Mrs. Min-hui Yang

Interviewee: Mrs. Min-hui Yang

Q1. How many years have you been a teacher?

A1: 20 years.

Q2. What instrument are you most proficient at?

A2: Piano.

Q3. What kind of music do you like?

A3: I prefer classical music.

4. How do you guide and train a rhythm band?

A4: This is a big question. Rhythm band includes lots of different instruments. First we would practice in separate parts, like the first and second part for melodica, four parts for accordion, and percussion instruments are even more complex, including glockenspiel, xylophone, drums, triangle, tambourine, etc. I would first let the students become familiar with a song, then divide up the instrument, then assign whether they are playing the first, second, third, or fourth parts. I give them the sheet music for practice in different parts. Music is like prose, with different sections. After practicing a section, they practice playing together. When playing together, the students are asked to listen to the sounds in different parts, because playing together is not playing alone. They need to practice listening to the sounds from different instruments. For instance, practicing melodica involves listening to the accordion, then listening to the sounds of the bass drum, snare drum, xylophone, and glockenspiel.

5. What is the easiest type of instrument to teach? What is the most difficult type of instrument to teach? Why?

A5: Melodica is the easiest to teach, because the mouthpiece is exactly the same as for the recorder, which students learned to play in the third grade. The tongue and breath movements are all the same, except they have to press on the keyboard; this part is not the same as in the recorder, but it is still easy to learn, and if they play it they will soon get the sense of tempo. More difficult is the accordion, because it is like carrying a very heavy bag in the front. When they play, they need to pull the bellow with the left hand, from left to right, and they play the keyboard with their right hand up and down. So they need to learn hand coordination. At first, if they do not pull the bellow, the keyboard does not make any noise. The other difficult one is percussion, especially fast beating requires a lot of time for practice, because students generally cannot practice this instrument at home, and they can only borrow the drumsticks to practice tempo at home.

6. How do you reward students? Do you punish students?

A6: Usually if the children perform very well, are not late, do not request for leave with no reason, at the end of the term I would buy some stationary for them, and I would choose a day for a meal together. I prepare the food and presents so they can eat and drink, and the ones with good performance can choose presents first. They are not punished if they are late, but they have to practice the song at home.

7. What are difficulties in rhythm band? What do you need parental assistance with?

A7: The first is that close to the competition, I hope students can practice as much as possible, and I hope that parents can help supervise the students in on-time practices. Also, when we have competitions, there are a lot of instruments. Other than small instruments, we also have xylophone, glockenspiel, and bass drum, these heavier instruments that we need parental assistance for, to move them from the second floor classroom to the first floor, then move them to the car, and quickly move them into position for competitions. We need parental help with all of these things.

8. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Xisong Elementary School rhythm band?

A8: 80 to 90% of the students I have helped practice very diligently. Here is a story. I have a student who said to me: Teacher Yang, I’ve never learned any instruments and I don’t really know how to read music, but I really want to join the band, can I join the band? I told him, because you want to, I’ll let you in. I’ll teach you melodica and keyboard, but there is a condition: whatever I teach you today, you have to go home and practice until you can do it. If you can keep up, you can participate in the band. The student really moved me. If I teach him eight bars of music, tomorrow he can do it, because he spent a lot of time to practice. I asked him to sing it first, and play it after he can sing. He could play very quickly. If he plays different from what he sings, he would know he made a mistake. He was even learning better than students who have a background in piano. So as long as someone is willing, they can participate in the rhythm band.

9. What kinds of traits do you think students in the rhythm band should have?

A9: I would assess their intentions and diligence. Rhythm band competitions generally have about 50 band members. In the beginning we would get about 80 students, and later some students would be tired and leave the band. If he really wants to join the band, that’s more important than his musical quality, because musical quality can be cultivated and trained.

10. How do you feel that now the rhythm band has won first place?

A10: I think they’re wonderful, very outstanding.