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Music expresses ideas that, many times, cannot be expressed with words.
Class Goals: Learning to play and perform on an instrument by progressively building on knowledge gained from each successive quarter. This course of study requires a commitment for the entire year so the student can make significant progress and proficiency on the instrument, while learning to play with the performing group.
Ask your child to play for you the music that he or she is preparing for our next concert. Ask what needs to be improved before it is ready to be performed. Help your child be specific in telling you about what needs to be improved and what is sounding good at this point. Personal practice time is an essential part of learning to play an instrument. Please make a friendly environment at home that encourages personal practice time on orchestra home work. If you live in an apartment where noise is a concern, practice mutes made of heavy rubber or heavy metal can be purchased to lessen the volume of sound heard.
Help students keep their instrument in good repair. Use humidifiers, electronic tuners, and/or the A = 440 cycles per second tuning fork. These are tools that are essential to an instrumentalist. If one cannot tune his or her own instrument, how can one play in tune? It is an essential skill that takes years to master and it is an ongoing process of refinement. Instruments, such as violin, viola cello and bass, do not have valves keys or frets. Because of this, they are tuned every time one's finger is pressed down onto the fingerboard. This gives the performer more expressive possibilities, but requires the student to be responsible for the sound produced. You may have heard before, that, with freedom comes responsibility. Therefore, with the freedom to change pitch so easily, instense concentration on tuning every note played is necessary and requires much personal practice. Because of this, I cannot over emphasize the importance of parents and guardians providing an encouraging environment for their children to practice regularly.
Because cello and basses are large instruments, players of these instruments need to have opportunity to take their instruments home and back to school via the automobiles of parents and guardians. Otherwise, they must walk home with the instrument so they can practice. Call me if you have questions or comments about this, or leave a message at the school for me to call you. I am also listed in the telephone directory.
Thankyou for all that you do for your children, my students.
Working for you and your children,
Robert Tornfelt
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