The fork and the spoon are essential elements that people use to eat their food, these 2 tools are simply engrained in every person’s kitchen, and utilized on a daily basis. Did they ever think about the essential elements in fine arts? The answer is simply instrument and voice. The melodious beat of the instrument paired with the pure nature of the human voice is an unbeatable combination. These two art forms take immense skill, practice, and even determination. The only way a person can learn these forms is through artists who have mastered the form, and are willing to put in the work for their students. As a result of this, take a look into how the Briar Woods High School music teachers mentor their future artists.
Haesang Clair Park-Kolonay orchestra teacher at BriarWoods, focuses on teaching the violin, viola, cello, and bass. These four instruments take immense amounts of body awareness, as well as the ability to stay in one position for long periods of time. Unlike core teachers who teach with a desk, pen, and paper, Mrs. Park must teach with instruments while also being aware of each student’s stance and even body composition regarding the instrument they are learning. In order to make sure her students are ready for class, and are efficient with their pieces, she often tests them out of their comfort zone, by making them play in front of the class, or even giving pop quizzes.
“I encourage the students to take their instruments home and practice by giving performance song quizzes (where they play alone in front of the class), and turning in recordings” said Mrs. Park, the orchestra teacher at Briar Woods High School.
According to the Bulletproof Musician, a blog about anxiety in the music industry, the orchestra environment can be an ego climate, and “tends to lower an individual’s self-esteem.” Especially in a high school orchestra, where almost all the students play at an above average level, there are definitely students who get stressed from not being up to par, or as good as everyone else.
“Sometimes I feel like I struggle to balance being able to dedicate the time to orchestra as I used to, which can be pretty stressful. However, the only reason I even tend to get stressed is because the students can be a little competitive, not even the teacher” said Resha Donepudi, a junior taking chamber orchestra at Briar Woods High School.
Many teachers do not see this problem, and often keep the class a discipline, punctual, and only orchestra environment. However, Mrs. Park believes that her class is valuable for the future as her students will remember the goofy and fun things they did in class while also learning.
“I think the students will grow up and look back and think about the silly things we did in class, remember the music when they hear it in movies or on the radio, the concert fails of “American Rondo,” the random brownie bake-off that we did, and overall just goofy memories of their time in high school” said Park.
While instruments are an integral part of the fine arts, vocal performance is the basis for all music. Nigel Tangredi, or Mr. Tangredi, is the chorus teacher for Briar Woods High School. Unlike core classes or even orchestra, chorus has a very different and unique element to it. The only thing a teacher needs in this class is their voice, and their students’ voices. Even though the class is simple, it can actually be quite complex. From going through sickness, body changes, and just the awareness of one’s body, learning how to sing or even teaching it can be such a struggle. That is why Mr. Tangredi starts off his class with basic warm ups, but not just for the voice. He makes sure to focus on the overall body while warming up, to ensure his students are in the correct state to start class.
“The first thing we are doing is stretching, we are doing breath exercises, the stretching sort of keeps our body alignment up.. And the alignment sort of helps us as singers sort of resonate better” said Nigel Tangredi.
Chorus is a very communicative art. The teacher must understand the background of the song they are teaching, and they be able to execute the meaning and the purpose of the song to their students. Also, in a school where the demographics are filled with minorities, the teacher should choose songs that correlate with the different cultures to touch the student body. In order to do this, the teacher has to have a grasp on the culture and heritage of the race where the song comes from, and educate the students on it.
“As the demographic of our school is changing, so has the music that I am looking to find, so like two years ago, we finished a song that was in the Maori language, and then the last piece was in Sanskrit. We were able to bring in experts on things like Sanskrit and singing in Hindi, and we worked with them to have a more authentic product” said Tangredi.
Due to Briar Woods being incredibly talented, putting on concerts in orchestra and chorus students participating in yearly theater showcases, these teachers have worked extremely hard to display the talent these students have. Without the fork and spoon like mentors, Briar Woods High School would never be able to see these amazing shows, so thank you, Mrs. Park and Mr.Tangredi for your dedication to your students.
