Boonshaft's Book, A Review

Teaching Music with Promise by Peter Boonshaft

I found this work to be about 50% inspirational and 50% hard care practical tips. For student teachers who have not read texts concerning common musical problems and the psychological frustration that can develop from them then I would heartily recommend the inspirational sections of this book.

There sections that were the most interesting for me as a future teacher were the chapters containing hard-core tips for musical improvements. The chapter that begins on page 43 “The Magic of Conducting” has numerous tips for new conductors. It discusses the flow of movement, how much information is transmitted from the very tip of the baton, eye contact, non-repetitive but similar enough to be understand conducting baton movement and cuing, thinking economically in our communications with our performers and using our faces to communicate as well.

“Rehearsing with Purpose” is another chapter that is packed with practical information. He breaks down all the necessary elements of a good rehearsal and how to achieve these goals-although he does this from a mostly band and orchestral perspective. He writes incisive sections about characteristic tone and how to achieve it through posture, position and breathing. I am not quite sure I agree with his use of expelling all air to force students to take in a deep and profound breath. That can cause students to hunch over and put themselves into odd positions when they are starting their new breaths. I also do not feel that he spent enough time discussing proper body positioning for singers either. He discusses how to signal proper positioning to his singers with just a movement of his hand but for people who are unaware of how to students should position their bodies he should really discuss how students should stand when singing and how they should sit while singing as well. While I agree with his belief that it is important to practice crescendo and decrescendo I disagree with his use of the term pushing out the air, as it is not a sophisticated enough way to describe the expulsion of air for a singer. His description of forceful breath, will likely lead students to overblowing the sound and becoming hoarse or hooty. I also feel that he should have discussed timbre as a way of beginning his teaching of tone quality. I intend to use a xylophone and use various mallets on the same keys to create an aural picture of timbre. My experience teaching older students is that many of them do not know what timbre or tone color means which is an even more basic concept of tone that needs to be understood before characteristic tone can be taught. I also feel that he should have gone over the fundamentals of listening to the resonators of the singers in a chorus so that he will know who to place next to whom. He only discussed balance from the perspective of an instrumental ensemble.  I did like his chant and clap exercise for internalizing rhythm, his building sounds harmonically and the use of drone in practice.