First Lesson Reflection

This first lesson was an eye-opener.  Especially since I have done this kind of thing before in an individual setting, but a group setting is almost more like a performance in a way.  Routine, routine, keep it simple: with one or two goals at most.  Also, I would like to ask more questions, should have thought of that before.  “How many pieces do you see?”  Oh, about fifteen.  Then perhaps “What do they look like?”  Another thing that Brandt suggested that struck me was explaining things from the kid’s prospective, like "Here's a piece of the instrument with three holes on one side, hold it like this, with three fingers on the three holes. “  This makes a lot of sense in hind sight.  I also got some good suggestions from my fellow students.   Yes, I do need to loosen up a bit.  I also thought of just putting the reed on the mouthpiece, practice making an embouchure, and make some sounds.  At the suggestion of my daughter’s band teacher here in New Haven I thought twice about that, though.  She doesn’t allow her students to take the instruments home until the second week of lessons, until she is sure all students can properly assemble the instrument without damaging it.  In the first week of lessons they work on instrument assembly, then making the first sound on the mouthpiece/barrel combination.  Only once they have accomplished these tasks can the students take the instruments home.  I realize this policy has complications, although I imagine these are issues one establishes more firmly when one has some experience building a program.