Adrian Taylor

Just Play.... Treble Clef Brass Book 1

This teaching resource has been designed for both small group and whole class teaching. It is divided into “steps” rather than weekly lessons as groups of children learn at different rates due to many factors (e.g. their age, duration of lesson, numbers in the group etc). Hence each step may take just one week to complete, or two or three weeks. With some children it might be possible to cover more than one step in a single lesson. This book is divided into 2 parts with the intention that each part takes 10-12 weeks or a school term. In Part 1, notes are first shown as letter names and musical notation is introduced through note values (of 1, 2 and 4 beats duration). In Part 2, notes on the stave are introduced one by one until all 5 are covered and the 1, 2 and 4 beat rests are introduced as well as the 3 beat note. As children in any group will not all progress at the same rate, nor find the same things difficult, there are many cases of differentiation in this material. For example, the first notes can be either of the notes with no valves before adding the ones in between. Other example of differentiation include in Step 6 where their own composition can be played on just one pitch (as a rhythm), one pitch per bar or one pitch per note allowing each child to set their own difficulty level. Further creativity and differentiation can be seen with the improvising of 4-beat mouthpiece rhythms and in the composing of a pavane.