Lessons

This morning I sat down in front of five middle school trombone players and said, "Today we're going to learn the Bb scale. It's what the band uses to warm up, and after today you'll be able to join them."

35 minutes later, all five of them were able to name the notes and positions, and play the scale from memory. Will they remember it tomorrow? Maybe not ... it takes a while to learn scales for the first time. They probably won't remember all the positions or notes that they were able to rattle off to quickly this morning, and it might take them a little while to recall the sound and feel of moving your slide to match the Bb scale. That's okay; it's not my goal to have them ready for a regional audition by next week, but just to learn how to play a little bit on the horn.

So I was sitting at the end of the lesson thinking about this and starting to set some new goals for the whole semester (all five players are new to the instrument) when something amazing happened. One of the boys was slouching and put his feet up on the chair in front of him, about to bring his horn up to play. Before I could correct him, the boy sitting next to him said, "Hey, sit up. Back straight, feet on the floor. That way you'll be able to breathe better." The first boy asked him why ... and the second boy responded, "Jeremy said so. And he's right. That's how we're supposed to sit."

It might have been trivial, and it might have been something that I could have said myself, but watching a student pass on something I'd taught them ...

There are some things that just make your heart happy, you know?



Happy Wednesday.