CUWinds Costa Rica

As we approach the halfway point of the tour, I thought it was time I wrote again, as so much has happened since our arrival here.

For me, the most valuable part of this tour is the opportunity to reflect on and improve the way we work with the Costa Rican students on a day-by-day basis. We started off two days ago in Paos, a small hamlet described eloquently by Amy Dickinson in earlier posts, where we were introduced to our first students. All along, I imagined that coming into this sort of situation there would be a great deal of coordination at the school being visited, and that I would be prepped ahead of time on the methodology one should use to teach beginner-level musicians. Of course, with a full-sized ensemble as big as ours, and the nature of many of the schools we visit, this was naive in the extreme. Instead, we were briefly thanked by the principle as a group, then divided into sections by instrument and ushered out of the gymnasium in search of rooms where master classes could be conducted. It quickly showed that this was the first time on the Costa Rica Tour for my entire section, and to make matters worse, only half of us speak Spanish. Though we spent the first hour overwhelmed, fumbling with different exercises and warmups, we eventually managed to get all playing through their band music in unison and offer a few butchered, yet at least slightly meaningful critiques of their playing.

What you discover quickly here is that you simply have to learn on the job. Just like the students we’re working with, unless we also make a conscious effort to improve what we do, we’ll be condemned to wasting hours of time, while other instrument sections are making genuine progress. However, like all things, practice makes perfect, and as I’ve had more time to get to know and work with the other flute players in the ensemble, as a section we’ve become much stronger as far as running class goes.

Yesterday, we visited Desamparados, one of the poorer schools to which we travel, which is situated in a former concrete factory. Furthermore, we had our largest group of students yet – twelve children ages 11-17, with only four of us. Nonetheless, almost miraculously, it was if something went off within our group, and things seemed to suddenly fall into place. Within minutes we had everyone’s names down, and found ourselves tuning the entire group with considerable success. Next we arranged to have all twelve overcome shyness and stand in front of the group to play a solo performance. After everyone had finished, we strayed a bit from the traditional format of the master class, and played solo works of ours for them, asking them to comment on our playing just as we did for them. It was clear that we had reached a comfortable atmosphere when one of the youngest girls in the lower orchestra adamantly (and, indeed, correctly) scolded me for my habit of occasionally letting my posture slide, and lowering my instrument while playing. She informed me later that I might have a larger sound if I held it more consistently  level – advice I have also received from my teacher at home. All this coming from a first-year student, who I believe was only about 13.

In short, we got what we signed up for, and in the early stages it was a struggle. Luckily, as we go to a new school daily, there is constant turnover, and anything that goes wrong today can be improved upon tomorrow. It will be interesting to see where we are at the end of the trip, and for now, it is inspiring to see what can become of the interactions between us and the kids we work with.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.