Quandry….

I have been musing for the past year….

How do I get a group of young musicians to perform a piece of music?

A little background.  Band directors all know that performances are a critical aspect to their curriculum, but how many actually teach “performance”?  What I see most bands do, and what my band usually does should be called “group recitation”.  The students are simply reading what’s on the page, and not really performing the music.

For a performance to occur every child MUST have internalized the music and made the choice to experience the music.  Every individual must make the choice to experience the music on a personal level on their own.  No teacher on this Earth can force a student to feel the music on this level.  The only thing a teacher can do is try and inspire deeper thinking about the music to his/her students.  I make a point of taking time out of rehearsal to talk passionately about the music, and try to convey a sense of deep importance in the music they are rehearsing.

I would love to hear about the conversations other band directors have with their students.  Some of my favorite teaching moments occur outside of class in my office with a small group of students just talking about the music.  We might have some playing on the stereo, and every once in a while I will say “Did you hear that?!?” and launch into a deep conversation about how the deep hues of the low brass support such a rich character for the ensemble, or wome other inflated artsy comment.  The students are able to make a more personal connection with you and they are able to see that music ins’t something that happens once a day (or in my situation once every other day).

If there are other stories about conversations you have had with students, or a way in which you can get kids to think about music outside of your room, let me know.

OOPS….you caught me with my pants down…..

OOPS!  I noticed after posting the last entry and then re-reading my older posts, that I already posted the article about recording your band….boy do I feel silly….

WOW!!!!! It has been a CRAZY year!!!

I haven’t blogged since last June as I was ending my first year teaching.

There I got that off of my chest.

If there is anyone out there at least a little interested in learning about my experiences as a high school band director, read on.  Contact me if you want to contribute as an author!

Anyway, a ton of stuff went down this year…along with the economy.  I started the year trying to get out of summer mode, and failing miserably at it.  Someone please enlighten me as to how to do it without seeming like the biggest flake on the planet for the first month of school.  Also, I hosted my regions large group contest this year.  WOW….that was an experience.  More on that in later posts.

Probably the most important thing I did this year was begin a parent group to help support music in my school.  This was a critical step for my program as the arts were hit pretty hard because of budget cuts.  Those parents are going to save by backside next year, because I am teaching Band AND Choir.  It is going to be as crazy, if not more crazy, than this year.  I am a little stoked to take on such a big job, but also petrified.  Stoked in that if I pull it off, I have proven myself a techer of some merit.  If I fail, the whole program goes down with me.

On my other blog “Music as Necessity” (http://musicessential.wordpress.com), I posted a way to record your band for contest, all-state, etc.  I think that post was supposed to come here, but I screwed up.  Oh well….

Anyway, I wil be posting to this site quite a bit in the coming weeks, and also pusing hard to try and expand its scope.  If you would like to help me add to the pantheon of knowledge for music education, JOIN THE FUN!!!!

Summer Vactation? WHAT Summer Vacation?!?!

Anyone who ways that teachers have it “easy” because we get Summers off…can cram it!  I have done nothing but work.  Obviously, it’s not quite like the school year, but feverish nonetheless.  Unfortunately the situation I walked into was one of chaos and disorganization.  During the year, it was all I could do to hang on and get some music made.  Now that the kids are gone, and I have a few nanoseconds to think, I am able to get some of the craziness cleaned up.  Fortunately, I have a strong core of dedicated kids who are/were willing to volunteer to help!

Here is what I got done, and what I have left to do:

1.  I (with the kids, my wife, and mother) completely reorganized all of the sheet music libraries (pep band, jazz band, concert band).

2.  I made an inventory of all of my loaner instruments.

3.  I redesigned my office to better suit my students, making it a rehearsal space as well as a place to find sanctuary.

Here is what I still need to do:

1.  Inventory all of my percussion instruments

2.  Reorganize my solo-ensemble library

3.  Establish a room plan that will allow for the most functionality for the mix of classes I will teach in there next year.

4.  Pick new music for next year (pep band, concert band, jazz band)

5.  Organize the flip folders for band camp

Jeez….I need to stop before I jump off of the nearest bridge!

Ask for what you need, and good things will happen!

Among the many challenges this year, I have had a rash of broken equipment.  Most of it was from standard use, but nevertheless, it was like trying to hit a curve ball.  Where do I go for money?  Who is in charge of giving me the funds for fixing equipment?  What do I do in the meantime?  A million questions rushed to my mind.  I decided to go to the music coordinator, and ask him if he had the power to make things right.  Of course, I got the standard “I will see if there are funds available, but don’t keep your hopes up.” response.  But he actually DID check to see if there were funds available, and he DID replace all of the equipment that was damaged!  I was beside myself!  It was like Christmas!!!  OOPS…I’m sorry….it was like a Winter Holiday!!!!!!

Anyway, I received this equipment the day of my final concert of the year.  I was abl to use it, and to great success.

I am planning on writing a whole post on the end of my year.  I am sorry it has been so long since my last post.  i thought things were settling down.  It just goes to show you how inexperienced I am.

Finally…..Time to take a breath!

I finally have time to take a deep breath and make the surge to the end of the year. The capping event of the year has passed, and I am glad to say that my students and I made it through the trials of an all day four parade mega-event just fine. It was hot, long, and tiring. And not only did I have to survive this trial of endurance, I had to start moving into my new house that evening. Talk about exhausted!!!!!

My students and I have hatched a plan to try and get enrollment up for next year. I have a miserably low number expected, and I am desperate to get that number up. I think one of my big lessons this year is how important it is for me to be seen down at the middle school. Next year, I plan on being a fixture for those eighth graders.

I will have some pics of my new house up soon!

A Formal Invitation to All!

This blog was originally intended to be a compendium of knowledge and experience. In order to accomplish this, I would like to formally invite those that are interested in becoming authors of this blog to let us know. All you need to do is sign up for an account on WordPress, and then I can add you as an author. Mike and I would remain administrators, but you would be able to add to the chaos whenever you wanted.

In order to ensure the safety of our blog, we would review your request, and if you are known to us or are already a credible blogger then you are golden!!! If we do not know you or you are new to this crazy blog stuff, tell us a little about yourself and let us know what you plan on contributing!

We look forward to hearing from you, and benefiting from your experiences and exploits!

Time is a fickle friend

Sorry for the lack of posts.  The band room has been a crazy place!!!  I realized that I am the reason for my stress.  At the beginning of the year, I scheduled all of my concerts, trips, and assemblies.  Since this game is still new to me, I didn’t account for how much time each would take.  For example, a couple of weeks ago, I scheduled a trip on Thursday and a trip on Saturday.  Now, I know that seems crazy, but the group of kids going on Thursday was small, and it wasn’t that far away.  But I didn’t account for the fact that I would need to be a school by 5 a.m. on BOTH days!!  UGH!!

This week, I have a chamber music concert I scheduled, but didn’t think that a giant upcoming event in April would conflict.  Well….it has.  I am not able to practice what I need to practice for the April event, because I am stuck doing music and listening to soloists for the March event next week.  STOOPID!

Oh well.  Back to the drawing board for next year I suppose.

The last ill-panned event of the year is my recruiting trips.  I did not take into account how or when I was going to recruit.  I planned on taking a group or two down to the middle school, but that has not yet materialized.  I believe that the eighth graders register soon, and I have only made one appearance!!!  My program is DOOMED!!!  Hopefully, a great feeling of excitement for band will sweep over all of the eighth graders and propel them into my band room….um…..yeah, that’s it.

Sibelius…Make the switch!

One thing I have found to be an absolute asset to my teaching so far is my skills using Sibelius.  For those of you who don’t already know, Sibelius is a musical notation software.  It it incredibly easy to use, and you can compose orginal compositions that look professional.  As a matter of fact, Sibelius is becoming increasingly more popular on the musical publishing front.  I have done quite a bit of engraving work (preparing music for publication) for various publishers nationally, and they all used Sibelius.

For those of you who are members of the Finale Faithful, you have a great program there as well.  Early on, I could see the differences in terms of flexibility and in some advanced features in Finale being more useful, but since then Sibelius has turned things around quite a bit.   Some composers have told me they think of Sibelius as being a program for people who just want a quick and dirt score to put out.  Well, I have created some pretty incredible looking scores, and if I don’t say so myself, better than those of the people who complain the most.

I am currently working on a post dedicated to taking a novice through a step by step process in Sibelius, using screen shots and easy to follow steps.  By the end of it, you will be well on your way to become a Sibelius Guru.

More soon.

Recording your band…where to start?

After going through the hectic and trying times of recording some applicants to the All-State Band, only to find out that none of them made it, I decided to purchase some recording equipment to get ashigh quality as I can. I am convinced that the reason that some students did not make the cut was because of the recording quality. The fact that this factors in is for another blog-rant, so I will spare you.

Where do I start? What do other directors use? I have been looking online for something affordable and I have found a few items:

1. Zoom H2 Handy Two-Track Recorder: $185.21 (Amazon). This device is an all in one set up. It has a left-right-mid mic set up, so you supposedly get a stereo recording. The nice thing about it is that it is all self-contained. The recording controls are on this device, as are the mics. Also, it comes with a USB output so you can dump the recording onto your Mac or PC (more on this in a minute).

2. Samson CO1U USB Condenser Mic: $87.95 (Amazon). This is just a microphone. You would have to lug it into your laptop or desktop computer, but it would deliver a decent sound. I hesitate at its price. I have purchased microphones before, and this price seems a bit low. I would not want to buy it, wait for it to be delivered, then regret it. This is just one of two pages of results I found when I searched for “microphones USB”.

3. Audacity: (FREEWARE). I have been using this program for years. It is easy to use, and it includes powerful editing features. Sure, you can buy other programs to edit (Peak, Cakewalk, etc.) but those programs have a ton of other stuff you really don’t need when it comes to making a decent all state or audition recording of your band. Audacity will record your track, display a sound wave, and allow you to fade in, fade out, splice out bad clicks or pops, record multiple layers, and a bunch of other stuff. It is a free download from audacity.sourceforge.net. Keep in mind that you will need to download something called the “lame lib” if you want to convert your recording to an .mp3. If you guys want me to, I will do a post on how to use Audacity later.

That is all I have found that has made it on my potential shopping list. There is a ton of crap out there, so be careful.