Standard #1: Learner Development
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In music classrooms, every learner develops differently. Part of my experience as an educator hinges around experience working 1 on 1 with students in addition to seeing them in group settings - only through the ability to see students through different stages of development can an educator gain a holistic picture of what they need and how to best show up for them.
In demonstration of my experience working with students across developmental stages, I have collected here three virtual recital videos performed by my percussion student Mai. I taught Mai for a period of five years, and recorded performance videos throughout most of that time as she matured as a performer. These are the three most recent, from the past year. I hope that through observing these videos you may get a sense of her technical progression and development as a learner.
"Rain Dance" - Alice Gomez
This piece is a staple in marimba literature for students just beginning to play with 4 mallets. It is one of the easiest academic pieces for budding high-school marimbists wanting to study advanced literature, and Mai did a great job with it. This piece is not too adventurous, and represents a standard foundation of curriculum in our lessons before adding more individualized, advanced pieces to Mai's repertoire.
"Conversation" by Akira Myoshi
This suite presented numerous musical technical challenges for Mai. It is written "atonally," or without a "nice-sounding" sense of harmony, making each note harder to internalize and conceptualize as part of a bigger picture. Mai did a great job with this piece, especially with the middle, slower movement. However, there still exist so many aspects of technique to be improved upon with this piece - since Mai chose this piece, it represented her first real piece of "her own" repertoire, not something I picked for her. It is more advanced - it requires stronger technique and more agility at the instrument, which was a struggle in our lessons. Mai matured considerably as a performer with this piece, gaining skills she would use in future pieces.
"Periwinkle Mountain" by Sean MacCarthy-Grant
This was the final piece Mai and I studied together. It is a piece I wrote for her specifically, titled after the mountain range close to where she lives, and tailored to her development as a musician. It is my view that this performance is the best she ever played the piece - and I am exceedingly proud at how much work was put in. While not perfect by any means, her interpretation of this piece showed strong levels of technical skill and a very clear musical direction.
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