The Woodwinds ─ Perform, Understand, Teach

The Woodwinds: Perform, Understand, Teach provides comprehensive coverage pertaining to the woodwind family of musical instruments for prospective instrumental music teachers. What sets this book apart is its focus onhow to teach the instruments. Preparing students in the how of teaching is the ultimate goal of the woodwind class, and is facilitated by book experiences that organize the information around its use in teaching beginning instrumentalists.

Effective teaching prioritizes active learning, therefore, those who use this textbook are led quickly to play or perform.Performance supplemented by good instruction leads to understanding. In developing performance and understanding, pre-service teachers are positioned to learn toteach – contrasted with an "old-school" belief that one must first spend much time tediously trying to understand how things workbefore playing the instruments. The concentrates on two broad categories surrounding woodwind study—Foundations and Mechanics. In Foundations, a topic is situated in a big picture context, calling attention to the broad applicability of information across instruments, anchored in core matters.

The Mechanics are organized by instrument (flute, clarinet, saxophone, oboe, bassoon) and, within each instrument, according to how an effective teacher might organized experiences for novice learners. Basic embouchure and air stream are covered first, followed by instrument assembly, then hands and holding. Embouchure coverage returns in greater depth, then articulation, and finally "the mechanism," which includes sections on the instruments of the family, transposition, range, special fingerings, tuning and intonation, and reeds.

James L. Byo is Carl Prince Matthies Professor of Music Education and Head of Music Education at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.