S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Testimonials
Dina Burtt, Nova Scotia
Music Teacher
S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Warm-ups for Band
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Band teachers need to check these out for the ultimate game changer in your teaching! These books by Ardith Haley and Dale Lonis will change your thinking and more importantly your students’ thinking. Each warm-up is specifically designed for an individual tenet and organized in a step by step approach. I have had Dale and Ardith in to work with my bands many times over the years and during the workshops the kids are totally engaged and love the genius catchy methods they use. These are now in our hands as teachers. These warm-ups cover every fundamental to empower your students to sound great - and include assessment tools. The content is totally unique and grounded in research and the S.T.U.B.B.I.E. philosophy. Each book has an on-line member only section that links to the exercises, assessment and tenets. I have been teaching for 23 years and I am so excited to use these.
Ram Oren, Associate Principal Trumpet with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Trumpet Instructor at Buchmann-Mehta School of Music
S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Warm-ups for Band
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In my role as Principal Trumpet with professional orchestras for over 30 years, I have had to adapt my playing to the requirements of the conductor, the music, and the composer. I then have used these experiences to prepare my students, often relying on my intuition and musicianship to identify their individual challenges. These new MMI resources have given me the language and methodology to efficiently address my students' concerns. I have found the information to not only inform how I think about my own playing but how to articulate important fundamentals and techniques to those I teach. Every exercise breaks down a performance problem to its fundamental element and then builds the information up from there in a logical and sequential manner. I love these books and highly recommend them not only for band directors but for private instructors as well.
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Janine Waines, Saskatchewan
Music Teacher
S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Warm-ups for Band 1
(No. 5 Unifying the Five Basic Note
Styles Warm-up )
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This exercise has changed my life and my teaching! IT'S AMAZING!! It's so exciting to have the students giving each other “grief” because they are not matching note styles. All I have to do is ask what style should the notes be and boom...it's fixed! Granted, we have worked hard in warm-ups to identify the different styles and unify them but once they get them the transfer is amazing. This exercise alone would give me my money's worth in purchasing this book!
Suzanne Gindin, California
Music Teacher
S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band
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There are many chorale books out there for band. None of them, however, contain the complete instructional tools that inspire the kinds of musical experiences the way S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band does. These exercises contain the origin information for each chorale, the lyrics to bring the meaning alive, and modern recording references to share with students to bring relevance to their own lives. These attributes allow you to start the rehearsal from a place of shared understanding with your own musical goals in mind. The information also suggests a variety of possible interpretations that the students and teacher can explore together.
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Secondly, the S.T.U.B.B.I.E. method utilizes a step-by-step teaching approach allowing you to work through each chorale efficiently and effectively through student-centered engagement and a shared musical vocabulary. The four-part format enables each student to see all the parts and how their part fits in. Each student then becomes the “conductor” and learns to make musical decisions about balance, blend, volume, phrasing, and style without anything being pre-marked in the music.
Finally, the cadence appendix is the most complete and concise definition of how cadences impact musical interpretation that I have ever read. Most importantly, students can easily understand these notions and transfer them immediately to any piece of music. With the varying types of cadences written into each chorale part the student can make informed decisions creating musical moments. This skill and understanding allows students to transfer the learning from the chorale exercises directly to the repertoire they are rehearsing and performing.
I cannot think of any stronger words to recommend this chorale method for band. I have been using it every day for over six months. Not only has my band begun to sound significantly more in tune, balanced and unified, but my students take ownership of the musical decision-making and enjoy the rehearsal in a way they never did before - in a way that I never did when playing in a group.
The simplicity of this method makes it useful at any level from second year of playing into college. I thank the MMI team for their thorough and thoughtful work on bringing student-centered learning into the ensemble rehearsal and creating a modern, relevant teaching tool from a very old, but tried and true method. This resource will greatly improve your teaching life on a daily basis, creating long-term rewards for you and your students.
Nathan Gingrich, Alberta
Music Teacher
S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band
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I have been working on S.T.U.B.B.I.E. concepts with my bands for the last number of years and have had Dale Lonis work with my students and I on many occasions. These Chorale Exercises are a welcome addition to “my bag of tricks”. Not only do they reinforce the S.T.U.B.B.I.E. concepts and allow for more in-depth musical thinking for my students (from teacher-centred to student-centred), they are also arranged in such a manner that allow concepts to be actualized on many different levels for more learning within the music lesson.
These arrangements are written in a four-part format and give the opportunity to explore balance both in larger and smaller ensemble settings. Lack of tempo, dynamic, phrasing, and style markings challenge musicians to unify all aspects of their playing. Special rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic cadences are written to encourage interpretation and performance; ensemble learning and musical triage become clearer and musical intent becomes the focus – a core concept and part of the learning outcomes.
Further to this, the background information and origin of each chorale is included along with recommended listening to inspire a wide variety of interpretation by both students and teachers.
I highly recommend these chorales for music teachers and students at all levels. They are a resource that can reinforce the spiral-learning of music and ensemble playing at all levels - many thanks to Dale Lonis and Ardith Haley!
Jason Caslor, Assistant Professor of Music and Associate Director of Bands and Orchestras at Arizona State University (ASU)
S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band
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Band directors often use chorales to help their ensembles improve balance, blend, and intonation. But how do these efforts really assist their students to become better players? I have found that the S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band benefit both the students and the ensemble. The four-part format allows students to see all parts while also offering groups with less than ideal instrumentation a chance to achieve a balanced framework from which to build.
Written specifically to help the musicians "unify" all aspects of their playing, the intentional lack of musical guidance on the scores and parts (i.e. dynamics, tempo, phrase, style, etc.) places the focus on listening and musical decision-making.
In short, to build a better band you need to build up each of the musicians. Offering the opportunity for them to learn how to interpret the music rather than just responding to what they are told to do is transformative. The S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band do this and so much more.
Adam Mailman, Alberta
Music Teacher
S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band
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I've been using the S.T.U.B.B.I.E. warm-ups and tenets in my program for the past couple of years, and have just now, started working with the S.T.U.B.B.I.E. Tunes Chorale Exercises for Band. As in some chorale books, all four parts are written out for each performer, however, what is distinctive with these arrangements is that each line has a unique musical problem to solve. For example, students learn how to interpret melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic cadences in ways that move the music forward, or decide how to stylistically interpret music that has no expressive markings. Students are engaged throughout the entire music-making process, and at the same time, sharpening their listening skills. We experienced so much success with the advanced groups, I decided to introduce the chorales to one of my younger bands. These students truly connected with the background information. The context inspired them to explore the emotional intent they wished to create. Students felt a profound sense of accomplishment in unifying their interpretation of dynamics, phrasing, articulations, and tempi – even though they played only two lines of the chorale in that first rehearsal. Now, each of my groups share a common language when interpreting their repertoire, and some students have even researched to learn and share the context of other music we're playing!