i am teaching Baermann Andante in grade 6 clarinet list A1 and my student has been practising for 2 weeks but she is still playing notes, it was just like a straight line. i have been telling her to use her imagination and use some rubato in her playing but she just doesn't get it. what can i do to help her?

sorry for the grammer of the title lol

Give her a recording of it just as you would like her to play it, and ask her to copy it as best she can.
Thats how I learnt rubarto and such, and I can do it on my own now

You could try and show her what she is doing by speaking to her in a monotone, and then repeating the same sentence as it would normally be uttered. Then demonstrate the same thing on your own clarinet, playing the phrase first as your pupil is playing it, and then as you feel it should go. I'm sure she then will begin to understand what you want of her.

I had exactly the same problem with a pupil doing this piece!! We also tried Mozart clarinet Concerto which was completely lifeless.

I gave her two recordings I had of the same piece and asked her to decide what she liked about each performance and apply it to her own playing, this way she doesnt 'copy' someone else, she can truly make it her own.

Have you talked about how you feel it should sound?
What about suggestions of what pictures or feelings occur to you for a start.
Have you demonstrated any sections?
What about you play a phrase then getting her to play it after you as an echo?

You could try making her use a slightly softer reed. Sometimes, your concentration is too much on controlling the embouchure and reed, and you don't have time to play around with the sound.

Steve

My flute teacher always talks about 'internalization', as in, you should always know how you want something to sound - it should all be in your brain, your instrument is just the thing that gets what's in your head, out.
He uses this as an example... gets me to close my eyes and is like. 'Imagine an apple. It's on a plate. It's red with some green on the side. It was water droplets on it. It has a little leaf on it' etc. and builds it up from something really simple to something really complex and interesting - and that's what i should be doing with my music

It'd be bad teaching to say 'do this here, then do this there' or get her to copy you or something, cause then she'd be learning how to play THAT piece well, but not how to play well all the time. If you get what i mean, i'm not good at explaining! Also she'd be playing your version, not hers.

Just show her how to pull about the speed - count the pulse as she's playing and get faster and slower and make sure she goes with you, then tell her to experiment with that to find what she thinks sounds best - playing at both extremes, with LOTS of rubato, then all strictly in time, then try to find a medium etc.
E.g. with dynamics if my pupils aren't sure as to where to put them in and what to do, i'll play some different examples and explain why i did what where, then ask them which they thought sounded best/most appropriate and get them to play what they think sounds best - even if it's totally different to what i played. (aslong as it's appropriate!)

Also maybe you could demonstrate the 2 extremes - really rigid boring playing, then really rubato expressive etc. And make it really obvious that the 1st is bad and not nice to listen to, and the 2nd is really good.

Just make sure she's learning how to play musically in general in all pieces - not just learning where to add rubato and stuff to that one piece


Btw i agree with BerkshireMum about speaking to her in monotone and showing that's how she's playing... my teacher always does that and it really works! Comparing it to speech is good... point out that when you're speaking you're actually speaking at loads of different pitches, tempos, etc. really varying it but you don't realise cause it's natural - it would be unnatural to speak all in a monotone etc. and that's how music should be - playing expressively and meaningfully without realising that much


Gosh sorry i go on Me and my ideas (too many of them, most of which are useless!)

It can help to shape phrases if they are recognised as such - where is each set of notes heading - up to a high one, or perhaps floating downwards lightly, or gently babbling along. In talking about this, you can use your hands to demonstrate an idea of the shapes in the music - our kids' first piano teacher would say things like, "you're heading for here" - sounds very vague, but was remarkably effective in conveying what she wanted them to do. Using imagery can certainly help with this, but isn't everyone's cup of tea -I know that I can't think in terms of babbling brooks or fluffy clouds, but do have more abstract ideas in my mind. My current teacher will ask me where the high point is in a section, and get me to shape the music around it.
The other thing about playing musically is not to forget the articulation - a uniformly tongued string of notes can sound, well, like a uniformly tongued set of notes....when perhaps focusing on a rogue note by tonguing it differently or leaning on it slightly can also help to give shape.

Musicality in playing often takes a bit of time to develop, and I would encourage lots of listening to all sorts of music, and also not just on the instrument you are teaching - I can learn as much listening to oboists or cellists as I do listening to recorder players, when it comes to understanding how music is phrased and expressed.

When I was teaching a naturally very talented kid but felt that he was just playing the notes I used a combination of going through a really simple analysis of the structure of the piece to identify the different sections and the overall shape then to add more life getting him to invent some sort of story behind the piece. His mother would usually come in to find out what all the giggling was about but the piece always had a lot more character after doing this.

Listening to good performances is the answer.

I would say that in general

a. most students don't LISTEN to enough different performances to tell the difference, and
b. most teachers don't do enough to guide their students to the best recordings and concerts

(both are too concerned with learning the mechanics of playing the instruments, the basics of musical notation, and the handful of pieces for the next exam).

and while istening to the rock/indy/grunge/house ... whatever band of the moment, or the current MTV top 20 might be fun, is not good preparaion for playing the classics

Your student might find the following video useful: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/103, especially the first 8 minutes - Rote vs. feeling. Evelyn Glennie gives some very good examples of how interpretation is important, and illustrates the point very effectively.

The music she uses is a far cry from Baermann Andante, but the the point is well made!