Abstract
Teachers often have a unique philosophy and teaching style based on the sum of their learning experience. That experience may include contact with their teachers, colleagues and students. When a student comes in contact with a large number of teachers, he has more source material from which to draw in his own teaching. The purpose of this document is, to present an in-depth descriptive narrative of individual lessons taught by university clarinet professors, highlighting their teaching style and philosophy and to provide a biography and personal interview. This study aims to bring light to the teaching philosophy, application of that philosophy, character and content of instruction, and interaction between student and professor. It is not the purpose of this study to comment on the validity of individual teaching styles, but rather to shed light on that style. This allows the reader to examine a collection of pedagogical approaches to the clarinet. The qualitative methodology used in this study included the observation of two lessons and a personal interview with each participant. The participants include Deborah Chodacki, Howard Klug, Frank Kowalsky, Richard MacDowell, Fred Ormand, Robert Spring, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, John Weigand, and their respective students. The delimitation of this study is that all the professors have had at least ten years of university teaching experience. Students may increase their knowledge and understanding of clarinet playing and performance by applying concepts learned from this study. Inexperienced teachers, while forming their own teaching style and environment, might do well to emulate a more experienced teacher, and more experienced teachers might broaden and enhance their own lesson content and style.
|
