A Note from our Director, Mr. Hernandez.
My biggest hope is that our Sistema Tulsa and all students can discover an intrinsic motivation for music. This is the kind of playing that happens not because they are told to do so, but because they want to and can't wait to get to their instrument to polish a song or exercise. How can this happen and can parents help? This is tricky because you don't really want to push your student, but you can gently guide them to the idea that this work can do several things for them:
1. Create order and independence: playing their instrument allows students to organize their space, time; and control over what and how they practice.
2. Build shared ownership: remind students that the quality of their playing will positively impact a full ensemble performance when they play in a concert, the better and more confident they sound, the better the ensemble!
3. Create beauty and new material: beginner sounds are not as pretty as we would like them to be, but every time students play a note, it gets more polished and shinier. Most importantly, everyone has the opportunity to embed their personality into the music and that is an amazing thing to do! Ask them to come up with new melodies with just a few notes. (Hint: most of the great melodies are built with these 5 notes, do-re-mi-fa-sol).
Remember, music learning is a process.
Photo: 2019 (Elementary Strings)