Talon Marks Online Arts

The Cerritos College Music Club held a workshop on March 27, which focused on how to practice and use techniques for an instrument.

Director of Bands and Orchestra David Betancourt, who directed the workshop, said, “The focus of the workshop today was to offer information to the students about how to practice their instruments.

“Really getting down to the nuts and bolts of it so not just that they practice for a certain amount of hours a day, or how long they practice or what things they practice but how they practice those things so they can use their time really efficiently.”

Music education and performance major Janet Cisneros explains why these workshops have been planned out “I feel that we need this kind of guidance, and also to reinforce what we’ve been learning so far, for those in applied music.”

Cisneros recognized that the workshop also allowed her and her peers to get a different perspective from a different instructor.

She continued to say that the idea of the workshops all came together last semester and was planned out during winter break.

“Over the winter break I put it together and I sent out the email to Dr. Betancourt. So he was totally up for it and very enouraging about this and totally excited about it.”

Music major Yesenia Segura explains why she was in attendance “I’m a musician. I play the violin and I was having trouble with the metronome and stuff like that.”

Segura said that she didn’t know how to properly use a metronome before attending the workshop and admits that attending the workshop helped her out a lot.

She concluded by saying, “This really helped me to improve my knowledge of how much I need it [the metronome], how to use it, how to incorporate it in my daily practices and as a musician how it’s going to affect my career.”

Music major Daniel Hernandez explains what the workshop did for him, “Basically it was just like showing you how to make a perfect practice and also how to achieve that goal.”

Overall, he said that it was very helpful because he now knows what to emphasize on while practicing.

The workshop was the third in a series of four this semester, with the next one being on April 17 at BC-51.