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    Field Guide to String Education: Intonation
    Field Guide to String Education: Intonation
    Field Guide to String Education: Intonation
    Ebook77 pages2 hours

    Field Guide to String Education: Intonation

    By Matthew Spieker

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    About this ebook

    Field Guide to String Education: Intonation is written for the music teacher who has the privilege of teaching strings. Dr. Matthew H. Spieker is an experienced classroom educator who offers insight and advice that works.
    A genuine field guide is a small handbook that can fit in a pocket and be used as a quick reference to help someone identify plants and animals in nature. They are compact, easy to use, informative, and they make the experience of nature more enjoyable. In this same spirit, I hope you find these field guides as useful to help you teach stringed instruments to kids. They are written to provide you with brief, power-packed bits of information you can apply quickly to your classroom. It is my wish these field guides will transform your teaching.
    One of the most challenging performance aspects of stringed instruments is playing in tune. It's crazy that the instruments don't have frets! But this seemingly design flaw doesn’t mean the fingerboard has no organization, or there are no guideposts about where to put fingers. And, believe it or not, young musicians can learn to, and do, play in tune. The evidence is overwhelming. Simply watch some YouTube videos, and you will find youth orchestras that play with amazing intonation. Of course, some do not. So, the question remains: How do you get kids to play in tune?
    This field guide is about intonation. It begins with a chapter on teaching students how to tune their own instruments. The discussion then turns to hand frames (finger patterns), which is the basis for understanding which finger is needed to play specific notes. After that, many teaching tips are offered to help you teach kids to know where the right spot is on the instrument to be in tune. Ensemble tuning ideas are next, followed by general teaching tips about intonation.
    My String Coach
    In the early 2000s, a group of students called me "coach." At first it annoyed me a little, as I never saw myself as a coach. But they liked it, and there are far worse things they could call me. Then it occurred to me that coaching is a major part of my role as a music educator.
    Tom Landry was one of the all-time best coaches in the NFL. He led the Dallas Cowboys to 20 consecutive winning seasons, 13 division titles, 5 NFC titles, and 2 Super Bowl wins. He once was asked about his secret to coaching. He said, "Make them [the players] do what they don't want to do, so that they will become what they want to be."
    I have learned that much of what I do in the classroom is to make students do important things that they aren't happy about, so that when they perform on stage, they can feel that amazing sense of accomplishment. Teaching is difficult. It can be a grind and feel thankless, but it’s also tremendously rewarding and important. If I can help teachers make the journey a bit easier, then I feel like I am contributing positively to the profession.
    My String Coach (MSC) is dedicated to helping teachers in the profession of string education. This is accomplished through three aspects:
    •String Education Field Guides
    •MSC Youth Editions
    •MSC Teaching Materials

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMatthew Spieker
    Release dateJul 20, 2020
    ISBN9781005674502
    Field Guide to String Education: Intonation
    Author

    Matthew Spieker

    Matthew H. Spieker has been a music educator for 30 years and has taught all levels of orchestra and general music in U.S. school districts of South Carolina and Colorado. From 2005 to 2007, Dr. Spieker taught at the John F. Kennedy Schule in Berlin, Germany and he currently teaches at Ball State University as an assistant professor of music education with an emphasis on string/orchestral education.Dr. Spieker’s school ensembles performed several times at Colorado’s state music convention and received numerous superior ratings at large group music festivals. They also toured Germany and Austria and received wonderful reviews and created lifelong friendships with students and teachers at the German Sinfonie Orchester der Musikschule Lüchow-Dannenberg.Dr. Spieker is a guest clinician, adjudicator, and an orchestral all state/honor orchestra conductor throughout the United States. He also worked abroad in cities including Brussels, Vienna, Geneva, and Beijing, and since 2000, Dr. Spieker has been the conductor of the Internationales Orchester Camp in Lüchow, Germany.As a clinician, Dr. Spieker speaks to issues concerning string pedagogy, classroom culture/environment, recruiting, motivation, and more. He has presented at numerous state conferences and nationally at several American String Teacher’s Association (ASTA) National Conferences, National Association for Music Education (NAfME) Directors’ Academy, Society for Music Teacher Education (SMTE), and the Midwest Clinic in Chicago. Dr. Spieker is also an Educational Clinician for Conn-Selmer (https://education.conn-selmer.com/en-us/education)Published articles include state music journals of Alabama and Oregon. National articles include NAfME’s Teaching Music, General Music Today, Research Issues & Music Education, and Journal of Historical Research in Music Education. Dr. Spieker’s research interests include string pedagogy, classroom culture/environment, figurative language, youth string musicians’ health, and music education history.Dr. Spieker has been involved with professional communities of ASTA (American String Teachers Association), NAfME (National Association of Music Education), IMEA (Indiana Music Educators Association), CMEA (Colorado Music Educators Association), AMEA (Arizona Music Education Association), AMIS (Association of Music in International Schools) and CMS (College Music Society).Most current projects involve Ball State collaboration with the local Youth Symphony Orchestras of East Central Indiana in which pre-service teachers are gaining teaching experience by working with YSOECI. Also, both BSU and YSOECI are actively volunteering in the community by teaching string instruments to students at Motivate our Minds, which is an after-school program for children in the Muncie community.The best part of Dr. Spieker’s life is being a husband to Roberta, father to Brittney and Lyndsey, and now Grandad (Grumps) to his grandchildren.

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      Book preview

      Field Guide to String Education - Matthew Spieker

      String Education Field Guide: Intonation

      Matthew H. Spieker

      Distributed by Smashwords

      Copyright 2020 Matthew H. Spieker

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter 1 - Tuning String Instruments

      Chapter 2 - The Right Finger

      Chapter 3 - The Right Spot

      Chapter 4 - Ensemble Tuning

      Chapter 5 - Teaching Ideas

      About Matthew H. Spieker

      My String Coach

      Connect with the Author

      Welcome

      Welcome to a portion of my collection of Field Guides for String Educators. Thank you for purchasing this eBook and helping me make it possible to be a string coach to those who want to improve as a string teacher. I am eager to share my experiences with you, and I wish you the best as you pursue this amazing profession of string education.

      A genuine field guide is a small handbook that can fit in a pocket and be used as a quick reference to help someone identify plants and animals in nature. They are compact, easy to use, informative, and they make the experience of nature more enjoyable. In this same spirit, I hope you find these field guides as useful to help you teach stringed instruments to kids. They are written to provide you with brief, power-packed bits of information you can apply quickly to your classroom. It is my wish these field guides will transform your teaching.

      Intonation is Difficult to Teach

      One of the most challenging performance aspects of stringed instruments is playing in tune. It's crazy that the instruments don't have frets! But this seemingly design flaw doesn’t mean the fingerboard has no organization, or there are no guideposts about where to put fingers. And, believe it or not, young musicians can learn to, and do, play in tune. The evidence is overwhelming. Simply watch some YouTube videos, and you will find youth orchestras that play with amazing intonation. Of course, some do not. So, the question remains: How do you get kids to play in tune?

      As an undergraduate, we had a professor in the string department who scared us. He was an adjunct instructor who already had a career teaching string bass in Illinois. He had an impressive background with multiple high-level performances, articles in professional journals, and even an orchestral experience with Leonard Bernstein directing. He was from New York and talked lightning fast. Nobody liked playing juries in front of him, and many of my bass friends shared horror stories about the consequences for not paying attention in his lessons.

      Fast forward about a decade after graduation. I accepted a position as the newly minted orchestra director for a storied program. I was excited and ready for the challenge but also scared and intimidated. The same bass professor, now retired, offered to take me out for breakfast, his treat. I was nervous but glad I went. He was nothing like the man I heard about as an undergraduate, but rather incredibly kind and eager to help me become a better teacher. My main instrument is violin, so I took the opportunity to ask him about the bass.

      The subject of intonation came up, and I shared with him my ideas. Getting kids to play in tune is one of the hardest things to do, I insisted. He listened but wrinkled his large nose, shook his shaggy head of hair, seemingly in disapproval, and finally interrupted me. Intonation is easy, he said. You simply need to put the right finger on the right spot. I walked away from that breakfast thinking, really, is it that simple? His statement does boil down the concept well. First, you need to know which finger is the correct finger; and second, you need to know the correct placement. This is what my eBook is all about, along with a few more ideas!

      Back to top

      Chapter One – Tuning String Instruments

      Introduction

      Tuning string instruments can be tricky for the student to learn and frustrating for the instructor to teach. It

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