3-20-12 BHS observation/practicum

1. I observed and lead a warm-up for Mr. Certalic's Camerata orchestra (a group of high schools, the majority of whom are juniors and seniors) at BHS during one of their rehearsals.
2. I think the biggest management issue I notices was when the students needed their etude and fiddle tune books and it probably took at least 5 to 7 minutes for everyone to get a book and get re-settled. This could probably be remedied by having more than one storage area for the books (for example keep violins, violas, and celli books in different areas so there is a little less of a stack-up.)  Also, I will definitely want to plan ahead so they have those books at the beginning of class and avoid the disruption.
3. The learning goals of Mr. Certalic's warm-ups are the foundations of everything that he does in orchestra. They are all founded on improving the basic tenants of string playing (intonation, tone, and technique) The call and response exercise that I led was meant to work on ear training development.
4. The variety of warm-ups that Mr. Certalic has is incredible. The etude book is a collection of many of the best traditional etudes for different stringed instruments arranged for an orchestral group. The collection of fiddle tunes is a great way to bring in some American culture/a style outside of western art music and to also work on improvisation which is often a skill that is neglected in the education of orchestra students.
5. I think it is really wonderful that these students are learning the importance of different warm-ups to develop their technique. I think one of the main things that I would add is that time on scales needs to be divided between working very slowly and carefully for accurate intonation as well as developing speed and agility.