Other researchers have found that novice adolescent musicians tend to exhibit inconsistent practice habits. Rohwer and Polk (2006) categorized the practice tendencies of students as holistic/noncorrective, holistic/corrective, analytic/reactive, or analytic/proactive. They described analytic practicers as those who were prone to remediate sections of their music both proactively and reactively, and they found that these students made significantly more gains than did the holistic practicers. Barry (1990, 1992) focused on the use of structured practice time and supervision in middle school instrumental students and found that the students were significantly more able to prepare a musical etude when practice was carefully structured and supervised. Like McPherson and Renwick (2001), Barry found that students who engaged in unstructured practice tended to play their music faster, use a metronome less, use fewer mental practice strategies, and self-assessed less than those who engaged in structured and supervised practice.
This articles contains thoughts on developing rules and procedures in the beginning band classroom. It discusses possible tactics to get the most out of your beginning band students.
