The preparatory strings class is designed for young string players. This class has a combination of students who have been playing for three years or less and beginners. Any student wishing to learn a string instrument is welcome to join this class no matter their prior musical knowledge. techniques we explore in this class are: Proper bowings, Spicato bowing, Extended finger positions, Shifting into 3rd position, High and low fingerings, Introduction to vibrato, Rhythms in simple and compound meters, Major and minor modes, Dynamics and phrasing.

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Teaching models used in this class are as follows:

• Direct teaching and teacher modeling

• Collaborative learning activities. Students participate in weekly sectionals. These sectionals are lead by their section leaders. 

• Daily formative assessments. Students can be asked to display a certain techniques or musical passage, in front of the class, at any time.

• Summative assessments, in the form of a concert or rating festival.

This class is where students practice and develop the skills needed to transition to Advanced orchestra.

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the Advanced orchestra is for students who display a high level of musicianship and performance techniques. This group performs about 12 concerts a year and has performed at Carnegie Hall, For the super Intendent of schools (San Bernardino County) and multiple formal events throughout the Inland Empire.

 

Teaching styles used in this class are as follows:

• Student lead instruction. the concert master is responsible for warming up the ensemble everyday.

• Collaborative learning. Like all of the ensembles at Summit High School. Students participate in weekly sectionals. These sectionals are ran by the section leaders and offer each section for concentrated learning.

• Teacher modeled and directed higher level musicianship skills, such as: Extended phrasing, Historically informed performances, Harmonic language and advanced musicianship skills (triple and quadruple stops, playing up to 7th position, 3 octaves scales on all instruments).

Wind ensemble is an audition based class. Only the best wind and percussion players are invited to perform with this group. All students are expected to have a strong mastery of rhythms, dynamics, phrasing, articulations, and sight-reading.

 

Teaching styles used in this class are as follows:

• Direct teaching. Students learn about the harmonic language and style of multiple pieces, ranging from standard harmonic language to 20th century compositions.

• Collaborative learning activities. Like all ensembles at Summit High School. Students participate in weekly sectionals. This provides the students time to focus on the learning targets of the week.

• Self reflection. Through formative, paper, assignments, students are asked to explain the role of their parts and how it contributes to the overall performance of the work. Students need to identify when their parts are primary, secondary and background. Understanding their role in the work, at any given time, is necessary to creating a superior performance.

• Independent learning. because of the nature of this ensemble, students are essential soloist. Each part is independent of each other and students are expected to fulfill their roles.

AP Music Theory is the only non-performance class I teach. This class follows a more "Traditional" format.  Throughout the school year, as we prepare for the AP test, students learn to analyze music, compose music using 18th century four-part writing  techniques, ear training, sight-singing and dictation using melodic and harmonic lines.  Teaching styles used in this class are as followed:

• Teacher directed/ lecture based instruction. This method is used to present new content material, through the use of visual aides, modeling and demonstrations.

• Collaborative learning: students work with their pair-groups (duet partners) throughout the entire year. Students engage is group projects and group assessments weekly.

• Technology integration. Microsoft teams is used to complete online quizzes, access resources and course material from daily lessons. Additionally, unit lessons from AP classroom (on AP Central) parallels class instruction. Unit assessments from this site are used to monitor individual growth.

• Content acquisition based grading.  Students are encouraged to keep working on the challenging skills being introduced in this class, without the fear of failure. Standard grading policies, where formative assessments are weighted at 1 and summative assessments are weighted at 7, are reverse in this class. Homework and online work provides the independent practice needed to decode the complex skills associated with this class. Summative assessments are used to display content acquisition. However, since the weight of these summative assessments is low, students are unafraid of failure. Students are not penalized for not understanding course material. This class is difficult. It is easy to get defeated by the overwhelming amount of  concepts being explored in this class

 

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