Foundation

When I’m teaching bass in orchestra programs, I often feel like I’m trying to build a house without a foundation. As I see it, there are two main reasons for this:

First, we’re teaching kiddos to play musical instruments before we’ve invested time building their inner musical foundation (i.e. their audiation).

Second, we’re expecting kiddos to perform rep with advanced techniques before we’ve invested time building their technical foundation.

In order to address these issues, I’ve begun to teach my lessons and classes with four different learning blocks: audiation, tunes, technique, and repertoire.

I sequence each of these blocks independently of each other, so that my students develop these skill sets not in sequence, but in parallel.

This allows me to address a student’s immediate needs for their upcoming concert, while simultaneously building the musical and technical fundamentals that build to that concert.