Impact Project- 2nd Placement

 At Centreville HS one of the issues with the hybrid (online and virtual) environment is that students have been asked to be solo players throughout the past year.  As solo players you don't necessarily know how to blend, balance, or even produce enough sound.  Our current situation at Centreville has teachers on stage and students spread throughout the auditorium audience seats. This allows for ample spacing for students and surpasses CDC and FCPS guidelines.  The biggest issue we were finding is that students were afraid to play out. They were afraid others were going to hear them.  One thing we noticed that was not aiding the students was that they were having to breathe very constantly and were not using enough air to produce a full sound on their instrument.  When I began taking over warm-ups I included breathing gym. Mrs. Hall had done a great job with teaching breathing gym online but once we moved to the hybrid model it was evident that students weren't breathing correctly.  I began introducing new breathing exercises and explained why and how breathing gym was necessary for all instrumentalists (yes even percussionists). The students started off with basic exercises and were still having issues breathing "low" and completely filling up their lungs. I introduced the "in sip sip hiss exercise".  This exercise heavily encourages students to completely fill up their lungs to max capacity and then take more sips of air in and slowly release it.  I turned the exercise into a game to see who could go the longest on the "hiss".  The first few times with this specific exercise, students barely made it 30 seconds. Currently, our highest score is 62 seconds!! Yes the point is not to see who can go the longest but it has made a bunch of students learn to space their air out evenly.  Another analogy I used that helped students learn to breathe "low" and not from their shoulders was the Santa analogy.  I told students I wanted them to expand their stomach out as much as they could to be like Santa Clause.  I also had them place their hand on their belly area to feel the expansion as they breathed in.  Some other exercises I incorporated to help students use more air included 4's 3's 2's 1's.  As linked below, this exercise makes students take in air for 4 counts and completely fill up, then push all air possible out until they are empty, then the same for 3 counts, 3 counts, and 1 count. These exercises pushed students to expel their air as past as possible and eventually led to them putting more air through their horn.  Now students are playing at a pretty consistent mezzo-piano/mezzo-forte dynamic which is a huge improvement from the pianissimo in March!  I have attached the breathing gym slides and video below for reference. 

VIEW BREATHING GYM SLIDES AND VIDEO