Duets in the Applied Lesson - Appendix F: Comments from Survey Respondents

I usually have students play them [duets] at the end of the lesson.

[Duets are] very valuable for musical development.

I also use the duet sections in the Rubank Methods Books and in the Simone Mantia books.

Duets would be played in the lesson after the assigned material had been covered, if time permits.

Selecting the proper duet is critical. The teacher must decide what element to emphasize (such as intonation, sightreading, etc. . .) and base the difficulty of the music on that decision. If intonation is the "topic du jour," half and whole notes would be more appropriate than fast sixteenths.

Students who need those skills are assigned duets on a rather regular basis, others are not so much.

I use duets primarily for tone matching, style matching, and pitch.

The Amsden duets are taken at impossible tempos for multiple tongue practice and looking ahead.

I always play the top part of Blazevich, having freshmen and sophomores play the bottom. Part of the assignment is for students to practice with at least 3 upper classmen who play the top part, thus making the older students learn the upper parts.

[Duets are] most important in developing an awareness and sensitivity to another musician in presenting a musical statement.

I prefer like instrument duets for younger students especially, because the like timbres and volume seem easier to use as reference points.

I use the 114 easy duets (trumpet version) [of Ernest Williams] to practice tenor clef reading with students learning tenor clef because they can practice a lot of repetitions more easily, and it also alerts them to wrong notes more quickly.

I use duets primarily during the warm-up stages of the lesson. It facilitates the transition into the lesson proper, allows the student to warm-up without me just sitting there, and, of course, we are able to travel some very valuable ground in terms of educational content.

For the most part, I do not program (or encourage) duets for recitals or performances, mostly because I feel there is more important music to be performed. There is a place, though for good duet literature.

I enjoy duets, and have a rather significant collection of them. However, sixty minutes seems to go by so quickly that I almost never get to work on duets with my students.

I do encourage my students to get together with other players on their own to play duets and trios.

I play in unison or octaves with my students quite a bit; I feel that most of the same areas of musicianship that I rated effective to highly effective are served well through unison playing.