Recently in my Secondary Methods class at UB our professor had us teach the first five minutes of an introductory band lesson. The scenario was we were the teachers and our professor was the fifth grade student.
The first thing I did in my mock band lesson was introduce myself and learn the name of my “student”, Brandt. I didn't spend any time making small talk, but instead I got right down to business and we opened up his instrument case.
I told Brandt that it is important to open the case on the ground and showed him how to do this right side up. The next thing that I explained to Brandt was the two main parts of his instrument; the trumpet and the mouth piece. I told him that our objective was to make a sound and that the way sound is produced with the trumpet is called “buzzing the mouthpiece”.
Next I had Brandt copycat what I was doing with my lips. I loosely blew a raspberry, tightly made a buzz, and tried a couple of other variations. Brandt picked up on this very quickly and mimicked what I did with my embouchure. Once I got him to make the right lip buzz I told him,"Great job, that's the sound we want!" I also explained to him that I am not principally a trumpet player and that we are both learning.
The next thing we did was assemble the mouthpiece to the trumpet. Luckily he already knew how to hold his instrument, so I did not have to instruct him for this procedure. Once he had his trumpet assembled I had Brandt buzz his lips on the mouthpiece again and he was successful in making his “first sound."
This was a hilarious class activity and very helpful. It was great to observe my classmates teach and see some of their strategies. I will never forget this lesson and will definitely use some of the information that I learned in my own music classes one day.
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