With the Clarflupet®, MENC member David Heintz built a system around 25 wind embouchure trainers, reeds, drumsticks and practice pads, a cleaning system and a round transport cart. Packing effectively 100 instruments, he introduced the system to his own music program.

"The Pre-Band program I teach to all the 4th grade students in our district is a year long course, which meets once a week," said Heintz. "During the first 9 weeks, everyone works on drum stick grip, technique and rhythmic reading skills. Then, each class will spend 9 weeks on the single reed mouthpiece, 9 weeks on the flute and 9 weeks on the brass mouthpiece."

Students practice for the sake of experience. The process deliberately leaves out fingering. The students get only one note. They are required to focus their creativity on the rhythmic response, which builds confidence. Some instruments they find easy while others are more challenging. At the end of the year, they know more and have been exposed to rudimentary practice of everything except the double reed.

David still has to deal with "what we have in the classroom" limitations, but the students come to their first band lesson already knowing something. They've seen notation and played to it. He sees a great reduction in the number of students picking an instrument because their friend is playing it, or they think it looks cool. "Since I started I haven't had a single student drop flute," he says.

There are additional levels of application for the Clarflupet. "Imagine your general music teacher doing occasional units beginning in 1st or 2nd grade where he or she would teach the students proper clarinet/sax embouchure while others learn flute embouchure, others learn brass, and still others deal with basic rhythms," said MENC member Chad Criswell as MusicEdMagic on the MENC Band Forum.*

According to Heintz, the Clarflupet can also be used effectively to introduce music composition and improvisation, teach about the science of sound production, work with special needs students, or help parents of band students understand the challenges their children face. "I see this functioning at all levels,” he said, including “those [older students] who wonder if they want to play a secondary instrument and what that would be.”**

David Heintz's Clarflupet Website

Chad Criswell's write up about the Clarflupet, which was featured in the June 2008 Teaching Music

*MENC Band Forum topic on the Clarflupet.

**"Introducing... the Clarflupet" by Denis Lambert in the December 2006 Vermont Music Educator

Part 1 of this series.

Coming in two weeks: The After School Dilemma

— Paul Fergus, February 27, 2009, © MENC: The National Association for Music Education (www.menc.org)