by sahar jiwani
While orchestra teacher Catherine Bond is on maternity leave, Tanya Ratner is temporarily taking her place. Ratner is a professional orchestra conductor who taught at universities in Australia before coming to Marshall.
Music education in Australia is different than it is in the U.S. because choir, orchestra and band are not subjects in school, and all instrumental music is taught after school.
“Students strive for several hours [of practice] on the weekend to [eventually] play together,” Ratner said. “We all spend a lot of time practicing on our own and it can be very isolatory so doing it with people […] makes us want to keep going.”
Ratner said the excitement of practicing music in a big group is an entirely different experience.
“I remember the first time I was in a choir and there were 600 kids making the most amazing sound,” Ratner said.
Even though the music teaching systems have few similarities, Ratner said the results are identical.
“We all get to the same place in the end but just in a different way,” Ratner said.
Sophomore Sophia Song said Ratner is different from other orchestra teachers.
“She teaches at a very fast pace [and] it’s helpful as we can get more things done and move on to different sections of music or start working on a different piece,” Song said.
Sophomore Medha Annam also said there is a difference in Ratner’s teaching style compared to Bond’s.
“I think she tries to let us fix our mistakes and figure out how to play a part of a song on our own before telling us how do it, which is helpful,” Annam said.
Song said the students will have to get used to having a new teacher with different conducting patterns, but they will also get to experience something new.
“[We] get to be taught with a different style and play different music pieces than what our normal director would pick,” Song said.
Song said she enjoys Ratner’s class and that she is a good teacher.
“I like how fun the new teacher is” Song said. “She has a really nice accent and often plays music for us over the speakers,”
For the three weeks that Ratner has been at Marshall, she said she has loved the environment and communicating with her students. “I think Catherine Bond must have been a really good teacher,” Ratner said. “[The students] are really nice and really receptive and it’s just fun making music with them. It feels more collaborative, which is what I like.”