Woodwinds: Perform Understand Teach

<p><em>The Woodwinds: Perform Understand Teach</em> provides comprehensive coverage about the woodwind family of musical instruments for prospective instrumental music teachers. What sets this book apart is its focus on <em>how</em> <em>to teach</em> the instruments. Preparing students in the <i>how </i>of teaching is the ultimate goal of the woodwind class and the ultimate goal of this book which organizes information by its use in teaching beginning instrumentalists.</p><p>In developing performance and understanding pre-service teachers are positioned to learn to <em>teach through performance</em>--contrasted with an old-school belief that one must first spend much time tediously trying to understand how things work <em>before</em> playing the instruments.</p><p>The book is organized in three parts: Preliminaries Teaching the Instruments and Foundations. Chapters in Teaching the Instruments are organized by instrument (flute clarinet saxophone oboe bassoon) and within each instrument according to how an effective teacher might organize experiences for novice learners. Basic embouchure and air stream are covered first followed by instrument assembly then hands and holding. Embouchure coverage returns in greater depth then articulation and finally the mechanism which includes sections on the instruments of the family transposition range special fingerings tuning and intonation and reeds. In Foundations topics are situated in big picture contexts calling attention to the broad applicability of information across instruments.</p>