what’s going on

This afternoon, I have one assembly and then the evening concert is at 7 pm.  So far, so good.  The Advanced Band did their assembly on the 1st, it went really well.  I hope that the beginners do great too.

 

Some time this summer, I will re-write these announcements and put them in the program notes wiki.  For now, I am just going to cut and paste the script that my students will be reading, to introduce the pieces.

 

(Court of the Noble Trumpeteers)

Court of the Noble Trumpeteers, by Timothy Loest, is a fanfare that has been written for concert band; fanfares are usually written for brass and percussion.  They have been used for hundreds of years, to start events with a grand flourish. 

 

 Our arrangement gives each section of the band a chance to play a fanfare.  As the title suggests, this fanfare features the members of our trumpet section.

 

 (The Minute Arachnida)

The Minute Arachnida, by Robert M. Jordan is a one-movement work that is an arrangment of the children’s song “Itsy Bitsy Spider”. The title is a clever translation of the title of that tune. 

 

 Minute (men-OOT) means “small” and arachnida (uh-RACK-ni-duh) is Latin for “spider”.  This piece has offered many music learning opportunities for every instrument in the band. 

 

 It includes a sixteen-measure introduction that uses only percussion instruments. Each wind instrument has an opportunity to play the main melody in a round.

 

 (Ancient Hunters)

Ancient Hunters, by Sean O’Loughlin (O Lock- Lynn) uses only six notes to create a truly powerful statement. The composer was inspired to create this piece during a visit to Ancient Hunters Overlook, in Badlands National Park. 

 

Scientists have found evidence of the unique hunting method used by the Native Americans in the area.  Bison were herded over the edge of a great cliff, where they could be butchered and cooked after their death. Charcoal from old campfires, sharp flakes of quartz, arrowheads and pieces of pottery have been found at the base of the cliff.

 

The piece that we will perform for you starts with a slow and majestic statement of the theme and quickly moves to a faster tempo.

 

 While performing or listening to Ancient Hunters, you can imagine seeing a herd of bison in the distance, moving closer and closer, as they approach the edge of the cliff.

 

 (Slidin’ the Blues)

Tonight, you will hear three pieces which are played in a “blues” style.  Blues music is a uniquely American style, which grew from the vocal music of African-Americans in the late 1800s. 

 

The style is widely known for having influenced much of American popular music, including jazz, rock and roll, hip-hop, R&B and bluegrass. 

 

The first Blues song of the performance is Slidin’ the Blues, by Michael Story.  It has a “cut-time” feel and is the first piece that we have played in a swing style, with a very challenging key signature.  This piece features the trombone section.

 

 (Star Wars)

John Williams composed the scores for each of the six wildly popular Star Wars movies.  Many credit his work on the original movie for renewing an interest in symphonic music writing for movies.

 

In the nearly 30 years since the movie was first released, Williams melodies from Star Wars and other movies have become very well known for a wide variety of people. 

 

 

 

We have prepared an arrangement of the opening theme from the first Star Wars movie, it was arranged by Carl Strommen.  It is a favorite of many of the members of the Beginning Band.

 

(After Cyberspace Overture… before Cool Jazz Riffs)

That was Cyberspace Overture, written by John O’Reilly and Mark Williams; taken from our 5th grade lesson book.  It is one of our favorites!

 

 Our next piece is Cool Jazz Riffs, by Gerald Sebesky.  Like Slidin’ The Blues, it is written in a swing style and gives us a great chance to feature many members of our band. 

 

(The Simpsons)

Grammy and Emmy Award winning composer Danny Elfman took ONLY two days to compose the retro-style theme song for the popular animated television series: The Simpsons. 

 

Elfman has written the scores for many popular movies, including both Spider-Mans and Meet the Robinsons.  With over 400 episodes airing, the theme to The Simpsons is still his most popular tune.  Our version of this theme was arranged by Eric Wilson.

 

(Fantasy on “Chester”)

The tune “Chester” was won of the most patriotic anthems sung during the American Revolutionary War.  Only Yankee Doodle was more popular, and for a time, the tune was actually one of the melodies considered to serve as our National Anthem.   

 

Our arrangement is called “Fantasy on Chester,” it is arranged by Michael Story.

 

(Meet the Masters)

The Advanced band will open our portion of tonight’s performance with a medley of three of the most popular classical melodies ever written.  Meet the Masters includes the theme to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, Dvorjak’s New World Symphony and concludes with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

 

 (Creepy Crawlies)

Our next piece is a tribute to beings that were here before us and will probably be here for many years after we are gone.  Creepy Crawlies, written by Michael Story is about bugs. 

 

The flutes and clarinets play the sound of a flying insect… the trumpets will use just their mouthpieces to make the sound of a buzzing fly. 

 

 The rest of the band will get pretty annoyed with those flies… and they won’t last.

 

(Cumberland Gap)

Anne McGinty’s arrangement, Cumberland Gap features four American folksongs that have been very popular over the last few hundred years.   

 

Skip to My Lou was a dance song from America’s frontier period.  The children’s song “Polly Wolly Doodle” and love song “The Foggy, Foggy Dew” are from the same time period.  “Down in the Valley” was passed down by generations of people living in the mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri.

 

(Bluesville)

Our next piece is Bluesville, by Eric Osterling.  Like Cool Jazz Riffs, it is written in that uniquely American style, blues.  The composer used traditional blues harmonies and rhythms to create an upbeat, jazzy piece has given every member of the band a chance to perfect playing in a swing style.  

 

(Mission:  Impossible Theme)

Our final piece for this evening is the theme song from the television show, Mission:  Impossible. 

 

The Emmy award winning television show aired in the 1960s and 1970s, and inspired the creation of a comic book, a video game and three movies.  The theme was written by Lalo Schifrin and is one of the most popular theme melodies found in television and movies.

don’t think about thinking… it’s not on the test

Tom Chapin’s “Not On The Test” now has a website!

http://www.notonthetest.com/

He and John Forster wrote a wonderful and satircal song for NPR’s “Morning Edition.”  Now, you can watch the video and explore some links on Chapin’s website.

scheduling stress

I (with the orchestra teacher and a vocal music teacher) met with our principal this morning about scheduling for next year.  Since 2002, NCLB has driven instrumental music scheduling into a smaller and smaller window.  He wanted data, and so I spent a lot of hours researching scheduling trends in our building and in our district.  There is so little time left in the day, for scheduling lessons and ensembles.  I made a Power Point presentation for the meeting, which really helped me to get everything in order.

This year has been really rough for scheduling lessons and ensembles.  It is a long story; basically, our large performing ensemble classes were moved to a time slot during recess (once/week).  Last year, only the 5th grade ensembles were during recess.  This year, it was for 3rd, 4th and 5th.  It has been nothing but bad for our program and a constant frustration.  The whole situation is tough for all of us and I empathize with the administration.  I do not know how they schedule everything that they have to.  Even still, I felt that it was my responsibility to present my case.

I have had kids cut band class and just go to recess.  There are already 4 students who say that they will not do band next year, because they do not want to miss recess.  Every week, I have to delicately work out conflicts, when a band member has to take a test and feels they have to do it during band.  The problems have been compounded, considering that when the ensemble is during recess, it blocks out that time slot for the remainder of the week.

I love my job.  I love teaching elementary band.  But, I do sometimes have a lot of anxiety about where I am on the totem pole and what my options are for scheduling my students. 

what’s going on

Concert Crunch Time Begins!  I have spent most of my planning time over the last few days, going over the school’s schedule for the next six weeks.  I want to make sure that I have enough lessons with the students, to get concert-ready, to do a post-concert reflection and complete band portfolios before the last day of lessons (May 23rd).  Between rehearsals and performances by other groups on the stage (which is my classroom), assemblies, field trips and other special events, there are a lot of adjustments that I will be making to my schedule.  A lot of make-up lessons when students are not available.  I work best if I know what is coming up and if I plan ahead, so this is all time well-spent. 

My bands’ evening concert is on May 5th, the 5th graders present an assembly on April 30th and the 4th graders do theirs on the afternoon of May 5th.  As a once-a-week teacher, that means Crunch Time.  My 5th Grade Band and Select Band each have only 2 rehearsals before their assemblies.  My 4th Grade Band has 3 more.  I feel like I am about a week behind on a lot of things, but I have hopes that it will all pull together nicely.

I finalized the program this week, and in each lesson group, the students put their music in concert order and I stapled it.  In my 5th year of teaching, another elementary band director told me that he did this with his kids.  I wish I had thought of it earlier.  It is something SO simple, but it makes everything about the concert SO much easier.  Elementary band kids just do not have much performance experience, and unfortunately, missing music on the night of a concert happens too often.  It is so nice to go into a performance knowing that every child has every piece of music, in the correct order. 

For the remainder of each lesson, I had the students play through band pieces with recordings that I had of them.  I do not like to spend much lesson time on band music, but I usually do something like this 3-4 weeks before a concert.  I plan to spend a week or two on just band music and am vigilant about having the students mark their music with pencils.  Miss a note?  Mark it!  Miss an entrance?  Circle it!  I think most professional musicians mark their music, and I wonder where they started doing it.  I suspect that it happens in private instruction or in college ensembles.  I have had a lot of success with encouraging younger students to do this, and I think it is a good habit for them to learn.

Here is the program for the concerts, with comments:

Beginning Band

Court of the Noble Trumpeteers, by Timothy Loest

Very playable by 1st year players, nice workout on staccato and a great trumpet part.

 

The Minute Arachnida, by Robert M. Jordan

Has a fabulous percussion introduction, with mallets playing the main melody.  I love the round section, which forces the sections to play independently.

 

Ancient Hunters, by Sean O’Loughlin

The band loves this one, especially now that we have the fast section nearly up to tempo.  Many of them are amused by picturing Bison falling to their death in the second half of the piece, which cracks me up.  They have a sense of humor like mine.

 

Slidin’ the Blues, by Michael Story

I must be nuts for putting this out to beginners, but they are doing it!  It is in Concert F, with plenty of accidentals.  I have truly been earning the title of my blog with this one.  “Saxes!  F#!  MIDDLE FINGER!!!”

 

Star Wars, by John Williams, arranged by Carl Strommen

The kids like this one too.  Like every other band director that I know, I changed the melody (from quarter-eighth-eighth) to quarter-note triplets.  Honestly, they have not *learned* quarter note triplets, they are playing the melody by ear.  But I really do not care.  They are excited about it and they practice it.  It is in their head and they can learn the specifics of quarter-note triplets when they are older.

 

Select Band

Cyberspace Overture, by John O’Reilly

I am honestly not too crazy about this piece, for a bunch of reasons.  But so many of the Select Band members rave about it, that I decided to throw it in the program.  It is in the middle of book II and I think they just enjoy playing the severe eighth-note sections that sort of “rock”.  The slow section is a little too romantic/cheesy for my tastes, but I can justify it in my head.  Actually, there is something neat about the work.  It starts fast and then moves into a slow section, with a key change.  Then, there is a DC al Fine, putting it back in the original key and tempo.  That gives them a little bit of a workout and I do respect that it is fast-slow-fast.  There must be hundreds of elementary band pieces that start slow (usually for 2-3 lines of the student parts) with an abrupt slam into an Allegro section.  At least this one is different.

 

Cool Jazz Riffs, by Gerald Sebesky

This is probably too easy for the group, but it sounds great and has some wonderful solo opportunities.  Almost every section has a solo (not oboe, french horn, baritone or mallets), I offered a solo to any player who wanted to do so.  I think half of the band wants to, so we will repeat the solo section 3 or 4 times. 

 

The Simpsons, by Danny Elfman, arranged by Eric Wilson

The kids do a nice job on this, and it has been really good for them to work on some syncopation and ostinato patterns. 

 

Advanced Band

Meet the Masters, arranged by Joseph Compello

I love this one; it is an arrangement of three tunes (Beethoven’s 5th, Finale from New World and 1812 Overture).  The transitions are pretty good and the student have had to work really hard in the echoing portions of the Beethoven section.  I still need to do more work with percussion, to get the canon shots right.

 

Creepy Crawlies, by Michael Story

Cute, easy and fun.

 

Cumberland Gap, arranged by Anne McGinty

I programmed many “American” pieces this year, because our Integrated Arts theme is “America the Beautiful”.  That is implemented by the special area teachers, and I am not expected to program with the theme in mind, but I like to.  Last year was Asia, and there were not many elementary band pieces out there, that fit that theme.  An America theme has been easy.  McGinty’s arrangement of four American Folk Tunes sounds great.  She twists Skip To My Lou a little, and gives the students a key change, as well as a time-signature change.  It has been a good learning-piece for the group.

 

Bluesville, by Eric Osterling

Bluesville is fun for the students to play and challenges them with the stylistic requirements.  The melody is one of those that “stick” in your head.

 

 

Fantasy on “Chester”, by William Billings, arranged by Michael Story

I LOVE this piece.  It is slower and uses dotted-quarter-eighth-note patterns, which has challenged the students.  The key signature has been good for teachable moments, too.  It starts in Concert F and moves to Bb.  Chester happens to be one of my favorite melodies (thanks to William Shuman) and this arrangement sounds so beautiful.

 

Mission:  Impossible Theme, by Lalo Schifrin, arranged by Paul Lavender

It is in 5/4 time, what else can I say?  OK, it’s fast and there are lots of accidentals too.  This has stretched my students and challenged them. 

 

I have completed program notes for two of the pieces.  Writing for the rest of them is next on my list of things to do.  I am really pleased with most of the music that we are presenting. 

calling all musicians who write or use program notes

Dr. Joseph Pisano is working on another great idea (he’s the man behind ME Bloggers!).

He has started a phenomenal Wiki for collecting program notes.  Visit mustech.net for more information.  We can all benefit from and contribute to such a wonderful source of information.

i am a zookeeper

The petting zoo was opened on Friday, and three groups came on a field trip to pet the “animals”.

 

I simply cannot fully express how much fun it was to watch the children.  Hands down, this has been one of my best recruitment decisions.  They were adorable, they were excited and it was all just so amazing. 

Nancy Conley (vocal music teacher) and her student teacher, Jonathan Steele did an amazing job of prepping the classes for their visit.  They told the students that they could pet the animals, but that they could not pick them up.  Apparently some of them are very hungry and they do bite if you pick them up.  They referred to me as the “zookeeper” and we kept up the idea that there were animals in my room the entire time.  It was so cute.  I would like to include the string instruments next year, if my fellow instrumental music teacher is interested.  Then, we could bring the 2nd grade classes in for a petting.  I like the idea of working together to recruit the students for instrumental music. 

Some of the kids were laying on the floor, so that they could get closer to the instruments.  They were laughing and chattering with eachother.  I noticed a couple kids in each class who could not keep their hands off of a certain instrument, and they spent most of their time with that one.  It was lovely to see how some of the students were truly “petting” the instruments.  Gently and with such sweetness.

     

Many thanks to Jonathan Steele, for helping out so much with the zoo.  Jonathan made the fabulous signs for the instruments.  Each are somewhat of an inside joke for us bandies.  He ran descriptions through a latin translator; things like “stick with holes” for clarinet, “everybody plays it” for saxophone and “trumpet with hand in bell” for french horn.  The petting zoo visitors had no idea what they said… I wonder if any of my readers can guess what “Bucina Grandis Ego” is.

Thanks also to Nancy Conley, Deb Ciarrochi, Libby Schlenke and Amy Kegel, for bringing their kindergarten, 1st and 3rd grade msuic classes to visit the zoo.  Thank you to Marjorie Jester, for loaning me the grass that once lined the stage for a “Lion King” production.

weaknesses

If I had to list three weaknesses in my teaching, it would be the following, in no particular order:

• percussion
• using technology
• tone quality

I really do not like to point out my weaknesses… it makes me look, well… weak.  But to be clear, I point them out because they are things that I am working on making better. 

Percussion - Even after ten years of teaching elementary band, I still have yet to decide “how” I want to teach percussion.  Part of me knows that total percussion is “best”, but it is so challenging for me to effectively implement.  In my last teaching position, the expectation was for me to teach drums only.  Students bought a pad and a set of sticks.  Toward the end of October, I would ask around and see if there was a piano player in each grade, who would like to play bells.  There were always a couple students who were interested.  By sixth grade, many of them expressed interest in taking drum lessons.  I felt comfortable with this process for a couple reasons.  First, I was teaching basically one instrument in lessons.  There was no hopping back and forth between techniques and I felt like I could plan ahead and focus very well.  Second, the students seemed very pleased with the direction that we took.  Those who were drawn by drumming were happy, and those who preferred pitched percussion were satisfied.

In my current teaching position, students rent a percussion kit and are expected to play bells and drums.  Invariably, 1/5 of my percussion students are happy to play bells and I have to continually run a three ring circus to keep the other 4/5 interested and engaged in bell-playing.  I have settled on having each student prepare two bell parts for the concert band, along with some scales and technique exercises from the ”mallet side” of the lesson book.  Then they spend the rest of their time on drumming/rudiment technique.  It works well for these two years that I have them, but I have a nagging thought in my head (actually, that thought made up of the words of Jack Stamp, who I know would be disappointed in me for not being more equitable on the time spent on mallets) that I should work harder to build their mallet and note-reading skills.  I just do not know how to do much more in a 30 minute group lesson each week, plus one 50-minute concert band rehearsal.

Technology -   I recently took a survey on the www.menc.org website, and my answers reflected that I feel pretty comfortable with technology, but I do not use it with my students.  Why do I not use it?  Partly because I really do not have anything or any time to use it.  We have some nice computer labs (regular labs, not music tech labs) and I have a computer in my room, but again I am faced with the 30-minute group lesson and 50-minute concert band rehearsal each week.  I am going to do some searching and brainstorming, over the next few weeks, to see if I can find some options that would work within my time and equipment restraints.  Even if I am simply running some Vic Firth drum lessons with all students (to work on rhythms) or exposing them to Metronome Online, I think it will be a good start for me.  

I have suggested SmartMusic as an in-service topic, because I think I could find some creative ways to incorporate it in my lessons.  If that happens, I think it will be in a year or two, to work with where we are in curriculum development.

Tone Quality - There is currently a student teacher in with one of the general music teachers in my building.  He is a trombone player and has observed a little and worked a little in my classroom.  His work helped to remind me that I need to spend more energy in encouraging my students to develop proper embouchures, breath support and tone production.  Buzzing!  Firm corners!  Pointed chins!

It is very easy for me to become very focused on getting notes and rhythms right (sowecanhaveagreatconcert wherethesongsdonotfallapart, isn’t that theaimofmusiceducation?) and I need to be more attentive to the quality of sound that is being produced by my students.

scheduling concerns

I have a nagging feeling that we (elementary instrumental teachers) will have some more problems in scheduling our lessons next year.  No Child Left Behind has squeezed us all, nationally, I know that.  When I first started teaching (1994), I remember that math class and specials were the only taboos for pull-outs.  Then, by 1998, I was asked to avoid curriculum arts (reading) as well.  In recent years, there has been a 2 hour block (math and curriculum arts) where students could not be scheduled for their lesson.  That makes things tight, the only time left to pull-out is during Science, Social Studies, unblocked Curriculum Arts and recess.  In my school, recess is not available either, because the large ensembles are scheduled at that time.  We are making it work for now… but I worry that there may be problems in the future, because PA now requires a Science PSSA test of 4th graders.  I think it has must be very challenging for classroom teachers to prepare their students for this test, with all of the pull-outs that happen.

Maybe I am worrying over nothing, but I am bracing myself for more squeezing.

what’s going on

The worries begin.  I make a calendar, every other month, mostly for the students who are in band and orchestra.  They have lessons on each instrument, each week, but alternate their attendance at their ensemble rehearsal.  The calendar helps them keep their weeks straight and helps us (myself and the string teacher) to plan ahead.  On Friday, I was working on the March/April calendar… and I realized… that I have a spring assembly with my Fifth Grade Band, at the end of April (ohmygosh, howcanthatbe?  wejusthadourwinterconcert!!!).  Then, I realized that between now and then, there is a week of PSSA testing in both grades and several days of PSSA science tests for 4th grade students (ohno ohno ohno!  messedupschedules!!!).

I thought about it more and decided that my students needed to work more on their own, on their ensemble pieces.  I also decided that they need to learn how to practice better.  So at lessons this week, we are working on How To Practice.  After the first 5 minutes (passing songs), we will “practice” their next week’s assignment.  I will introduce any new concepts and we will play through each line at least once.  I have some nifty post-it notes that I bought from The Music Stand, that say “Tally Sheet” at the top, and encourage the students to practice many times, perfectly.  I will ask questions that prompt the students to look ahead in a song and find a part that might be challenging.  We will talk about how to zero in on those sections and do them repeatedly, perfectly.

At the end, each student will choose one band song that they will work on during the week and use a highlighter to mark the measures that they think will be challenging.  I will teach them my tongue-in-cheek mantra about practicing, “do it until it doesn’t stink!”

what’s going on

Here is what is going on in my classroom this week:

This week and last week have been a little crazy around here.  We had an in-service day, a snow day and several 2-hour delays.  All of that plays havoc with the entire building schedule and has resulted in a lot of make-up lesson scheduling for me.  I am mostly playing catch-up with my students, by making sure that every student has each piece of new music.  I have a few additions to my teaching schedule (a really fabulous flute player who also plays violin and an oboeist that I have not yet met) and some adjustments, which is taking a little getting used-to for everyone.

In lessons, I am trying to get into the “Accent On…” exercises that are in the back of each student’s lesson book.  I really enjoy teaching from Alfred Publishing’s Accent on Achievement series, one of my favorite elements of the series are the “Accent On…” exercises.  Throughout the book are ones for theory, creativity and history as well as ones that focus on instrument-specific skills.  In the back of the book are two pages of these such exercises and I find that I can always make a good warm-up out of a line.  Then, I can push a little further and focus on some alternate fingering or some tricky lip-slurs.  I would love for each of my students to be proficient on each of the exercises before finishing the book, but honestly, it is challenging to find time to do that.  This week, I am making time for it and having each student play 2-3 of them and we check them off in their book (and shower them with praise!).

I am gradually moving my percussion students into a Mel-Bay book that does a good job of rudiments and rhythm-drilling.  I actually like a couple other books better, but some of the private teachers in the area use them, and I do not like to step on their toes and work from the same text. 

On Friday, my Select Band will start playing from a set of Essential Elements Jazz books that I bought this year.  I would like to make a better, and more focused effort, to teach improvisation in my classroom.  So, I am using this set as a chance to work on this.  Most beginning band lesson books have a couple improvisation exercises, but they are mostly just giving the students a pile of notes that are safe to play.  I would like to work more on developing their ears and am hoping to do that with this series.

Finally, I am working on my “Petting Zoo”.  I am setting up an area in the back of my room with grass (green paper) and all of the instruments that I teach.  A music student teacher in the building is working with me, and I think he is planning to make signs for each instrument (genus!  species!  habits!).  I am going to make some signs that say not to feed the animals, but that it is okay to pet them.  I probably will have some 5th graders come down and put some final touches in like make other plants (tissue paper and more green paper, I assume).  Then, the 3rd graders will come in and visit my zoo.  I have worked it out with the general music teacher in the building and she is excited about this.  March is when she focuses on the instruments of the orchestra, so this will be nice for the kids to have a chance to see them and touch them.

Well, they will be seeing and touching the band instruments… I do not do orchestra.