Building Musicianship in The Instrumental Classroom

Building Musicianship in the Instrumental Classroom
Oxford Handbooks Online

Robert A. Duke and James L. Byo

The Oxford Handbook of Music Education, Volume 1 (1 ed.)
Edited by Gary E. McPherson and Graham F. Welch
Print Publication Date: Aug 2012 Subject: Music, Music Education

Online Publication Date: Nov 2012 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199730810.013.0043
Abstract and Keywords
This article discusses instrumental teaching in the classroom, devoting special attention
to the development of musical expression in young learners. It considers how best to
cultivate expressive music-making, focusing on musical communication in children's first
experiences with wind and string instruments, a topic that has received little attention in
the literature to date.
Keywords: instrumental teaching, instrumental learning, musical instruments, musical expression, wind
instruments, string instruments, children
A school boy learning physics is a physicist, and it is easier for him to learn
physics by behaving like a physicist than doing something else.
Jerome Bruner (1960)
Our chapter is premised on a generalization of Bruner's proposition: that a novice in a

beginning instrument class is a musician, and it's easier for her to learn music by
behaving like a musician than by doing something else. The challenge for teachers of
beginning instrumentalists is to create experiences in which learners behave like
accomplished musicians every day in class.
Each year, many thousands of children all over the world begin formal music instrument
study. Many of their lessons are taught in teachers’ studios, in homes, and in other
environments with one teacher and one student present, an approach to music instruction
that has a long history extending across time and cultures.
Instrumental music is taught in group settings as well, but the nature of the teacher and
student interactions in group instruction varies widely among musical traditions. A more
recent context for beginning instrument instruction is the school music classroom, with
groups of children all learning together under the guidance (p. 713) of a teacher who
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provides direction and feedback as students play together as an ensemble, in small

groups, and individually. This type of class, which is most common in industrialized
societies with institutional school systems, presents particular challenges for teachers
trying to accommodate the needs of roomfuls of children with varied experiences who do
not all learn in the same ways or at the same rates.
In this chapter, we focus on this type of classroom instrument study, devoting special
attention to the development of musical expression in young learners. There are
numerous method books and instructional materials designed to teach the technical
aspects of instrument playing. We will not delve into those resources here. Our purpose
instead is to consider how best to cultivate expressive music-making, focusing attention
on musical communication in children's first experiences with wind and string
instruments, a topic that has received little attention in the literature to date.
It is undoubtedly the case that there are teachers of beginning classes who successfully
devote time and attention to the expressive aspects of music-making, though there are
virtually no published observational data that describe the extent to which expressive
music-making is addressed in beginning class instruction. Studies of the teaching of
expression in individual lessons have been undertaken (Laukka, 2004; Lindstrom, Juslin,
Bresin, & Williamon, 2003; West & Rostvall, 2003; Young, Burwell, & Pickup, 2003) and
generally have found that little attention is given to expressive music-making in the
lessons observed. Musical expression (i.e., conveying ideas and emotions to listeners) has
not been a prominent feature of most commercially available classroom materials written
for beginners, especially with regard to wind and percussion instruments (Byo, 1988;
Karlsson & Juslin, 2008).
Classes taught by teachers who give consistent attention to musical expression embody a
number of characteristics that are quite different from classes devoted primarily to the
technical demands of instrument playing. Our goal in this chapter is to describe the
essential elements that characterize instrument classes in which expressive music-
making is a prominent instructional goal—prominent in the minds of teachers and
students alike.
Why Continue?
It would be hard to imagine a music teacher who is not discouraged by the fact that only
a fraction of children who begin instrument study continue after their first years of
instruction and that an even smaller percentage continue to play throughout their adult
lives as avocational lovers of music-making. A remarkable illustration of the extent of
attrition in instrumental music is provided by data from the Public Education Information
Management System in the state of Texas in the United States. During the 1998–99
academic year, for example, approximately 98,000 sixth-graders were enrolled in
beginning band classes in Texas public schools. By (p. 714) the time the same students
were in twelfth grade, in the 2004–5 academic year, only 14,000 of them were still
enrolled in band. Attrition rates in Texas orchestra and choir classes during the same
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period were also near 85%. These numbers are not atypical for instrumental study in
public schools across the United States, unfortunately. Attrition rates in other countries
that provide school class instruction are not well documented.
Children enroll in beginning band or orchestra classes with the hopeful promise of being
able to make music like the musicians who have inspired them. It's not the physical skills
of instrument performance that attract most young learners to begin studying an
instrument; it's the music, the sounds that have the capacity to convey emotion, to excite,
to calm, to dazzle, to move (Campbell, Connell, & Beegle, 2007; Lum & Shehan Campbell,
2007).
There are many reasons why learners may decide to discontinue participation in activities
they have begun, of course (Gouzouasis, Henrey, & Belliveau, 2008; Hallam, 1998;
Hartley & Porter, 2009; Kinney, 2010). There are other demanding activities that compete
for their time; they find the new activities to be something other than they'd expected;
they don't like their teacher; they discover that their passions lie elsewhere. But it is also
true that many children who begin learning instruments spend a good deal of time and
effort laboring over basics of instrument playing that are practiced quite apart from the
basics of music-making. It seems a reasonable conjecture that many of the students who
drop out of instrument classes do so because of the time lag between the beginning of
instrumental study (i.e., how to play the thing) and the beginning of music-making (i.e.,
using the thing to make music).
We present in this chapter a view of instrumental music instruction that from the outset
focuses on the development of high-quality technical skills and the application of those
skills in expressive musicianship. Most published instrumental methods show children
how to hold their instruments, form embouchures and bow holds, and blow and strike and
bow, but the activities devoted to skill development are often practiced to the near
exclusion of activities devoted to musical expression. Expressive capacities of young
musicians are often held in abeyance far longer than is necessary, thus making beginning
instrument study something other than beginning music study.
Exploiting the Ways That Learners Learn

In school, in general, we teachers talk too much—way too much—which is perhaps
unsurprising, given the fact that verbal explanation is widely understood to be the
primary mechanism for teaching. We teach learners by telling them things and showing
them things while we tell them about what we’re showing them.
What seems greatly undervalued in formal instruction in all disciplines is

(p. 715)
strategically creating experiences for learners in which they work through well-designed
challenges in ways that deepen their understanding and skill. And overcoming challenges
is the way that all of us learned to do most everything we learned before we went to
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school: we watched, we listened, we imitated, we experimented, we failed, we got

frustrated, we experimented some more, we explored, we played…
We didn't learn to walk through explanations about weight distribution. We didn't learn to
speak through explanations about parts of speech and tense. We didn't learn to reach,
grasp, and bring something to our mouths to taste or chew through explanations about
proprioception and muscle contraction. We learned all of that through experimentation
that was highly goal-directed and error-ridden. We learned to walk all the while focusing
on wanting to get somewhere. We learned to reach and grasp while focused almost
entirely on getting enticing objects into our mouths. We learned to speak out of an
intense desire to tell someone else what we wanted and what we thought and how we felt
and what we knew.
It is well understood that all of these early learning experiences include very contingent
feedback (i.e., feedback that is consistently dependent on what we do), and that the
feedback shapes the development and refinement of behavior. More successful
locomotion reinforces increasing control and balance. More successful acquisition of
desired objects reinforces the refinement of motor programs involved in reaching and
grasping. And the responses of those around us, parents especially, reinforce the
development and refinement of language and other pathways of human communication.
But the important point we wish to emphasize in all of these early learning experiences is
the learners’ focus on the goals that the behaviors are intended to accomplish.
In formal instruction in school, attention to the ultimate goals of learning is often

forestalled with the thought in mind that novices are unable to deal with the complexities
of the skills and ideas they are working to master. So instead, learners’ attention is
directed toward a few aspects of new experiences that are certainly more immediately
accessible and in closer proximity to the learners’ levels of understanding and skill, but
are also devoid of the context provided by the subjects’ goals.
Educational institutions often rely on the promise that what children are taught in school
will become meaningful, even useful, eventually. But to teach from this perspective is to
ignore well-understood principles of memory formation and skill development. Effective
learning is context-dependent and goal-driven. And while it's certainly valuable use of a
young musician's time to play scales slowly while watching the needle on a tuner to learn
to compensate for the intonation tendencies of her instrument, to do so without
complementary opportunities to play melodies for listeners, mustering her tone
production and intonation skills to convey something effectively, convincingly, and
beautifully, is to distract her from the reasons for doing what she's doing.
Fluent native language speakers maintain the grammatical rules of their culture
(p. 716)
not because they can explain them, but because their long histories of hearing their
language spoken and seeing their language in printed text has led to their forming
expectations about what looks and sounds “right.” In fact, when individuals try to apply
disembodied rules rather than rely on what sounds correct according to their listening
histories, they often introduce technical mistakes into their own speech. Self-conscious
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speakers who seek to point out “the differences between he and I” are only the most
obvious of these offenders. No natural English speaker who reads a lot and is in the
presence of educated speakers would think to follow a preposition with the nominative
form of personal pronouns, but attempting to “speak correctly” by applying formal rules
(even rules that are misunderstood) is a far worse strategy than relying on one's vast
history of auditory experience.
There are good reasons to understand parts of speech. But to teach only the technical
aspects of word categories, absent the application of words to convey ideas, is to mislead
the learner about what he's doing. This way of teaching often requires the invention of
motivators to get children to do things that seem to them—quite reasonably, we think—to
have no point at all.
Of course, not every aspect of a learning experience can be contextualized from the start.
Some skills, like music instrument playing, involve such complexity that individual
components of the skills must be learned and practiced in ways that allow learners to
focus on developing the physical strength and coordination necessary to master them.
There is no substitute for this kind of deliberate attention to fundamental skill
development. In order to produce sounds that are pleasing and in tune and rhythmically
clear, all learners must devote considerable time to the nuts and bolts of deliberate skills
practice. But what all these developing skills are for is conveying musical ideas to
listeners. The reason for refining fundamental skills is that their refinement allows one to
make music beautifully, and notes that are out of tune or rhythmically misplaced or
inconsistent or strident make beautiful music impossible.
The challenge for the teacher is to balance the time and attention devoted to the
development of the physical skills necessary to make pleasing sounds and the
development of the expressive aspects of music-making. Instrumental technique is often
conceived as a prerequisite for effective music-making, and most would agree that it is.
The important question concerns how much of the “pre-” is required before the music
begins. Our point in this chapter is all about that.
It's understandable that a teacher trying to convey the fundamentals of instrument

playing to a room full of children may recoil at the suggestion that something more needs
to be added to everyone's attention. Young musicians certainly need to learn to adjust
their intonation, to begin and end notes on time, to play a true legato, and to follow
bowings that make it possible to phrase correctly. And it may seem that there is no room
in their thinking to consider anything else. All of us, regardless of the activity and
regardless of our levels of expertise, must devote concerted attention to the technical
details that can get in the way of what we’re trying to accomplish, be it writing
compelling prose or hitting away from outfielders (p. 717) or performing robotic surgery
or singing a beautiful melody. No great musician became great without a lot of serious
practice. But it's the contextualized application of the fundamentals and the errors that
the contextualization reveals that provide both direction and rationale for the practice.
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All learners come to beginning music instruction with a lifetime of music experiences, as
listeners certainly, but also as analyzers, movers, and singers. In a very real sense, then,
the students of beginning instrumental music instruction aren't beginners at all in terms
of their histories of experiencing music; they are, in many important ways, musical,
before ever stepping inside a school or a studio with the intention of learning how to play
an instrument. One key to making formal music instruction optimally effective is to
exploit learners’ extant, intuited knowledge of music's structure, function, and expressive
capacity. Our prescriptions for music instruction in class settings are informed by this
fact.
One of us was working with a young clarinet player who was struggling to work out a
difficult passage from a new piece and was playing an incomprehensible version of the
rhythm. When asked whether he'd ever heard music that sounded like that, he answered
no. When asked to play the passage the way he thought music usually goes, the rhythm
was immediately corrected, as he relied on what music sounds like and less on “how
many beats that note gets.”
A Vision of Students as Accomplished

Musicians
Planning any course of instruction must start with a clear, precise description of what
learners will be like at the end of the learning experience. When students complete their
lessons, finish the class, graduate from the institution, become independent adults, What
will they do? What will they think? and How will they feel? These questions help focus
attention on the purpose of the time, effort, and energy invested in teaching and learning,
and they serve to remind teachers of what all their efforts and the efforts of their
students are for.
This departs somewhat from the now-well-engrained phraseology of “what learners

should know and be able to do” that permeates curricula and standards documents (e.g.,
Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, 1994). Although our definition of
instructional goals may seem like so much ivory-tower hairsplitting, we believe that the
know-and-be-able-to-do kind of goal setting is fundamentally inadequate, first because it
ignores learners’ attitudes (how learners feel), and second because it focuses only on
what learners are able to do in the future, which is fundamentally and importantly
different from what learners actually do in the future.
Effective learning experiences extend well beyond merely providing information or

demonstrating the technical elements of skills. Effective learning experiences (p. 718)
increase the capacities of learners to engage in meaningful behavior and accomplish
valued goals. Precisely describing accomplished learners (i.e., learners who become what
teachers, parents, and institutions intend for them to become) provides a clear, vivid
image of what the instruction is supposed to be about. It allows teachers to articulate
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what they intend to accomplish—where they intend for their students to arrive—before
they embark on leading them there.
The Fundamentals of Instrument Playing and

Music Performance
Of course, a learner's capacity to express himself effectively is constrained by his ability
to control the instrument he is playing. And success in playing an instrument expressively
is entirely determined by a mastery of fundamental skills. There is a reason to play with a
consistent, resonant tone, to play in tune, to articulate clearly: doing so is required to
effectively convey your ideas to listeners through your music. Note that this emphasizes
that the goal is centered on what reaches the ears of listeners. Skilled instrumentalists’
attention doesn't stop at their embouchures or at their fingers or their bow holds or at the
ends of their bells. Their attention extends to the human beings with whom they wish to
communicate.
The fundamental skills that an aspiring instrumentalist must learn to master are
surprisingly few in number and very easy for most individuals (even novices, even very
young children) to understand. Expert musicianship is characterized by the following:
• Optimally relaxed position of the body and instrument

• Beautiful tone
• Intonation
• Note accuracy
• Rhythmic precision
• Clear articulation
• Dynamic variation
• Expressive inflection
With the exception of tone production and intonation (inextricably bound together), which
require the development of specific musculature and coordination, none of these skills is
especially difficult to learn. What's difficult is executing all of them at the same time in
the context of music-making. Musicians who are capable of demonstrating all of these
skills on an instrument can use that instrument to create music that conveys ideas and
emotions to listeners. Weaknesses in any one of the skills listed above are impediments to
successful communication. These skills aren't the music; they allow the translation of
musical intentions into music.
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(p. 719) Habit Formation

The development of human skills in any domain involves increasing the habit strength
among the constellation of behaviors each skill engages. Most of our behavior throughout
the course of our daily lives is not governed by conscious control but by highly
automatized responses to environmental circumstances. Even though we may consciously
intend to “drive to the office” or “scramble some eggs,” the intellectual and behavioral
components that lead to the realization of those goals are most often not a part of
conscious deliberation.
This raises the question, then, of how to develop such automaticity in the behavior of
novices who are attempting to master a psychomotor skill as complex as music
instrument playing. One understandable strategy is to “break down” the complex skill
into component parts that are easily manageable by beginners. Doing so is
understandable because it's clear at the outset that novices are mostly incapable of
negotiating all of the many details of thought and action required to play an instrument.
Doing so is disadvantageous because it often unnecessarily decontextualizes component
skills of music-making, and fluent application of skills is highly context-dependent.
It is well understood that the creation of sustainable, flexible, generalizable memories in

every domain is facilitated by applying intellectual and physical skills in a variety of
contexts. Although it may seem paradoxical at first, experiences that involve error and
error correction are more valuable than are experiences that involve only carefully
scripted, highly guided experiences with predictable outcomes.
Forming fluent, flexible habits is advantaged by using what you know and trying out what
you can do in ways that vary from time to time. All musicians who are efficient practicers
know this well. Efficient practice involves variations in tempo, timing, phrase shape, or
inflection. Researchers who study the encoding, retention, and retrieval of skill memories
know this, too. Variations in practice parameters, even though they tend to create more
error during practice, also lead to more lasting and generalizable procedural memories.
Thus, the development of skill components that are highly interconnected requires the
deft interleaving of compartmentalized component practice with instances of application
that require the combination of skill components in authentic tasks that are limited
enough in their demands to permit the successful application of the component skills.
Implementation—Conditions of Effective
Learning Experiences
We turn now to structuring instrumental classes that satisfy the conditions we’ve
described above and that foster the kind of thinking and behavior that leads to the
development of skillful, meaningful, and satisfying music-making. To illustrate (p. 720) our
points, we outline three essential elements of effective learning experiences: ongoing
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learner self-evaluation, high-quality modeling, and a well-sequenced repertoire of

melodies. There are other aspects of classroom instruction that we will not address in this
brief chapter, but the three we explain here are far-reaching, and their absence creates
tremendous impediments to effective music learning.
Self-Evaluation
A central feature of fine musicianship is highly developed auditory discrimination. Expert
musicians listen to the sounds they produce and form judgments about them that lead to
adjustments in their motor behavior in the present and guide their practice in the future.
To become a musician is to become an astute listener. Classroom instruction, then, must
provide guided practice in listening as much as it provides guided practice in making
sounds.
The goal in each class meeting should not only be to change each learner's performance
(for the better, of course) but also to change each learner's perception of her own
performance. If learners must rely on the teacher to indicate what sounds good and what
does not, and what needs to happen next after every performance trial, then there is little
that learners can do on their own time in individual practice. And individual practice is
where the most progress is likely to be made. This has implications for both refinement of
skill and motivation.
Learning is error correction. And the extent to which learners are motivated to expend
time, effort, and attention is proportional to their dissatisfaction with the current state of
affairs and their confidence in their ability to change things for the better (self-efficacy).
Having students who will work to earn a positive evaluation from their teacher is
certainly helpful in developing musical skills, but it is ever more valuable when learners
recognize their own strengths and weaknesses and independently formulate realistic
plans to improve.
Most often teachers think of models as examples of quality that are external to the
learner. Consider also that models may include aspects of performance that the learner
can execute beautifully on his own. Even a rank beginner plays some notes with better
tone than others, so within his own capacity there is a basis for working during practice
to make his less-pleasing sounds more like his more-pleasing sounds, to make his clumsily
executed phrases more like his well-executed phrases. In these instances, the model isn't
the teacher or a recording of a revered artist; the model is the learner's own best work.
For this kind of experience to take place, teachers must conceive of their classes less like
ensemble rehearsals and more like groups of individual lessons taught all at the same
time, in which planning and decision-making about how to proceed are based as much on
the needs of individuals as on the needs of the group. (p. 721) Improving the skills of
individual learners within the group then builds a collective musicianship.
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In this kind of class, individual learners play alone and in small groups in class every day.
This does not mean that every student plays alone every day (especially when classes are
large), but that many students play alone and in small groups every day. Hearing
individuals and small groups creates rich opportunities for students to obtain feedback
from the teacher, from classmates, and from the sounds of their instruments, feedback
that is necessary if learners are to become increasingly discriminating about tone,
intonation, timing, and expression. The goal is to move novices from a mindset that
assumes that one sound is the same as the next to an awareness of differences, large and
small, among the sounds they produce.
Far from being too time-consuming for the teacher or intimidating for the students,
performances by individuals and small groups can be skillfully woven into the fabric of
class activities to the extent that they are part of the normal routine. When getting to
individuals is strategic, brisk, and productive, it is invigorating for everyone in the room.
Modeling
The advantage of having an excellent musician for a music teacher is that he can behave
musically in your presence. Right there in the room, standing next to you. There is no
verbal explanation of “resonant tone” or “connected notes” that will provide for a learner
the same amount of information that is gained from hearing a teacher produce a resonant
tone in a legato melody on an instrument.
We often observe teachers trying desperately to teach by verbal remote control, from
across the room or on the podium, offering incessantly repeated advice to “take a big
breath” and “blow through the horn” and “firm your corners” and “look at your contact
point” and “raise your scroll” and “LISTEN!”—most often to little good effect. Of course,
there is almost nothing in the repertoire of human skills that is learned through verbal
instructions like this.
Expert teachers behave differently, directing learners’ attention to the central aspects of
the sounds they produce, guiding their listening, their thinking, and, ultimately, their
motor behavior. Through this ongoing practice in meaningful listening, learners begin to
associate the sounds of their instruments with the physical motions that produce those
sounds, all the while refining motor control in service to achieving intended auditory
goals.
Hearing good models from the start allows for advantageous auditory comparisons.
That's how my teacher sounds. This is how I sound. What's the difference? What can I do
to sound more like her? Expert teachers who play along with and in alternation with their
students in class every day share the experience of (p. 722) music-making with their
students. Everyone in the room, including the teacher, is producing tones, shaping
phrases, conveying ideas. In the early stages of instrument study, when learners need a
teacher, not a conductor or a coach, the benefits of the teacher performing on the
instruments students are learning to play makes more vivid to the students and to the
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teacher the needs of students at a time when students are in fact quite needy. The
juxtaposition of the teachers’ playing and the students’ playing focuses the attention of
everyone involved on the priorities of beautiful music-making.
There is a vast amount of information in a 4-measure phrase played beautifully and

expressively. The teacher's goal is to put the picture and sound into the mind of the
learner; that is, to create in the learner mental images that subsequently function as
internal models and auditory goals. Learners’ efforts are then anchored by and directed
toward these unambiguous and meaningful targets.
Wonderful models provide procedural information that exploit human capacities for
imitation without the necessity of “explaining students” into new behavior, obviating the
need for learners to decipher verbal explanations about what to do. A musical model
gives meaning, context, and elaboration to the performance task at the point of encoding.
Although it is certainly advantageous at times to draw students’ attention to their arm or
their tongue or their abdomens or the corners of their mouths, it is much more effective,
once they are close to correct positions, to prompt them to experiment with their
musculature to make sounds that resemble those of the teacher.
Consider that most expert musicians often have little idea of what moment-to-moment
adjustments they are making as they play a beautifully rendered phrase. In fact, it would
be quite impossible for a human being to consciously control each of the invisibly subtle
movements necessary to make all of the tones of a clarinet or trumpet or violin sound as
though they come from the same instrument. Great players learn to do that by listening
carefully to the sounds they create and by quite literally fooling around (experimenting)
to make them sound more like the auditory images they have in their heads.
What to Play—Sequencing Learning

Experiences
It takes time, effort, and deliberate attention to master the physical skills necessary to
produce a clear, resonant, beautiful tone on an instrument. And instruction must begin
with developing the physical capacity to produce good sounds. In these very beginning
stages of developing instrumental technique, the goal is to build the machinery for
effective communication.
It is possible to create sequences of experiences that increase the likelihood that learners
will think and behave in ways that approximate the thinking and (p. 723) behavior of
experts. And conversely, of course, it is also possible to create experiences that make
doing so much less likely.
Here we describe ways of sequencing the early experiences of music-making in the

context of wind instrument playing that facilitate the development of sophisticated
musical thought. Although the particulars may vary with regard to string and percussion
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playing, the principles we illustrate below are generally applicable to all class instrument
study.
The Production of Sound
Where to begin? Beautiful tone and accurate intonation become priorities for learners
when they are priorities in the minds of teachers. All teachers know that tone and
intonation are important, but many fewer create conditions in class that inculcate this
priority in the minds of learners. This may in part be a function of available instructional
materials and traditions that (unintentionally) distract from these priorities. Chief among
them are the class method book and the perceived need to move through it quickly, a goal
that seems motivated by the view that pages covered is the measure of progress.
Beginners come to think of sound quality as a major priority when the teacher's focus of
attention is directed unwaveringly toward tone production. Creating this focus is
facilitated at the outset when potential distractions are absent—no books, no music
stands at first, just musicians, instruments, and the sounds they make.
Learners’ first experiences producing sounds might best be reconceived as first

experiences experimenting with sounds. There's the production part, to be sure, and
there is also the listen-and-decide part, which in turn informs the production part in an
ongoing cycle of discrimination and refinement. Effective teachers structure experiences
in which students make judgments about their individual tone qualities all the time. And
in order for this to happen, individual students must play alone in class all the time.
These issues have been addressed more often in approaches to string instrument playing
than they have been in methods for winds and percussion. Methods based on the teaching
of Suzuki, Kodàly (Colourstrings), and Paul Rolland, for example, all prescribe devoting
attention to expressive music-making from the start, though the extent to which
expression is actually a focus of attention at the beginning stages of instrumental study
based on these methods varies (Colprit, 2000; Duke, 1999).
Attention to musical expression is less often a prominent feature of beginning instruction

for winds and percussion. So here we illustrate a sequence that gets to musical
expression in the context of beginning wind instrument playing. In our approach to
beginning winds, tone production begins with the parts of the instruments that actually
create the vibrations that are the heart of the instruments’ tone, what we call the small
pieces: flute head joint, clarinet mouthpiece and barrel, saxophone mouthpiece and neck,
and brass mouthpieces. Beginning with the small pieces helps promote a focus on tone
and intonation and provides learners (p. 724) with opportunities at the very beginning to
make judgments about the sounds they produce—Higher or lower? Louder or softer?
Rough or smooth? Dark or bright?—without the challenge of having to hold and balance
the entire instrument.
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And once the instrument is assembled? In many approaches to instrumental study, the
earliest attempts to produce tones focus on the easiest notes to play, which has
understandable appeal: learners make sound quickly and are encouraged by their
accomplishment in doing so; few students in a class are frustrated by their inability to
make a sound, and thus few require much individual attention from the teacher.
The disadvantages are perhaps less obvious but are most certainly consequential. With
many wind instruments it is possible to produce a sound on the easy-to-play first notes
while doing many fundamental things incorrectly or inadequately. It's possible to produce
an open G on the clarinet, for example, with a poorly formed embouchure and a weak
stream of air. (It is notable that the throat tones of the clarinet are also arguably the
hardest notes to play with a beautiful tone.) As long as learners continue to perform these
easy-to-play notes, and only these notes, it is not only likely that they will become
accustomed to their poor tone as representative of what a clarinet sounds like, but it is
also likely that they will repeatedly practice and eventually learn physical positions,
embouchures, and ways of breathing that will not be sustainably useful, because they
“work” (sort of) only on the easy-to-play notes. On these easy-to-play notes the instrument
provides little feedback as to the quality of the learners’ execution of the fundamental
skills of playing, because of the many ways available to play incorrectly and still produce
a sound.
Consider instead the advantages of moving students quickly from the notes on which it's
easiest to produce a sound to the notes that are easiest to produce a sound with the
characteristic tone of the instrument. On most wind instruments, such notes require
considerably more effort and attention on the part of the learner than do the easy-to-play
first notes. Continuing with the clarinet: to play a chalumeau G requires excellent hand
position, a firmly secure embouchure, a well-positioned tongue, and a fast stream of air.
Absent any one of those variables, and the note simply won't play. In this way, the
instrument provides vivid feedback about the quality of the student's work. Holes not
covered, loose embouchure, weak breath, and the note doesn't speak. When all of those
performance fundamentals are in place and the note does speak, the tone quality is much
more likely to be what one would consider characteristic of the clarinet than what most
beginning students typically produce when they play open G. When clarinetists are set up
to play primarily long-tube notes in the first months of study, they are more likely to
produce a beautiful tone early in their experience.
From Tones to Melodies
The extent to which young musicians can devote attention to the communicative aspects
of their playing is inversely proportional to the technical challenges of their repertoire.
The more a learner has to think about to simply get the notes (p. 725) out of the
instrument, the less attention is available to listening to the sounds she's producing and
matching the sounds produced with her imagined musical intentions.
Page 13 of 20

Once only a few of the characteristic-tone starting notes on an instrument are reliably
produced with a clear, resonant tone, it is time to begin playing simple melodies, using
those notes to play expressively. Even with two pitches at one's disposal, it's possible to
create authentic melodies that have character and style and the potential to communicate
to listeners.
One of the great assets of music is the expansive array of musical repertoire, both within
and among cultures. There is no reason to limit the variety of music that beginners play;
they are disadvantaged by doing so. Beginners can play slow music and fast music and all
tempos in between; they can play music that is sweet, angry, boisterous, playful, and
languid.
The development and refinement of skill memories are enhanced by having frequent
opportunities to apply skills in varied contexts. In music this translates to applying tone
production and musical communication skills—the fundamental skills of instrumental
performance—in varied repertoire.
This means that at each stage of technical development and with each introduction of a
new skill or idea (e.g., a new note, a new rhythm gesture), there should be numerous
melodies with which to apply the skills acquired, making music in a variety of styles—
slow music and fast music, duple meter and compound meter, funny tunes and serious
tunes, all with melodies that are selected or composed expressly to facilitate the
development of productive physical and conceptual habits of music-making. (We have
composed a sequence of approximately 150 such melodies for beginning wind players.
They are available without cost at http://cml.music.utexas.edu/Habits/HabitsOpener.htm.)
Learning Something New versus Refining What You Know
We find in our analyses of beginning instrumental methods for winds a low ratio of varied
melodic material to newly introduced skills. In other words, as a learner progresses
through a typical introductory method the number of melodies introduced is relatively
close to the number of new notes, techniques, or ideas. This means that with the
introduction of each new thing, learners have few contexts in which to apply the new
thing before the introduction of the next new thing. This curricular structure conveys to
teachers and students alike that young musicians’ measure of progress is the number of
new things they learn, because almost every page-turn in the method book means
learning a new thing.
Page 14 of 20

An alternative to this
approach, which we see as
highly advantageous, is to
provide multiple and
varied opportunities to
apply each new thing in
varied contexts of music-
making, an approach in
Figure 6.5.1 From the B-flat Clarinet book of The
Habits of Musicianship (Duke & Byo, 2009). which progress is
Copyright © 2009 by Robert A. Duke and James L. measured in terms of the
Byo. Used with permission.
refinement of the skills one
already knows. The
primary goal in this approach is not getting to the next new thing; the primary goal is
making the old things (the known things) more beautiful. (p. 726)
The notion of phrasing provides a good example of this approach in practice. Teachers
routinely admonish young wind players to conceive of phrases as lines of connected notes
that form a unified element in a melody; along with this admonishment is the
accompanying instruction to breathe only at phrase endings so as not to interrupt the
flow of music. One way to facilitate the realization of this conception is to play legato
from the outset, but this is only feasible if the melodies played make it possible to do so.
When beginning melodies are constructed so that the melodic rhythm is created by pitch
changes (i.e., there are no repeated tones within phrases), then learners can sustain one
uninterrupted stream of air throughout a musical phrase, because the absence of tongued
articulation obviates the interruption of the airstream. (The two- and three- note melodies
in figures 6.5.1 and 6.5.2 are all to be played slurred.)
In this way, phrases are in fact single streams of uninterrupted breath, and playing
phrases legato at the beginning requires effective breathing. Sustaining sound in legato
passages creates positive habits that persist when articulation using the tongue is later
introduced. Sustaining the breath is not something that needs to be remembered while
the learner is tonguing separated notes. Sustaining breath is now a requisite of playing
the music.
Page 15 of 20

Playing in a variety of
tempos further expands
the range of characters
that novices can convey.
Young wind players often
are confined to a narrow
range of tempos from
grave to moderato, and
their limits on speed are
defined by the nature of
the melodies they attempt
to play. Melodies with
arpeggiated passages, for
Figure 6.5.2 From the B-flat Clarinet book of The example, are difficult
Habits of Musicianship (Duke & Byo, 2009).
Copyright © 2009 by Robert A. Duke and James L.
because of challenges of
Byo. Used with permission. fingering. Melodies with
repeated alternations
between adjacent tones, conversely, are easy to play fast. The inclusion of the full range
of tempos in the beginner's repertoire is purposeful as it increases the emotional variety
that even novices are capable of conveying through their music (see figure 6.5.2). (p. 727)
Fast, even, and nimble movements develop when learners play simple melodies that
employ rapid alternations between adjacent tones. In these melodies, playing fast does
not require tedious practice, and the requirements of the music induce learners to play
with correct hand position and finger technique, because at a fast tempo it is not possible
to play with poor position and tense muscles.
Note also that varying tempos creates contextualized musical goals for learners: making a
melody called “Triumphal March” sound like it could move people, making “Whistling
Song” sound brilliant, “Brushing My Teeth” vigorous, “What's a Lilt” lilting, and “Pet the
Kitty” gentle. The musical goals serve as motivators. Why do I need to practice this
melody? Because I can't yet play fast enough to achieve the musical goal. Why do I like
practicing this melody? Because there is something uplifting about allegro. To increase
one's ability to play allegro, current limits must be challenged. The fingers must move
faster than they are comfortably moving at the moment. Same for the tongue. During
acquisition, note errors and unevenness will occur. But exposed errors can be corrected,
oftentimes self-corrected, especially when the musical goal drives the effort.
When the goal is in effect to create meaning through sound, because there's a message or
mood to express to a real or imagined audience, the elements of (p. 728) music and
techniques of expression come alive. There are important reasons for learners to project
their sounds and not breathe in the middle of phrases. They become eager to play a
convincing legato in a lyrical melody and an energetic marcato in a march. As they
experiment and make decisions about expressive inflections in timing and volume, their
attention is focused on the interpretive signals inherent in the construction of melodies
Page 16 of 20

that indicate how the music goes. As they are given daily opportunities to thoughtfully
consider the message-conveying options at their disposal, learners become increasingly
more independent in their ability to create meaning in music.
The Heart of the Matter

We began with a quote from Jerome Bruner, who in the 1960s challenged science
teachers to close the gap between the thinking and behavior of experts and the thinking
and behavior of novices. Bruner recognized the inherent inefficiency in teaching
temporary ways of thinking that are designed with the best of intentions to help novices
navigate the complexities of new subject matter, but that ultimately unnecessarily keep
learners from experiencing the essential qualities of the discipline.
We have not outlined every aspect of instrumental instruction that works to bridge the
distance between expert and novice, of course, but we have attempted to illustrate how
an approach to teaching that begins with a focus on the goals of music-making can instill
in learners a way of thinking and behaving that very much resembles the thinking and
behavior of expert musicians. If the intent of music instruction is to create lifelong
participants in music-making, then realizing the potential of musical communication
should be an ongoing part of every learners’ experiences from the very start. The goal of
affecting other human beings through one's own music-making is a tremendously
gratifying reward, one that is within reach for every instrumental beginner.
Reflective Questions
1. Discuss the bases of your own musical decision-making.
2. How may young musicians learn to make informed decisions about musical
expression? In what ways can teachers provide ongoing opportunities for musical
decision-making in the classroom?
3. Record several sessions of an instrumental class that you teach. Describe the ways
you direct your students’ attention to the expressive aspects of music-making.
(p. 729) 4. Create an assessment procedure that reveals students’ capacity to
formulate independent musical decisions in unfamiliar music.
Key Sources
Duke, R. A. (2009). Intelligent music teaching: Essays on the core principles of effective
instruction. Austin, TX: Learning & Behavior Resources.
Duke, R. A., & Byo, J. (2009). The habits of musicianship: A radical approach to beginning
band. Austin, TX: Center for Music Learning.
Page 17 of 20

Websites
The Habits of Musicianship, at the Center for Music Learning,
http://cml.music.utexas.edu/Habits/HabitsOpener.htm.
LIPs: Live Illustrations by Professionals, at the Center for Music Learning,
http://cml.music.utexas.edu/LIPS/LIPSopener.htm.
References
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Byo, J. L. (1988). Beginning band instruction: A comparative analysis of selected class

method books. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 7(1), 19.
Campbell, P. S., Connell, C., & Beegle, A. (2007). Adolescents’ expressed meanings of
music in and out of school. Journal of Research in Music Education, 55(3), 220–236.
Colprit, E. J. (2000). Observation and analysis of Suzuki string teaching. Journal of

Research in Music Education, 48(3), 206–221.
Consortium of National Arts Education Associations. (1994). National standards for arts
education. Reston, VA: MENC: National Association for Music Education.
Duke, R. A. (1999). Teacher and student behavior in Suzuki string lessons: Results from
the International Research Symposium on Talent Education. Journal of Research in Music
Education, 47(4), 293–307.
Gouzouasis, P., Henrey, J., & Belliveau, G. (2008). Turning points: A transitional story of
grade seven music students’ participation in high school band programmes. Music
Education Research, 10(1), 75–90.
Hallam, S. (1998). The predictors of achievement and dropout in instrumental tuition.

Psychology of Music, 26(2), 116–132.
Hartley, L. A., & Porter, A. M. (2009). The influence of beginning instructional grade on
string student enrollment, retention, and music performance. Journal of Research in
Music Education, 56(4), 370–384. (p. 730)
Karlsson, J., & Juslin, P. N. (2008). Musical expression: An observational study of

instrumental teaching. Psychology of Music, 36(3), 309–334.
Kinney, D. W. (2010). Selected nonmusic predictors of urban students’ decisions to enroll

and persist in middle school band programs. Journal of Research in Music Education,
57(4), 334–350.
Page 18 of 20

Laukka, P. (2004). Instrumental music teachers’ views on expressivity: A report from

music conservatoires. Music Education Research, 6(1), 45–56.
Lindstrom, E., Juslin, P. N., Bresin, R., & Williamon, A. (2003). “Expressivity comes from
within your soul”: A questionnaire study of music students’ perspectives on expressivity.
Research Studies in Music Education, 20(1), 23–47.
Lum, C.-H., & Shehan Campbell, P. (2007). The sonic surrounds of an elementary school.
Journal of Research in Music Education, 55(1), 31–47.
West, T., & Rostvall, A.-L. (2003). A study of interaction and learning in instrumental
teaching. International Journal of Music Education, 40(1), 16–27.
Young, V., Burwell, K. I. M., & Pickup, D. (2003). Areas of study and teaching strategies in
instrumental teaching: A case study research project. Music Education Research, 5(2),
139–155.
Robert A. Duke
Robert A. Duke is the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor and Head
of Music and Human Learning at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is
University Distinguished Teaching Professor, Elizabeth Shatto Massey Distinguished
Fellow in Teacher Education, and Director of the Center for Music Learning. He is
also a member of the faculty of the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles. The most
recent recipient of MENC's Senior Researcher Award, he has directed national
research efforts under the sponsorship of such organizations as the National Piano
Foundation and the International Suzuki Institute. His research on human learning
and behavior spans multiple disciplines, including motor skill learning, cognitive
psychology, and neuroscience. He is the founder of the National Forum on Research
in Motor Learning and Music, and his most recent work explores procedural memory
consolidation and the cognitive processes engaged during musical improvisation.
James L. Byo
James L. Byo is the Carl Prince Matthies Professor and Head of Music Education at
Louisiana State University, where he is a University Distinguished Teaching
Professor. His research in teacher and conductor effectiveness appears in major
research journals and texts. Dr. Byo has served as editor of Update: Applications of
Research in Music Education, chair of the research division of the World Association
of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, and on the editorial committee of the Journal of
Research in Music Education. Currently, he is the program evaluator for the National
String Project Consortium. A former public school band and orchestra conductor in
Wooster, Ohio, he holds music education and oboe performance degrees. He was a
student of John Mack of the Cleveland Orchestra and for eight seasons performed
professionally with the Youngstown (OH) Symphony Orchestra.
Page 19 of 20

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Robert A. Duke and James L. Byo

Print Publication Date: Aug 2012 Subject: Music, Music Education

Abstract and Keywords

Jerome Bruner (1960)

Our chapter is premised on a generalization of Bruner's proposition: that a novice in a

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

provides direction and feedback as students play together as an ensemble, in small

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

Exploiting the Ways That Learners Learn

What seems greatly undervalued in formal instruction in all disciplines is

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

school: we watched, we listened, we imitated, we experimented, we failed, we got

In formal instruction in school, attention to the ultimate goals of learning is often

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

It's understandable that a teacher trying to convey the fundamentals of instrument

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

A Vision of Students as Accomplished

This departs somewhat from the now-well-engrained phraseology of “what learners

Effective learning experiences extend well beyond merely providing information or

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

The Fundamentals of Instrument Playing and

• Optimally relaxed position of the body and instrument

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

(p. 719) Habit Formation

It is well understood that the creation of sustainable, flexible, generalizable memories in

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

learner self-evaluation, high-quality modeling, and a well-sequenced repertoire of

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

There is a vast amount of information in a 4-measure phrase played beautifully and

What to Play—Sequencing Learning

Here we describe ways of sequencing the early experiences of music-making in the

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

The Production of Sound

Learners’ first experiences producing sounds might best be reconceived as first

Attention to musical expression is less often a prominent feature of beginning instruction

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

From Tones to Melodies

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

Learning Something New versus Refining What You Know

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

The Heart of the Matter

formulate independent musical decisions in unfamiliar music.

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

LIPs: Live Illustrations by Professionals, at the Center for Music Learning,

Byo, J. L. (1988). Beginning band instruction: A comparative analysis of selected class

Colprit, E. J. (2000). Observation and analysis of Suzuki string teaching. Journal of

Hallam, S. (1998). The predictors of achievement and dropout in instrumental tuition.

Karlsson, J., & Juslin, P. N. (2008). Musical expression: An observational study of

Kinney, D. W. (2010). Selected nonmusic predictors of urban students’ decisions to enroll

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

Laukka, P. (2004). Instrumental music teachers’ views on expressivity: A report from

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

Subscriber: University of Melbourne; date: 05 February 2019

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