This season, our Elemental Music family grew a little bit larger with the help of some incredible high school volunteers.
Looking for more ways to support her beginning Prelude students while learning virtually over Zoom, Prelude Director Emily Call wrote to Samohi Orchestra Director (and Elemental Strings Co-Director!) Jason Aiello to ask if there might be some high school students interested in offering weekly one-on-one mentoring sessions for the young musicians of Prelude.
The response was overwhelming - so much so that mentors were able to be paired with every interested Prelude student in addition to a handful of Elemental Strings students. The results of the mentor meetings were clear – the high school volunteers not only reinforced concepts introduced and explored in rehearsals one on one, but as a young people who were not so long ago in the same shoes as our Elemental Music students, they were also inspiring and fun!
High school violist Mads Knight-Weber was one of those mentors. Between year-end activities and finals, Mads found time to speak with us about the experience of being a Prelude mentor. Check it out below!
Elemental Music: Can you tell us a little bit about what instrument you play and how you got started in music? How did you choose the viola as your instrument?
Mads Knight-Weber: I’ve mostly played the viola in my school orchestra career. I actually started on the violin in elementary school but, after an accidental solo in my last concert, I decided that I didn’t want that kind of spotlight on me and switched to viola at the start of middle school. It was then that I found out that the violas played in alto clef, and made it my mission to be able to fluently read all of the clefs.
EM: Did you ever participate in any kind of youth orchestra as an elementary student? Do you think it inspired you to keep playing?
MKW: I briefly participated in a youth orchestra in 5th grade. It didn’t inspire me to keep playing since I had other, stronger inspirations, so much as it broadened my view of what local musicians could do, as well as making progress seem much more attainable.
EM: You'll be a senior next year...do you have any big musical goals?
MKW: My big music goal for next year is to practice enough to be first chair, or at least really close in skill to whoever is first chair. A lot of really strong violists are graduating this year, so I’d like to hold down the fort a little bit for so many people’s in-person year ahead! As a more attainable and likely goal, however, I’d like to arrange pieces for students to play throughout the year. Students ask for pieces to play in orchestra that we don’t have in the music library (mostly from anime or new shows they like), and it would be such a treat to be able to give them music they want to hear themselves play.
EM: What inspired you to volunteer as an Elemental Music mentor this year?
MKW: I’ve wanted to mentor other students since 8th grade and just haven’t really had the opportunity until now to do so. Since I’ve been in music lessons, on and off, for several years now, I saw this as a perfect way to finally start to give back to the community that has taught me so much about my favorite hobby.
EM: Your energy and enthusiasm for mentoring came across so strongly in your mentor reports each week! Do you have any prior teaching experience?
MKW: Last summer, I taught my cousin songs on the instruments we have around the house. Watching her become more familiar with, not just moving at the right time, but actually beginning to understand what the music is supposed to sound like was just such an overjoying process.
EM: What was it like to teach a string instrument over Zoom?!
MKW: Teaching remotely was such a vastly different experience. When I taught my cousin, we referenced youtube videos together, I was able to see her hands from different angles, and there aren’t internet connection issues in real life. I ran into a few problems just in terms of explaining what good form in the left hand can do, how to move in order to get a straighter bow. Since there’s latency, I also couldn’t count out the rhythms with the metronome, but I think that little challenge was well received on my mentee’s end.
EM: What was your favorite thing about volunteering as a mentor for Prelude?
MKW: We both had the same laidback and excited attitude towards teaching and learning, which alleviated any worries of if I was being too overbearing. There was no sense of rush or anxiety, and I loved my mentee’s well-deserved confidence in her abilities.
EM: Do you think that mentoring helped you improve your own musicianship?
MKW: I’m a firm believer in the idea that, if you can’t explain something well enough to someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience in the field, you don’t know the material well enough. Mentoring gave me the opportunity to see just how well I did know my material and I can truthfully say that I understand music better now than when I first started mentoring.
EM: If you could give one piece of advice to our young musicians, musical or otherwise, what would it be?
MKW: Practice doesn’t have to be boring. Of course, there are boring parts of practicing like scales and intonation, but you can learn in so many other ways besides going through the motions. I had to find more unconventional ways to practice when I had injured my hands, but humming your music/singing the rhythms, listening to recordings on youtube and playing/following along with the sheet music, watching how your peers play for what they do well, coming up with stories that go along with the music are all ways of practicing that don’t involve hands that have worked for me. When I could finally return to physically playing, I would set really short-term goals for myself, sometimes just for the practice session, sometimes for the week, but never much longer than that. This would keep me engaged and trick me into being motivated for months on end, which was something I had struggled with for literal years.
EM: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
MKW: Thank you so much for letting me be a mentor this year! Even though I was the one teaching, this was the most wonderful learning experience I’ve had over the pandemic. I hope my, and the other mentors’, teaching showed through in the Prelude meetings and helped the students stay interested in learning and playing music despite all the learning curves.