who progress much faster.

I myself spent my freshman year in college catching my tuba playing level up to my level of guitar playing, once I realized that tuba playing could pay more money than guitar playing and consciously decided to de-emphasize the guitar and emphasize the tuba playing. I zipped through several fairly formidable etude books and standard solos (far fewer for tuba at that time than now, but some of the same ones as now still at the top of the list existed at that time, and I also soon discovered cello and bass trombone solos.. it took me a couple more years to discover oboe solos.). To their credit, my tuba studio teacher understood what I was doing, and turned me loose. I brought in way more material than they assigned, until they realized that I was going to continue to do that so they simply assigned it. They didn't offer me any more studio time than that for which I was signed up, but quickened the pace of them - adjusting them for the pace at which I was preparing material.

If everyone has a list of requirements expected by each semester, those who don't have any trouble meeting them should surely have the liberty to move on at their own quicker pace, both to accomplish as much as they can or choose to accomplish, and to avoid being bored and discouraged, yes?

I only taught at the college level for two years at two different universities. It's not for me. (Perhaps I unrealistically expected students to be as enthusiastic as was I?). At one of those schools I had a student who could almost play as well as I could. I suspect if they had owned a slightly easier to play instrument, they could have easily surpassed me. The thing is that they weren't even a music major and were just taking lessons every semester because they were really a fine tuba player and they loved playing. They loved improving, and they loved playing in the band as well as the school orchestra, which was a good one.

Had I not decided to leave the job, had this person been a music and music performance major, and had they surpassed my personal playing ability and personal level of insight to be able to help them to improve, I believe I would have suggested that they audition to transfer to another school with a teacher who played better than I did and had more insights than I had.

I personally never studied with a violinist or a vocalist (I think I've probably never had the courage to do so, knowing how little I know and how much really fine violinists and really find vocalists know) but I have studied with wind instrumentalists who are not tuba players, and who spend more time playing melodies and being conscious of phrasing. I sort of think I have the tuba thing mostly figured out, but I don't think any of us ever completely have the music thing figured out.

[gocsick]

Had I not decided to leave the job, had this person been a music and music performance major, and had they surpassed my personal playing ability and personal level of insight to be able to help them to improve, I believe I would have suggested that they audition to transfer to another school with a teacher who played better than I did and had more insights than I had.

I am not sure I follow your logic here.. Great coaches don't always have to be great athletes.. Great editors don't have to be great writers.. Teachers can offer insights and help others.. even when their students ability exceeds their own.

My son meet with David Zerkle a few months back while checking out UM.. He offhandedly said his best students can play rings around him...

[bloke]

Let me just say that I really don't want to escalate a disagreement in pedagogical attitudes into an argumentative type of discussion, and I certainly don't want to argue (as I'm not looking for an argument in the first place) with someone who's only being quoted and who isn't participating.

The only thing I will add to sort of defend my position is that - were music able to be completely described in words - that there would be no need for music to exist.

OK... I'll add one more thing:
I was studying with - let's just say - a name guy in the past once every month or two when I could manage to get together with them. One time, I took along someone who I was sort of both mentoring in repair work as an employee and also somewhat as a tuba player. I invited them along on one of those trips to keep me company and to keep me awake. They were allowed to audit the lesson. In the car on the way back, one of the first things they said was, "wow... You sound a lot better than ____________" to which I replied that the only reason it seemed that way to them was because they don't know any better, and to name one thing my teacher demonstrated on their instrument (after briefly explaining with words) that was something I was already doing. Of course, the traveling companion was unable to name anything.