I was thinking about volunteering to teach some basic tinwhistle playing as a short (six session) minicourse for elementary school kids…then it occured to me that I have absolutely no experience with teaching music to complete beginners (in high school, I helped out with some elementary school band rehersals, but that was mostly just sitting and playing with the kids and showing them a few notes they didn’t know) and I’m not sure six weeks would be long enough to even teach one tune.
So…
Do you think that teaching some basic music stuff to little kids would be terribly difficult?
Do you think six sessions isn’t enough time to get anywhere, so it’s a bad idea?
If the idea seems feasible at all but I’m not ready to do it at this point, I guess I can always hold off and do it later…
You should try it if only to satisfy your own curiousity. It may turn out great, it may be a total disaster, or it could be somewhere in between. You’ll never really know by reading what we have to say but I’ve always felt teaching is more of an art than a science, although there is a bit of a mixture.
Go for it,
Sandy
I think teaching kids is a wonderful idea!! I’m sure it would be harder with a group of kids, but I was able to teach my 6 year old niece a couple simple tunes in one afternoon. Mary Had a Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (not Irish, but easy for her to recognize when she had it right). It took some time, but what I did was make drawings of the whistle with the holes covered on each note. I hope you do this, there’s not much better than the look on a kid’s face when they feel like they’ve accomplished something. Good luck
Idea: Offer the class to homeschoolers.
Benefits:
-they usually have better schedules to work with
-they will be more able to redirect and replace interests with something else should you crash and burn, unlike school kids who could just be left with nothing after 6 weeks of work
-you’ll have more adults to assist while you are learning the ropes
-they are more likely to be self-selective, meaning the ones who come will be more likely to practice
-you’ll have a wider age-range, meaning you get built-in aides
-they’ll probably be more accepting of your learning curve
Just an idea. Considering your post, I thought it was a good match for the circumstances.
Give it a whirl! I’d avoid under 7s though - too many hand problems/motor skills issues in an unselected group - not impossible, especially if you use say, F whistles, but generally better chance of success for them as well as you with slightly older ones. Better communication skills of slightly older ones will also make them more capable of understanding your instructions. Also suggest max group size of 10 - you can’t watch and listen properly so you can give individual advice to more than that.
Sure you can teach at least a couple of tunes in 6 weeks/sessions, provided the sessions aren’t too short - and (well chosen) real tunes at that, not just nursery rhymes.
Regrettably, I don’t have any control over what kids will be taking the class. The community outreach/service organization at my college is just looking for people to teach “mini” courses to 5-11 year olds. All I know is that the kids are elementary school students, I will have some basic classroom resources/money to buy supplies avaliable and I will be working with someone else to teach the class (I haven’t figured out who yet, I’m thinking of finding an acquaintance that can sing…).
I’m slightly worried at by the age range because the five year olds will probably know nothing while the fourth graders will probably know some basic recorder stuff. Anyway, I have until Monday to decide…
There have been exceptions but my overall experience in teaching whistle has shown that kids pick it up much quicker than most adults. This is largely, I believe, because they don’t come into the class with any preconceived notions.
Just be sure to not set your expectations too high. Playing an instrument is not for everyone and not every kid in the class will take to it. For the rest, you may be planting a seed that will send them on a great musical journey so if you see one out of ten take to it then that is still a success. The rest of them should still come a way with a positive cultural experience.
I think you should be fine. Just don’t focus on dots too much or you might overwhelm the younger kids. The whistle’s an easy instrument. I once knew a five-year-old who played violin. Just try to make it fun and relaxed. I’ve found little kids get turned off by too much structure in music. Good luck!
i teach whistle to all types and ages of children. i find that 8 and older is pretty easy. six weeks would be fine for a few tunes, they learn very fast. i would start with some pretty easy tunes first like three blind mice, and twinkle little star. then for the last tune, maybe yankee doodle. soon they will be playing Danny Boy and Down by the Sally Gardens.
To start:
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (If I can find the music…I don’t know it)
or
Mary Had a Little Lamb (again, I need to find the music)
If they catch on a little:
Loch Lomand (at least the chorus, because they’ve probably heard it)
or
Bluebells of Scotland
or
The Foggy Dew
Tunes I’ll stay away from:
The Wearing of the Green (because of dotted quarter note-eighth note patterns)
Danny Boy (high B on a D whistle…it was a while before I could even hit that)
Jigs/Reels/Hornpipes (requires greater level of dexterity)
I think starting with the easy tunes is perfect. I have Twinkle, Mary, Puff the Magic Dragon, This Old Man, and and some others I can e-mail to you if you want them. They’re not Irish, but they all work with a D whistle and kids usually recognize them.
I tried to make tabs out of a midi for each of those and they were ridiculously complex. I know it must have been the midi composer because there is no need for them to be. Is there a site with notes or tabs for the basics like that?
It is true that young children+instruments can be scary, but let us remember that a whistle is not a recorder and is not known for the same destructive power seeing as the simple fingerings make it harder to play a note that is not a note (ie. screw up the fingering).
Since these are optional courses, you can probably assume that the kids want to be there - or at least want to be there more than they want to be in any other course at the time! And the educational research is pretty clear that it’s YOUR attitudes and expectations that have the major effect on what students will learn.
Unless you play a suitable other instrument yourself, I’d suggest working with a friend who can play any an instrument that can be heard underneath the whistle, so that the kids have something to listen for apart from each other.
The multiple age thing may be useful - a room full of stroppy 8-year-old boys would be trouble, but mixed ages moderates things, and you can use the older and/or faster ones to help the younger and/or slower ones.
At a summer school in Ireland, I’ve seen teachers take a group of kids from nothing to able to play six tunes (including Mary and Twinkle, Twinkle, of course) in a week. It might be worth having more tunes than you think you need prepared …
Based on what I’ve see others do, I’d suggest a polka as a way into Irish music as well. Something that they don’t know at all and have to learn be ear would be a good stretch for 'em.
This is true up to a point, but whistles share one problem with a recorder. If you blow too hard they go sharp (or too soft and they go flat). It takes a while to learn the breath control to play consistently in tune and until then, with everyone playing with slightly different breath pressure, you get some “interesting” effects.
It is this rather than the fingering difficulties that give the descant recorder a bad name.
I second that last point - though I’d add that too often kids have bad recorders inflicted on them - ones that are hard to blow and get to sound decent and are prone to squeaking even in the hands of competent players! Also, whistles are better in that regard - yes, they do fluctuate with breath pressure, but even cheap ones are less sensitive to that than recorders, and are also less prone to squeaking than even medium quality school level recorders.
