my sax pupil!

[elmo]

woooo! she's cute! She's 9 and wants to play jazz, which is good. We do half serious stuff, half fun stuff, and have a rest in the middle where she tells me about her school trips and her favourite lessons and stuff.

Last lesson we talked about dynamics and where to use them, and she wrote some dynamics she thought would work. We also talked about what tonguing and slurring was and whether or not made a difference and how it changes what the music represents with reference to animals!!

We did some improvising around Mary had a little lamb and some call and response stuff. All in all, she's really good! She learns quick and has really good ideas

[princessmoose]

That's great! It's fab when you get a pupil who learns quick and wants to learn!

Keep it up!

[elmo]

The thing I have difficulty with is telling her when she's doing something wrong. Like she tends to miss out the key signature of a piece until I ask her what it is, she tells me perfectly and then plays the piece again perfectly.

Or she's not good at rhythms, so I have to remind her. But I don't want to kill her enthusiasm when she's obviously dead enthusiastic about how well she played it and how ard she practiced. But then if I don't say anything I'm not teaching her! argh!

[princessmoose]

Maybe just mention a few things about the piece before you get here to play it. Like ask questions. Have a look at my sight reading thread, some ideas there .