EduLearn Journal of Green Learning, e-ISSN 2807-890X Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2023, pp. 36-45. DOI: 10.53889/jgl.v3i1.211 -------------------------------------------------------- Trombone basic skills of students with the new practical hybrid teaching method Zhang Yi1, Pramote Danpradit1 & Ampaipan Kaosawang1 1 Department of Music, Faculty of Music, Bangkokthonburi University, Thailand Article Info ABSTRACT Article history: Received April 24, 2023 Revised May 1, 2023 Accepted May 3, 2023 This is an academic paper intended to suggest ways to resolve the basic skills of trombone students with the new practical hybrid teaching method (NPH) at Shanxi Arts Vocational College. The trombone instruction focuses on developing basic skills such as adjusting the shape of the mouth and wind, determining the pitch of the pitch, etc. During the COVID-19 outbreak, teachers and students were very far apart. Teaching through various online formats was used to help solve the problem of teaching such skills. The researchers reviewed the skills teaching document and proposed teaching methods to modify or improve the key skills of trombone teaching as follows: practical teaching method, demonstration music teaching method, digital music teaching method, reflective music teaching method, and life skills for psychosocial competence. Therefore, the 7 principles that teachers must adapt to suit the context of teaching in their own traditional schools allow teachers to emphasize some issues of appropriateness and spend time teaching. Keywords: Basic skills problems Trombone basic skills Hybrid teaching method This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA license. Corresponding Author: Pramote Danpradit Faculty of Music Bangkokthonburi University Thailand Email: zy14467708@163.com 1. INTRODUCTION Shanxi Art Vocational College, like other art colleges in China, is the first higher art vocational college in China and the only higher art vocational college in Shanxi Province with strong strengths and outstanding achievements. Shanxi Arts Vocational College has undergone several name changes and mergers over its 70-year history, trained over 40,000 art talents at all levels for society, and has become an important base for culture and art talent training and education in Shanxi Province. The college has major categories of music performance, dance performance, art design, fine arts, drama, film, and television performance, and a trombone performance major in the direction of music performance. The core goal of higher vocational https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 37 education is to cultivate students' vocational ability, i.e., professionalism in education. Students choose to receive vocational education in order to meet their employment and development needs. Arts vocational education is not only cultivates students' professional and technical abilities but also strives to promote students' overall development in professional theory, stage experience, teaching practice, and aesthetic awareness.Understanding the current situation and characteristics of students' learning motivation in Shanxi art and vocational colleges and exploring strategies to stimulate students' learning motivation have important theoretical and practical implications for improving the quality of talent training in Shanxi art and vocational colleges and exporting more high-quality skilled talents to society. In terms of learning content, the university curriculum is qualitatively different from the curriculum they received in high school, and the change in curriculum is a new test for them. When they face the new learning environment and teaching mode with a negative attitude, many students show low confidence in learning, academic depression, a lack of motivation, and a lack of autonomy in learning (Su et.al., 2019). For the new students of Shanxi Arts Vocational College, most of them do not have a solid professional foundation, lack basic music theory knowledge, and know less about music- related knowledge, resulting in their lack of comprehensive learning ability, discrimination ability, error correction ability, and independent learning ability. Students at Shanxi Arts Vocational College are at a disadvantage in the Chinese arts higher education system due to the severe employment situation and employment pressure. Many students know that their level of professional skills will be related to their work and life after graduation and that their major is likely to become their future career. It is important to stimulate their motivation and learning values, and their interest in learning will be their motivation to learn and think. After the 19th century, trombone development produced a series of trombones, such as the Soprano trombone, alto trombone, tenor trombone, bass trombone, and so on. Nowadays, the trombone has become an important part of modern symphonies. The trombone is widely used in pop music, military music, and jazz due to its rich sound quality, and it is even referred to as the "king of jazz" (Bo, 2011). In the 1950s, the early years of the founding of New China and the beginning of the Central Conservatory of Music By 1960, the disciplinary system of the Central Conservatory was basically sound when the violin, cello, viola, harp, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba, etc. were established. Most of the majors are taught by professional teachers, but the trombone and tuba majors are clearly " weak." Since there was no professional teacher, Mr. Xia Zhiqiu, a trumpet professor, taught part-time. From 1960 to 1980, there was an extreme shortage of teachers and students in the trombone profession in China, which was basically concentrated in a few major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Xi'an (Bingyu, 2018). Since the popularization of brass education in China, trombone players and educators have studied the advanced performance techniques and teaching methods in Europe and America and researched and summarized the teaching system suitable for Chinese students in their own practice. With the unremitting efforts of the previous and subsequent generations of " Chinese trombonists," the level of trombone playing and teaching in China has greatly improved, and its overall strength is very close to that of European and American countries. When they face the new learning environment and teaching mode with a negative attitude, many students show low confidence in learning, academic depression, a lack of motivation, and a lack of autonomy in learning (Su et.al., 2019). For the new students of Shanxi Arts Vocational College, most of them do not have a solid professional foundation, lack basic music theory knowledge, and know less about music-related knowledge, resulting in their lack of comprehensive learning ability, discrimination ability, error correction ability, and independent learning ability. Students at Shanxi Arts Vocational College are at a disadvantage 38 in the Chinese arts higher education system due to the severe employment situation and employment pressure. Many students know that their level of professional skills will be related to their work and life after graduation and that their major is likely to become their future career. It is important to stimulate their motivation and learning values, and their interest in learning will be their motivation to learn and think. An important problem for trombone students is the basic skills related to determining the embouchure (mouth shape), wind power, matching the wind to the notes and the embouchure, choosing the correct wind power with the pitch, the position of the aligned lever, or correlation with rhythm. The basic problems mentioned above can be solved with the correct basic training. However, under the epidemic situation, students and teachers do not meet face- to-face, causing problems especially in communication that must be understood and practiced on their own, thus requiring a very high level of understanding. Therefore, a new approach to online practice is required for teaching music practice. The purpose of this paper aims to suggest ways to resolve the basic skills of the trombone students with the new practical hybrid teaching method at Shanxi Arts Vocational College. 2. THE CONCEPT OF NEW PACTICAL HYBRID TEACHING METHOD The framework or background of the development of the new practical hybrid teaching method (NPH) concept of solving teaching problems. The trombone instruction focuses on developing basic skills such as adjusting the shape of the mouth and wind, determining the pitch of the pitch, etc. During the COVID-19 outbreak, teachers and students were very far apart. Teaching through various online formats was used to help solve the problem of teaching such skills. The researchers reviewed the skills teaching document and proposed teaching methods to modify or improve the key skills of trombone teaching as follows: Practical teaching method, demonstration music teaching methods, digital music teaching methods, reflective music teaching method, and life skills for psychosocial competence (Yi, 2023). Practical teaching method Kulbergs (2016) explains in his introduction to trombone practice in "Trombone Startup for Beginners" that student should begin practicing the basics of western music, such as scales and arpeggios, as well as simple exercises such as long tones and natural trombone slurs, by following the steps below: Example of a daily practice routine: 1. Breathing exercise: • Breathe with an open throat cavity • Use constant flow (same airspeed until the end of the exercise) • Think of the syllable “o” when breathing • Have a good, tall, and relaxed posture when breathing 2. Long tones • Practice sound and pitch • Good attacks and timing • Use lots of air • Play a good sound; stop when it starts to sound bad or the notes are not reachable 3. Scale (C major: the scales are changed weekly or when one exercise is properly properly) • Practice making good connections between the notes (fast and smooth slide technique) • Listen to the pitch and timing (on the backing track or by yourself when playing it in a duet) • Breathe whenever necessary, but do so on a regular basis (every 1 or 2 bars) 4. Arpeggio (the same key as in the scale practiced before) 39 • Keep the quality of the sound the same • Use lots of air • Stay collected in the embouchure • Pay attention to pitch 5. Song (preferably in the same key as the scales and arpeggios) These are the fundamentals that every student and professional should incorporate into their daily practice. Playing simple things with the best quality every single time is essential for successful brass playing. Demonstration music teaching method Xiaoyan (2009) Demonstration pedagogy is the purposeful use of the teacher's demonstration of skills as an effective stimulus to elicit corresponding actions from learners so that they can productively acquire the necessary skills through imitation. It is mainly applicable to the early stages of learning skills. Experienced teachers do not stereotypically repeat examples in their demonstration teaching but pay close attention to flexible adaptations and proper operations to stimulate students' creativity. The demonstrative music teaching method is one of the most economical and effective teaching methods. Through various demonstrations, many learning patterns seem to be formed in the students' minds for future use. This view is incomplete. The teacher should use other teaching methods in conjunction with modeling music instruction so that students can apply mental operations such as analysis, comparison, generalization, reasoning, and exploration in imitation learning as much as possible to overcome the conservative nature of the modeling music teaching method. Digital music teaching method Huiming (2021) says the digital teaching method is mainly the use of digital means such as pictures, audio, and video, and teachers use digital means to teach. Digital music teaching methods can deepen students' understanding of music, help them understand how other performers handle music, improve their own appreciation of works, and better highlight their own characteristics in performance. Digital teaching methods can help change traditional trombone teaching, allowing students to learn and play from multiple dimensions and levels, while teachers can better grasp the psychological characteristics of students and fully integrate text, audio, and other elements to ensure a more diversified and richer form of teaching. Reflective music teaching method Dan (2016), a reflective music pedagogy refers to teachers' re-conception and rethinking of educational teaching practice and using it to draw lessons and further improve education and teaching. Teachers will reflect on their own educational practices to improve the quality of their teaching reflections through educational cases, educational insights, etc. The types of reflection are vertical reflection, horizontal reflection, individual reflection, collective reflection, etc. The action research method, comparative method, summary method, dialogue method, video method, file bag method, etc. Reflective music pedagogy is conducive to teachers' continuous exploration and resolution of problems in terms of teaching purposes, teaching tools, and themselves through action and research. It is conducive to the continuous improvement of the rationality of teaching practice, teaching effectiveness, and textbook research ability. It is beneficial for teachers to improve their personal businesses and promote their professionalism. Therefore, in order to facilitate and understand quickly, the author presents an integrated teaching method that is expected to be suitable for use during the COVID-19 crisis and future adjustments: the hybrid teaching method. Life Skills for psychosocial competence Life Skills for Psychosocial Competence: The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined 10 life skills (Bertolote, 1994). 40 1. Decision-making skills refer to the ability to make decisions about various matters. In a systematic life, for example, a person can make decisions about his or her actions in relation to health or life safety behaviors. By evaluating options and outcomes and making the right choice we can improve our health both physically and mentally. 2. Problem-solving abilities are the ability to deal with problems in life in a systematic manner. not causing physical and mental stress that may escalate into a problem that is too big to be solved. 3. The ability to think creatively is referred to as creative thinking skills. This will assist you in making decisions and solving problems. It uses creative thinking methods to find alternatives and the consequences of each choice. and can apply the experience appropriately in daily life. 4. The ability to think critically is referred to as “critical thinking skills,” as is the ability to assess problems or situations around them that affect their lives. Critical thinking skills can help adolescents recognize and evaluate the effects of their attitudes and behaviors, such as their sense of self-worth. dealing with peer pressure or receiving information from various media. 5.Effective communication skills are the ability to use words and gestures to express one's feelings and thoughts appropriately in different cultures and situations. whether to comment on the expression of need- appreciation, pleading, negotiation, admonishment, assistance, or denial. 6. The ability to form positive relationships with others is referred to as “interpersonal relationship-building abilities.” 7. One of the skills of self-awareness is the ability to search. Understand and know yourself, including your own advantages and disadvantages. Know your own needs and desires. This will help teenagers understand themselves when facing stressful situations. And this skill is also the basis for developing other skills, such as communication, building relationships, decision-making, and empathy for others. 8. Empathy is the ability to understand the similarities or differences between individuals in terms of abilities, gender, age, educational level, religion, beliefs, skin color, occupation, etc., which helps them accept people who are different from others. We assist those who are less fortunate or have experienced adversity. 9. “Coping with emotion” is the ability to recognize the emotions of oneself and others. Know how emotions affect behavior. Know how to deal with anger and sadness. That negatively affects the body and mind. 10. The ability to recognize the source of stress is referred to as "stress management skills" (coping with stress). Know how to relieve stress and guidelines for controlling stress levels in order to behave in the right way and not cause health problems. These ten life skills cannot be acquired spontaneously. requires practice to be a teenager who is ready to face change happily and grow into a well-characterized adult. It requires training oneself to develop strengths in analytical, decision-making, and behavioral skills. Know how to live with others who are different from yourself. and ready to face and solve problems and obstacles that arise, as well as deal with their own lives. Practical teaching methods, demonstration music teaching methods, digital music teaching methods, reflective music teaching methods, and life skills for psychosocial competence. Based on the aforementioned principles, the author consults experts and tries to revise, distinguish, and synthesize a framework and the new practical hybrid teaching method to best suit teaching practice in a new context. 41 3. HYBRID TEACHING METHOD FOR MUSIC PRACTICAL TEACHING With the rapid development of internet technology, the internet has a pivotal role in life, which also requires the teaching mode to keep pace with the times, and teachers should adopt a variety of digital means to continuously enrich the course content. In recent years, the hybrid teaching method has been widely used in teaching various courses, mainly in medical, chemical, industrial, physical education, and other disciplines. Professor He Ke-kou of Beijing Normal University first discussed the hybrid teaching method at the 7th Conference on Global Chinese Computer Education Applications in 2003, with the main idea being to apply different learning theories, technical means, and methods to teaching activities in an integrated manner. By combining digital means and traditional teaching modes, the hybrid teaching method can complement each other's strengths and weaknesses. By applying the hybrid teaching method, teachers can apply the right technology at the right time to achieve the best teaching objectives, thus improving teaching effectiveness (Lu, 2021; Zhipeng, 2022). The hybrid teaching method in this paper uses digital music teaching methods, didactic music teaching methods, demonstration music teaching methods, contrastive music teaching methods, reflective music teaching methods, and life skills for psychosocial competence, etc. In the teaching processes, I will use different teaching methods for each exercise so as to help students solve the problems they encounter in the learning and playing process, and improve quickly on their professional paths (Bo, 2017). The difference between traditional teaching methods and the new practical hybrid teaching method. Traditional teaching methods generally use one or two traditional teaching methods. The traditional teaching method is relatively simple. If the teacher chooses the teaching method applicable to students, they can understand the teaching content. If the teacher chooses a teaching method that is not applicable to students, it will be difficult for students to understand the teacher's content. If teachers use teaching methods that are not suitable for students for a long time, it will not only affect teaching efficiency and results but also make students bored and have more negative emotions. So, the new practical hybrid teaching method (NPH) makes good use of the new era of digital electronics and is a combination of multiple teaching methods. NPH is a combination of various teaching methods that enables students to experience and understand the teaching content better. The long-term use of NPH can better enhance students' learning motivation and confidence, promote students' independent learning ability and music discrimination ability, and effectively improve teachers' teaching efficiency and teaching results (Yi, 2021). The principles of the new practical hybrid teaching method for the practical teaching of music. 1. The emphasis on analyzing the purpose of learning 2. Use a variety of teaching or activity types to substitute for or fix the problem 3. Focus on practical teaching methods first 4. Use appropriate digital music teaching methods 5. Use appropriate online teaching skills 6. Teachers must always use the reflective music teaching method 7. Consider life skills for psychosocial competence The process for the new practical hybrid teaching method (NPH) is as follows: Implementation of a hybrid teaching method and sample recommendations: The hybrid teaching method for music practical teaching based on micro learning is introduced in the laboratory class of chemical defense medicine. 1) Pre-course preparation; 2) Pre-in class; 3) Practice in class; and 4) Post-class analysis (Yi, 2023). 1. Pre-course preparation: Before the course, the instructor should write a detailed video script and create a micro-lesson that integrates text, animation, and video for 42 demonstration. In this section, educators must first consider whether to teach on site or online in relation to the content of the textbooks and assessments. 2. Pre-in class: Teachers upload the micro-lesson to the teaching platform before the experiment class, and students can watch and learn it by themselves after learning the relevant theoretical knowledge. The teacher must not forget to check the availability of the equipment before class and repeat the steps of the activities and the accompanying materials, especially the latest updated files, otherwise you may be upset. 3. Practice in class: Students participate in classroom teaching on the basis of micro- lesson learning. In the classroom, teachers review theoretical knowledge, explain experimental precautions in the form of interactive questions, apply theoretical knowledge to practical operations, and don't forget to summarize before the end of the class. This section gives teachers the opportunity to select sub-activities as well as exercises appropriate to the content. Instructors must not forget t h e f i v e online teaching techniques and the ten life skills. Instructors must practice and choose appropriate techniques to use during teaching at this stage. 4. Post-class analysis: Students can watch the microlessons on the school’s online teaching platform for review, analysis, and summary at any time, according to their personal learning situation, in order to fully master the knowledge related to chemical defense medicine. In the hybrid teaching method, students have completed the preliminary learning of the experimental project in the pre-course pre-study stage and have sufficient preparation and ample time to complete the experimental operation and conduct class discussion in the experimental classroom. This teaching mode improves the probability of students' experimental success and can ensure teaching effectiveness. Troubleshooting example Long tone practice Because the long tone practice is the basis of articulation, consonants, scales, etudes, and music, the primary task of every trombone student in higher vocational colleges is to master the long tone practice skillfully. During the teaching process, most trombone students in higher education institutions will encounter the problem of a tight, boring sound when playing long notes. The tone of the trombone should be thick and broad. Since the trombone is made of copper material, the tone of the trombone should also have a metallic color. If the sound is tight and muffled, it may be caused by incorrect embouchure, uneven breath, or too much force (Jisi, 2016). The steps for solving the long tone practice problem using the new practical hybrid teaching method are as follows: 1) Prepare before the lesson. The teacher should find audio or video demonstrations of trombone exercises performed by representative European and American trombonists via the Internet. Before the lesson, the teacher should develop a detailed teaching plan and prepare teaching aids, for example, targeted teaching materials or exercise examples. 2) Pre-induction class First, let the students play and record with the recording device; second, play the audio of the students' playing and the demonstration audio of the trombone practice played by European and American trombonists; let the students compare and contrast while listening to the audio, think about the difference, and let the students remember the correct sound; third, let the students imitate the practice and communicate their own playing experiences and the blowing difficulties they encounter when playing with the teacher; fourth, the teacher corrects the students' embouchure, breath, and pronunciation through demonstration and guidance and makes a video recording of the whole process. 3) Practice in class: Based on practical teaching, instructors can choose to use it both online and on-site. The purpose is to strengthen the wind force by focusing on the student's exertion and controlling the wind force to match the sound level. If using online teaching, the instructor should record a short clip and let the student send the return video. Let's evaluate and 43 receive suggestions for improvement. 4) Post-class analysis and reflection. After the lesson, students can listen to the audio and watch the class video repeatedly for learning and practice; teachers can grasp students' learning situations according to their feedback content in time to improve teaching content and adjust teaching strategies. Exercise example long tone: Figure 1 A long-tone practice to help students expand their range To practice long tones on brass instruments, learners must consider the strength of the wind and the shape of the mouth. For trombones, the positioning of the slider's hand is also related to the correct sound positioning. Training must be performed at a slow pace while listening to the correct pitch according to the exercise. 44 Figure 2 A long tone practice to help students’ cirrus of title words In this exercise, the teacher should focus on more relevant musical vocabulary and practice as an example for the students to follow. Of course, slow, repetitive practice is necessary for all types of skill training (Fei, 2015). 4. CONCLUSION Some domestic works have done some research on trombone practice methods at the moment, but there are few monographs on how to solve trombone students' performance problems in higher education institutions. There is also a lack of comprehensive and systematic analysis and research on which teaching methods teachers should use to efficiently teach trombone students' performance problems. This paper is a comprehensive understanding, analysis, and discussion of the learning situation of trombone students at China's Shanxi Art Vocational College. The new practical hybrid teaching method described in this paper is the result of exploration and research in the trombone performance major after I studied and researched the hybrid teaching method in other disciplines. This teaching mode improves students' efficiency in solving performance problems, changes the previous teacher-oriented teaching mode, guides students to actively explore, develops students' ability to think independently, and has a positive effect on improving students' quality. Teachers can use a combination of teaching methods to ensure teaching effectiveness and quality. Therefore, the 7 principles that teachers must adapt to suit the context of teaching in their own traditional schools allow teachers to emphasize some issues of appropriateness and spend time teaching. It is very important for every trombone student to be able to learn and master solid basic skills. 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