tears

A Holiday Tear-Jerker Story

From my boss, Fred, whose name has been changed to protect him from the jealousy of other superintendants who haven't done as good a job at creating a fantastic work environment:

"Hello Everybody,

I just wanted to take a moment to write to you to wish you all a restful winter break. This past semester has been the busiest of my career in education. In this time of year where we reflect on what we can be grateful for, I want you to know I am grateful for each of you.

Thus, I have attached a photo story I made to honor of you. Please take the time to watch it when you get the chance. We in the world of education don’t get holiday bonuses as many folks in the business world do. As superintendent of schools and as your principal I want you to know that if I could…we would.

The photo story I have attached follows the theme of a song by Tish Hinojosa…”Everything You Wish”.

My wish for you this holiday season IS that everything you wish comes true. If your wish is for better health….I wish that for you. If your wish is for quiet time with your family….I wish that for you. I wish for all your dreams could come true.

On that same topic…one of my dreams HAS come true. To work in a school where all staff members are focused on the needs of kids. Where every staff member is doing the best work they have ever done…and where every staff member is willing to whatever it takes to become better at what they do.

An educational leader can be given no greater gift.

I did my best to do an accounting of the folks in this building who really make a difference. I am old and forgetful…so if there is someone I somehow missed…please forgive me. I hope you have a happy and restful winter break. I look forward to seeing you all again in January.

With the deepest respect and appreciation,

Fred."

Fred wrote compliments to each one of us. I could tell from what he wrote, and what I know about each teacher I work with, that Fred is able to see right straight to the core of who we each are.

Holy cow.

My response. This stuff has been on my chest for a while and needed to get it out. I hope he, nor anyone else cuz I sent it to the whole bunch, minds that it's a bit wordy. I tend to get wordy when I get choked up.


"Dear Fred,
My first job out of graduate school I worked for a guy who wore hand-tailored suits and Italian leather shoes. Those of us taking care of "his" art collection didn't make enough to rise above the poverty line in our area, even though we brought master's degrees and professional experience to the job. We were never mentioned at the fancy opening-night galas and we had to beg and plead for the training we knew would help us do our jobs better.

My second job I worked for a woman who made me read her mind. She gave me a task and then berated me for not doing it how she wanted. She expected me to stay busy but never gave me enough meaningful work to do. Then the CEO made me his personal secretary (without asking me), yelled at me in front of the other staff, and expected me to jump the moment he snapped his fingers. I felt like there was no use for my brain any more.

My third (full-time) job, well, I'm pretty sure your shoes aren't Italian. There's a pay scale so I never have to guess at what my salary is going to be nor worry that I can't afford to have an acceptable standard of living with which to grow my family and my future. Your communications are effective so I never have to guess how to do my job. Instead of being told, "I could have 200 people lined up for your job tomorrow," (which was technically true) I hear, "it's just a suggestion, you know music," which makes me feel as though my experience and my knowledge are worth something, and makes me want to try harder. I never lack for stimulating professional development and I'd rather sit down at a staff potluck than anonymously attend a hundred galas. Even better, there are kids around!-- kids who constantly reach into parts of our hearts and minds that we have a tendency to keep a little shuttered. Best of all, you exude real warmth and respect toward your staff and promote the same among us all.

Your gift to me, and I hope the rest of us, is the value you genuinely place on each one of us, not to mention a pretty wonderful environment in which to spend 9-10 hours of our day and provide for our families.

Thank you."

Fred made me cry. He made four other teachers cry, I think. Maybe more. 'Scuse me while I reach for the kleenex.

The power in the point

I'm having the kids (6th, 7th-9th) do Power Points about band this week. This insanely smart lesson plan that I came up with in the shower last week and refined while I was talking to my knitter friend yesterday accomplishes a variety of things:

1) They get to use their laptops.

The kids LOVE. their laptops. You know the movie Annie Hall? Where Woody Allen (I'm not that old, I've seen the movie once, and I was depressed afterward, but it was really funny) tries to tell Annie how much he loves her and he just keeps saying "loooeerrrve" trying to convey the intensity of his feeling, as in, "I love you, I looovve you, I mean, I loooeeeerrrrve you!" The kids loooeeerrrve their laptops. They get to use 'em in my class all week. (My other favorite line from that movie is when Annie is parking the car and it's kind of far away from the sidewalk and Woody Allen gets out and exclaims, "Hey, we can walk to the curb from here!")

2) They are not passively watching a movie.

Most of the really awesome movies about music are about people who have some involvement with illegal substances (Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, to name two recent examples of biopics depicting the musicians' drug use) so those are out. The ones appropriate for middle school-aged students are a little bit cliche-ed, such as Mr. Holland's Opus. That leaves non-music related movies, which you can still make a case for because we can still "listen to, analyze, evaluate and describe music" a la Standard 5, but it gets complicated and I just get tired of watching them watch movies, you know? They're not creating anything.

3) They are still forced to think about band on a minimal level.

This is, after all, band class. There's really no point in having them rehearse when I know perfectly well they are not going to play anyway for the two weeks of Winter Break (otherwise known as Christmas vaCATION!!!!). We (meaning I) had enough stress last week getting ready for the performance, so it's better to have them work on something else in a summative kind of way. They have to cover the topic, "if an important person visited our school to find out about what we do, what would you put into a slide show about our band for them to watch?" They're all a little nervous now about just who that important person might be.

4) Speaking of being creative, they get to put their own personality into what they are doing.

After weeks and weeks of really traditional rehearsals where they are started and stopped and told how to sit and stand and hold their every last digit, and what to play when and how and told to check their posture every second and hold their dang trumpets up (except that I don't say dang in class), they get to lounge on the walls by the heaters, plug their earphones in, and relax. A lot of the students are using images that mean something to them (e.g. cars), colors that they like (e.g. pink sparklies), and are saying whatever they feel is important to them (e.g. "I like to eat cookies and I LIKE GIRLS").

5) I can chill.

I'm just sitting up on top of my tall chair watching the middle school kids bounce around the room saving their power points, and for the last forty-five minutes I've been posting grades and blogging. I don't have to stand in front of them and make them look at me for the whole class, I don't have to yell or talk or correct or encourage or cajole or brainwash or tease or get mad or pretend to get mad or disgusted or explain, or any of the other thousand and five things I have to do to get them to show some effort and play the music correctly. I can just keep my eye on them to make sure nobody gets a black eye or starts to bleed, and catch up on a few things, like, um, making a lesson plan for this lesson.

Oh the concert!!

Last night was the concert and I was still on a post-concert high 24 hours later...'til about an hour ago when I crashed...but that's not part of our story today!

The concert was so good, at least, so I heard. It's hard to have the perspective of how good it is when you're right in the middle of it, running it. You just kind of go from one thing to the next, gesture and shepherd students onto and off the stage, deal with last minute problems (I think I still have two spare clarinet reeds in the pocket of my green velvet jacket) and try not to let the stage lights blind you or say anything dumb into the microphone.

The order of the program was: 5th grade, Jennifer*, Sasha, 6th grade, Kylie, Sarah, Jessica & me, a coterie of teachers, and then the middle-high band. (*Names have been changed so as to protect the innocent, and for fun.)

The program had a lot of variety, as someone pointed out, and I will definitely agree with that. There were also an awful lot of students performing. It was so fun to see the shiny curls, the special braids, the stockings, the collared shirts and ties, even a suit or two. I usually see my kids in jeans and t-shirts and hoodies and occasionally in sports attire so it's a downright treat to see them dressed up.

I had drilled the 5th grade so hard on behavior and when they entered the auditorium with their instruments they were containing themselves, but barely. They were so excited to go onstage. I had made a big deal of how this was their First Band Concert. These kids don't have much but the fact that they played in a band concert you can never take away from them.

Even when I told them at the last minute they had to turn around and exit the stage in the opposite direction didn't faze them. Cool kids, a few exceptions to that, there always are; but for the most part what a nice bunch. More on them later.

I'll blog about Jennifer and Sasha and the individual ones separately; for now, suffice it to say that each of their performances was pleasing and good in its own way. Except for Kylie, she didn't show up and explained to me this morning that her boss made her go do her shift or she would lose her job. Tough to be in that position. Wish she had called me.

Anyway, we gracefully swayed from one thing to the next and by the time it was over, well, I knew I had done a good job. Several of my colleagues were there and said so, so that's how I kind of knew, plus it's a feeling in my gut. There's no hard and fast evidence. Of course, if someone screws up blatantly or a soloist doesn't show or I couldn't get the audience to quiet down--or, heaven forbid, I were to make a horrible mistake-- then I would have experienced some frustration, some regret. But I knew in my gut it was solid.

Here's what I did to make it so: 1) Drill the kids endlessly on behavior. It doesn't matter how well they play, if they're not sitting up straight and taking care of the instruments on stage, people will not think of them as good musicians. 2) Insist, every day, on the fundamentals: proper posture, proper technique, and learning the right notes and the right way to finger them. 3) Do goofy things like breathing exercises and consistent, but infinitely boring, long-tone warm-ups so that kids develop good tone and listening skills. 4) Insist on a high level of ettiquette in the classroom: no talking bad about one another, or oneself, understanding that one's part helps or hurts the group depending on how it's done, self-discipline and self-control so that the time is productive, as opposed to spent on classroom management.

It's just what I learned in my musical experiences. Nothing fancy. No big vocabulary needed.

Yeah, some of the kids think I'm a hard-ass, but that's ok. I've noticed that if I'm a hard-ass in class, but go to their games and deal with them fairly and show respect for them in the way I talk to them, then we have a good relationship, and the kids start to understand that what they're part of is really great.

Like last night. Great concert, great feeling in my gut, lots of nice compliments. I found I really could not stop smiling the whole time. On the way home I thought about whether it was more fun to play oboe in a band with a really good conductor, a la grown-up band, or be the one running the show holding the baton.

I hate to dis many happy years of playing oboe in a band, but holding the baton edges it out by a slim margin....

Days and weeks before

The days and weeks leading up to a concert are always a little bit stressful. You plan the repertoire well in advance and then try to balance it out between the kids' preparation and the time remaining.

In all the large classes, I have to figure that at some point the repertoire will be learned, and they'll be ready for a performance. That day comes sooner or later, depending on the group and the music I've picked and how well they've learned it, and most importantly, if they like it or not.

If the students don't have enough time to get prepared, then they won't do well at the concert and their little self-esteems will suffer. Especially the 6th graders, who are sensitive to everything, will be on cloud nine or a pit of despair based on every little thing that happens.

If the students have too much time to learn the music, at some point, a week or two away from the concert, you find yourself nit-picking and going over things again just to fill the time. This spells disaster. If it's anything the kids hate, it's beating a dead horse. They get sick of the music and then nothing you do will induce them to play it correctly, with the appropriate style and spirit.

Nothing.

The 6th grade came closest to hitting that perfect point of being ready right when the time came for the concert. I could feel it happening as we prepared. Repetition of their first song, a little American folk song from their method book, Sawmill Creek, proved to be the key to confidence. Students had time to learn the notes in the safety of the big group, and the percussion players (and I use that term loosely) needed more time to really get what they were doing.

On their other song, the Six Episodes, I felt that coming together right when it needed to. The last two days of rehearsal, on the stage, were for fine-tuning in that environment, as opposed to the band room, which is carpeted and sound-tiled. And for this group, a reminder of how to behave on stage.

The fifth grade was a little less stroctured, the students progressed at such different rates! And as a group, they are learning all kinds of skills all at the same time and having to synthesize them into a one-time-shot performance. So I picked the music I thought they could do well. No sense picking hard songs they won't be confident on.

Even so, the most important thing for the 5th grade was behavior. Drilling them on expectations. It's not enough to just tell them how to act on stage and expect them to do it, you have to actually practice with them so they start to get used to it. So we took a lot of class time, a chunk every day for the last couple of weeks, to practice the concert behavior.

Sigh. My middle-high group crossed the line into beating a dead horse. I felt so bad for them. The were so depressed one day when they left class, because they just hated Festal March (Handel's Festal March from his operetta Rinaldo) with all their beings. Hated. It.

So I let them work on a packet for three days, an assessment of their knowledge of musical concepts, skills, and vocabulary. They were happy to go back to playing after that.

The day before the concert is usually the hardest. It's getting the kids used to being in the concert space, in this case, our wonderful little (as of now, horribly echo-y) auditorium, and they kind of go into chaos mode and it's even harder, because of the chaos and the echo, to get them to calm down.

I learned that if I get them to go on stage right away, I can control them better because they're sitting in a confined space. It just takes longer.

Plus, my mindset is all a-twitter, the day before the concert. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I wonder how the kids are going to do. This time around, my 6th grade bass drum player threw up in class, on stage. I had not prepared a backup in case he was really sick and didn't come.

The day of the concert, I held classes again in the auditorium. The nervous feeling was starting to go away, to be replaced by a recurring thought: "it will be what it will be." Very existential of me, who is not usually existential, at all.

Read on for how the thing actually went.

Frosting the cupcake

It's that time of the semester when we are getting ready for our Winter Concert. Well, we've been getting ready for it since before Fall Break, but now we're really getting ready for it, know what I mean?

It's not the time for fooling around any more, and way past the time for assigning percussion parts or even doing sectionals so kids can learn their parts.

The time now is for frosting the cupcake. Isn't that such a delicious little metaphor? I thought it up all by myself. I thought it up while thinking about the glorious little pumpkin cinnamon cupcakes I made for my niece's birthday.

The whole meaning is that making the cupcakes--learning notes, rhythms, and getting down how the songs go--is one thing, but putting the finishing touches on the whole endeavor is quite another.

For that you have to have a different approach. Frosting the cupcake requires patiently mixing the frosting to the correct consistency, and applying the embellishment with the appropriate level of deftness and subtlety.

With regard to teaching junior high band, the deft embellishment goes something like this:

"Low brass. On the ends of phrases, I need more of your dotted half notes to bring out the balance and resolution."

"First trumpets...on your high D, I love they way you're really making effort to reach that note, but try to change your embouchure without restricting your air flow."

"Bass drum...sigh...that first note at the beginning of William Tell could be a little softer. We're not running from cannon..."

It's making sure we are prepared to go from a cushiony--in terms of sound--and absorbent room, to an auditorium where the sound bounces around like a three-year-old in a toy store. Short notes need to be really short, so that the whole thing doesn't sound like mud when we get in there. Balance needs to be adjusted ahead of time, it's awfully hard to tell drum players to play softer if they haven't been asked to do it that way all semester except for football games.

It's the time of year that is the most exciting, and the most frustrating. Exciting because the countdown is here, the end is in sight, the event for which nearly every class day has been preparation for. Frustrating, because it's a tightrope act to know when you've crossed over the line to beating a dead horse.

If it's one thing junior high kids can't stand, it's beating a dead horse.

I try to avoid it at all costs, because once you've gone down that road, it's over. Goodness knows how I feel having to play the same dang song one too many times, and it's magnified times ten for these kiddoes. You just lose all desire to do it right, and then the whole thing goes out the window.

The first Winter Concert for the 5th graders is just about them being able to play Hot Cross Buns on something other than a $5 recorder, and for their parents to take pictures while they hold up their trombones or French horns or whatever. It's more for show than anything, and for that reason, I do the most work with the 5th grade on sitting, standing, instruments up and down, and things like that. They love it.

So that's frosting the cupcake. Why not a whole cake?

Because, dear readers, 5th, 6th, and junior high band is best listened to in cupcake-sized doses.

T minus eight days and counting.

Euphoria

Once in a great while, we do or experience something that lets us feel, for one brief shining moment, a sense of euphoria. That spine-tingling, heart-pounding rush of excitement, where we grin hugely, involuntarily, and glow with it for a while after the sensation subsides.

That usually NEVER happens in my band classes. Especially when you have 7th grade boys and 8th grade girls together.

But it did, Friday afternoon, just a little, not strong, but it was definitely there, and I've been thinking about it ever since. It was the last thing I ever expected to happen in that class!

On most days, we have rehearsal. The procedure is that the kids come into the room, get their instruments and music, and we get down to business. It's nice to carry out the routine of the rehearsal in order, and for the kids to know what we'll be doing on any given day. They have some time at the beginning of class to chat while they get ready, but once I indicate class is starting, they must quiet down and follow the procedure.

We usually begin with some breathing exercises and stretching. I learned this technique from the conductor of grown-up band, and although in my 15 years of playing in various ensembles under various conductors I had never ever opened a rehearsal with breathing and stretching, it seems to work so well for me right now to alleviate stress and set a good tone for the class. At the very least, the kids are quiet for a few minutes!

Next is our warm-up scale. I have the kids play the concert B-flat scale every which way--long notes to work on breath control and tone, shorter ones to work on finger and embouchure technique, and chords to work on balance and tuning. If I do whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes, they're not happy, they want to do eighth notes, too!

After that, the order of songs to be rehearsed is posted on the board. I usually work on the most urgent songs or parts of songs first, the ones that need the most attention or reinforcement (which I can't ever determine well in advance because it depends on how the kids learn each song or section) then move to more familiar or easy ones toward the end, when everyone's getting a little bored and restless or their chops are just tired.

In the middle-high band on Thursday of last week, I said that we were going to run--and then they stopped me breathlessly and said, but this isn't gym class!!--all of the songs straight through. Conductor talk sometimes confuses them. I then specified, have all the songs on your stands so we don't have to shuffle halfway through. The reward, of course, for getting the day's work done before the bell rings means a few extra minutes for them. (Although that doesn't usually work because they're so, well, immature. Keeping them in their seats right up to the bell is my best strategy to avoid running/throwing/roughhousing incidents.)

So we ran the songs for the first time. We have an opener that the kids are sick of, but it's a very nice Baroque march written by Handel for one of his operettas. Then we move on to our Christmas Suite, where we play one song with everyone, one for just the winds and brass, and one for just the percussion. If we do the suite often enough, hopefully the kids will quit staring and laughing at one another when it's not their turn because they'll get used to it. Don'tcha just love the middle school years?

We end with a beginning-band version of the William Tell Overture, minus the thunderstorm and cello solo. It opens with a trumpet fanfare, and then rolls along merrily with the Lone Ranger chasing the enemy over the prairie with Tonto right behind him, the melody changing and switching off between the clarinets and trumpets (because of course you can't hear William Tell without thinking of the Lone Ranger). At the end of the piece, the rhythm abruptly changes. The important part is that suddenly there are rests in places where there were no rests before including a full measure of rest before we gallop straight through to the end.

These strategic rests, up til now, gave the kids fits. There was always one drummer, or someone in the brass section, that would miss it and play when there should be silence. And unlike high school, the kids have to stop and laugh and then it just falls apart and we waste precious time getting them under control again.

Thursday was different. Maybe it was because I had my baton out so I could start getting the kids used to the way I wanted to start and conduct the piece. Maybe it was because running the song made it finally gel. Maybe the stars were aligned properly.

Whatever it was, by the time we got to the end, which is rather bombastic, nobody was off. Everyone observed the rests. I don't even conduct the measure of rest because, well, it's just cool not to. I just breathe and give an upbeat to prepare for their entrance. The kids were right on cue, exactly together, and nobody missed the last three notes. They even kept their instruments up and waited those few seconds for the last note to sink in and only moved after I lowered my baton--prolonging the excitement.

It. Was. Awesome. By the time we reached the end and I knew for certain everyone was feeling it, I had a huge grin on my face. Sort of; I was trying not to grin but I think the kids could see and feel what they had accomplished. I really would describe the feeling as euphoria, and it was so wonderful because it was unexpected, as I said, the last thing I ever would have thought would happen in that class.

Euphoria. The last thing. But there it was, buoying me through the weekend and renewing my faith in minor miracles.

Seventy-six trombones and a violin

It's been a while since I blogged about my 5th grade beginning band kiddoes. Last I mentioned, they were circling around me like a flock of sparrows around bread, wanting their instruments.

Now that we've had several weeks to work on learning their instruments, I feel they are at last, at least, getting a little comfortable with the whole idea of holding this strange cold metal thing in their hands, blowing into it, or banging, or what have you, and making a loud noise.

Notice I didn't say music, we're not yet making music, but that'll come. It usually does, with time, patience, effort, and a lot of chocolate for the teacher.

Because I had so many trombones available, I now have a lot of trombone players in the 5th grade. Girls, guys, small, large. Each class has at least four, which is awesome. The Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll have a killer low brass section in a couple of years. I tried very hard to balance the drum players with the rest of the instruments, because, unlike trombones, you can have too many drummers.

And then there is the gal who asked if I would let her play her violin in band class. Honestly, since I was strapped for instruments, I decided sure, if it was ok with her parents. (Turns out her dad has a trumpet in his closet, but whatever.) I don't know if I've mentioned this yet or not, but I only know the first thing about playing violin. I mean, I've seen so many good players I can show her how to hold it, how to create a good sound with the bow going across the strings, but it remains a mystery to me where to put your fingers for the correct notes.

I told her I'd learn along with her. Now I can play Hot Cross Buns on eleven instruments!

Every day that I teach beginning band, and I'm paying attention to what the kids are doing, the more I realize how much of the learning process of music is about discipline and self-control. In other classes, it usually doesn't matter how a kid sits (unless the back of their chair is about to tip over). It doesn't matter at what speed they do their work, and they don't always have to be paying attention to the teacher in order to be participating and getting their work done.

In a group rehearsal setting, one must: sit up straight and hold the instrument properly, feet must be on the floor, body positioned so that you can see the conductor and the music; one must be sharing a music stand and place it at the correct distance; one must play the right notes, or try to at all times, and one must pay attention to the conductor at all times, unless of course, your stand partner asks a (whispered) question about the music or you need to mark your music with a pencil; you must raise your instrument to play when the conductor indicates, non-verbally, with his or her hands, and only lower your instrument when the conductor lowers his or her hands, even if the song is over and you're dying to analyze with your stand partner where exactly you got lost or played the wrong notes.

And most of all, you must not talk or play the instrument when: the teacher is working with another group of students, when the teacher pauses to answer a question, when the teacher asks you to turn the page to the next song, when the teacher is instructing, when the teacher is asking (non-verbally, remember) you to play or not play or hold your instrument up or put it down.

It's an extremely internal, exacting, self-disciplined process, I'm realizing (with a little help from being on the other side of the baton at grown-up band). How did I not know this after 30 years of being a musician and playing in ensembles under a conductor?

Because it was so second-nature that I didn't know that process really has to be learned. In other words, beginning band students who see me for 40 minutes every other day and who are ten years old, have to be reminded over and over again and shown, and you have to be patient with them, and you have to cajole them and remind them and then go eat some chocolate when they leave to go running back to their classroom.

And then in a few years, if you're lucky, the creek hasn't risen, and the kids have stuck it out, you've got a decent ensemble with those habits beginning to be ingrained.

Sharps and flats continued

I'm seriously going to post a sign in my room that says, "I don't get it!"-Free Zone.

Kids will come up to me, their little laptops in their hands and wail, "I don't get iiit!!!" And my first response is, "Did you read the question?"

When they say, "...noooo..." I just shrug my shoulders.

If I had a back massage for every time I had to say, "What part don't you get?" I would feel a lot more comfortable than I do right now.

I wonder if other teachers I work with have the same problem? Anyone? Anyone? I wonder if we could conduct a multi-discipline approach to asking questions. A Tet-Offensive of problem-solving, if you will.

I tell the kids to ask me a question that helps me help them. Do they even get how to do that?

On to the subject of the post: Flats and Sharps are now not only giving my 6th graders fits, but also the middle and high kids. I decided that whatever the 6th graders could handle, the 7th, 8th and the few 9th graders in the other band could handle.

Turns out they couldn't.

The kids all had fits again, even when I helped them one on one. About fifteen kids stayed during my planning hour, their gym class, to get it done. And when I went home and looked at them, they still weren't done right.

I asked my husband, a science teacher, what he thought. I often ask him for advice, of the sort of, "what would you recommend in this situation?" and he's really good about steering me in a direction that feels comfortable. So I asked him if he thought the worksheet was too hard.

He took one glance at it and said, wow, that's exactly what the standardized tests in science look like. Exactly. (With emphasis.)

I said, "Oh, really??"

He explained that in science you are given a set of information, often a table or graph, and asked to find information or fill in something based on that information. In other words, the answers are given, you just have to find them, reinterpret them, or put them together somehow.

He also commented, no, the worksheet is not too hard.

For example, I gave them the following information, quote: "All flats and sharps that appear in a key signature go in order. The order is: Flats: BEADGCF. Sharps: FCGDAEB."

(Raise your hand if you noticed they were opposite order from each other.)

A little while later I wrote, "Notice that in your different key signatures if you have one flat, it is always the first one, B-flat. If you have two, it is the first and second, B-flat and E-flat. You will never have one flat that is a D-flat, for example. Same for sharps—one sharp is always F-sharp, two sharps is always F-sharp and C-sharp, and so on."

I wanted them to tell me what the flats were, in order, if you have a key signature with three of them.

BEA. Right? Does everyone agree? First three flats, in order, are BEA. (Key of E-flat, but we're getting to that.)

Next I gave them a table listing names of keys depending on how many sharps or flats were in the key signature. Below, I wanted them to fill in another table: I set up a column that said "three flats", or "two sharps", or things like that, and then they were to fill in the second column with the flats or sharps in order, and then the third column telling me the name of the key. None of the information was stuff they had to look up on the internet, or in a book. They didn't have to pull it out of thin air.

It was right on the worksheet.

It feels sometimes like I am going out of my mind trying to figure out why the kids don't get what they don't get. (Especially when they wail at me, "Miiiiiss, I don't get iiiit!!!")

My husband's comment to me was that kids don't get enough practice with problem-solving skills like this. They don't want to read what they need to read in order to figure out the correct answer, so they skip it, and of course don't get it, and of course do poorly on state science tests.

The other issue is that just like science and math, there are what I like to call Musical Laws of the Universe that don't change. The order of sharps and flats is one such. There are others, like the order of whole- and half-steps on the pentatonic scale, or the fact that an eighth note equals exactly half of a quarter note. These things are Inviolate and Must Be Memorized.

We'll see how long it takes for the last kiddo to get the worksheet done and completed. The 6th grade have had since the 31st, the 7th-8th grade since the 5th. Any bets?

Sharps and flats

I have introduced the concept of sharps and flats to my fifth graders and pushed it farther with my sixth graders, and they are giving these kiddoes fits. Fits, I tell you.

Part of it was to give them work a sub could have them do because I decided to take the day off last Friday--had to, in order to take the wee munchkin to the doctor. And I guess the worksheets were not really all that self-explanatory. I worked so hard to make them so.

All the kids came rushing to me saying breathlessly, "Miss, I didn't get it!" Or, saying disgustedly, "Miss, we didn't get this. At all." One lil' gal even wrote on her paper, "I tried hard hones I did."

Of course you did, dearie.

So I was having to redo the assignment with them. In the fifth grade, if they would sit still long enough, they would see how easy it is to write the sharp sign in front of the note, or the flat sign. It does take some concentration, a characteristic these darlings do not have in spades, unfortunately.

I didn't even tell them that when the sharp or flat is on the staff it's in front of the note and when you write the note name under the staff, it goes behind. That would have caused them to just lay their little selves down on the floor, arms spread wide in helpless surrender.

Sharps and flats are the building blocks of key signatures. Do you remember that scene in O Brother Where Art Thou? where they are in the public gathering at the end of the movie, and the guys are on stage with their long fake beards playing their songs to entertain the crowd? And the character played by John Turturo says, "Jailhouse Now, neighborhood o' B?" (Of course you do.) Well, he was communicating to the musicians in the band that they were to play the song in the key of B. Or thereabouts.

You can play Happy Birthday in approximately thirty different keys, including the minor ones. Musicians wouldn't know which end was up if the key signature didn't indicate what sharps or flats to play. I tell my nephew that sharps and flats are (generally) akin to playing the black keys of the piano.

And for a trumpet player who blows a C that comes out sounding like a B-flat while the flute player right next to him playing the same melody is able to play a C that is actually a C, somebody is forced to play a key signature with sharps or flats. And since trumpets and clarinets, both B-flat instruments, trump flutes in size, number, and sheer ego, it is up to the flute, trombone (and oboe, speaking as one myself) players to suffer the additional flats so their pitches match with the rest of the band.

It's a cruel world.

In the sixth grade class, they are getting a lesson in the order of sharps and flats so they can actually learn about key signatures. That they have names. And no, the names are not Sarah and Billy and Fred, but names that sound an awful lot like pitch names, which adds an additional level of confusion.

The most fun part of the sixth grade class the last two days is watching them triumph over a set of randomly (ah, but are they???) ordered letters. "FCGDAEB--!!!" they rattle off as they squeeze out the door to lunch. Ten minutes later the stragglers and I are chanting, "F-C-G-D-A-E-B" over and over. The order of sharps and flats is finite and does not change. It is a law of the musical universe, of which there are many. And the sooner they learn them, the better off they'll be.

Wrestling with food allergies

I know. It doesn't seem to have much to do with teaching band, does it, but bear with me. I think I can make a corny connection between food allergies and music that hides the seriousness of the problem (the allergies I mean, not the music) but also has a silver lining.

The problem is half my brain these days is trying to wrap itself around the fact that my dear daughter, all of thirteen months old, is allergic to milk, eggs, and probably wheat.

One by one the dominoes fall--the next possible allergies are to soy, nuts, seeds, and shellfish. And the basic gist of it all is, when you get right down to brass tacks, is that I have to keep her alive and healthy until she can do it for herself.

When you look at ingredient lists of packaged food at the store, you may or may not see "contains wheat, eggs, and dairy" or some such. Many packaged foods (and let's admit it, a busy working mom like me doesn't have time to cook all day, so we must occasionally rely on packaged food) contain hidden milk ingredients such as casein, whey, and other things you would never ever guess were milk but are.

Did I mention the epi-pen I carry with me everywhere?

I have reason to believe that my dear daughter's small size is related to her diet and the restrictions to it thereof. By now she would be drinking whole milk, which is full of brain-nurturing fat, and downing scrambled eggs with the rest of us on Saturday mornings. She'd be fatter, and probably taller.

I am trying so hard to maintain a positive outlook on this. Her development, for those of you wondering, is right on track. I know because I have another one and I've been reading.

Anyway, ok, so to change the subject precipitously: in my 6th and middle-high band classes I'm missing very important sections that are hardily represented in any self-respecting concert band score. The sixth grade class is missing low brass--let's be honest, any kind of brass except for trumpets. The middle-high band is missing saxophones and French horns, and forget anything oblong and pitched low, such as a bassoon or bass clarinet.

So when I go to the files to look at music, I always have to keep this in mind: Are all the parts covered? For example, is the main melody covered by enough instruments at all times that I a) have and b) the kids can play? (The flute players are a little weak this year.) I look at harmonies and countermelodies: are they covered? Are the notes too high for the semi-cooked beginner clarinet and trumpet players?

We can't play music in the middle-high where only the saxes have the melody for a good chunk. We can't play music in the sixth grade that requires low brass.

It's the same for recipes: I can't make such-and-such for baby sister because it has milk or eggs in it, so is there another recipe where all the parts can be covered, so to speak, with alternate ingredients such as rice milk, applesauce, or another alternative? And now, wheat. What doesn't have wheat in it??

It begins to feel like a jigsaw puzzle after a while, with many strategic pieces missing. The challenge is to find a workable solution within the parameters I have. And would a workable solution lead me to answers I hadn't thought of before, or force me to be creative? Better yet, force the students to be creative?

Sometimes it makes me want to sit down and feel overwhelmed. But I'm not in this business of band-teaching and child-rearing to stay overwhelmed for long; my logical mind wants to come up with a solution.

I'll keep you posted.

Giving Rossini a gallop for his money

Holy cow. I had to really keep from smiling with delight in class today because my middle-high band sounded so good.

It's a little disconcerting when I get to 1:30 in the afternoon, because after struggling with raw beginners (5th grade) and semi-cooked beginners (6th grade) I expect my bands to continue to sound like, well, beginners.

But as soon as my middle-high band warms up, I know I'm dealing with a whole different level.

Not so much of behavior, but of sound, and level of ability.

Right now we are working on a "young band" (which is a euphemism for semi-cooked beginner players) version of Gioacchino Rossini's William Tell Overture.

I've played this piece in all its original orchestral glory, and it begins with a tone poem--a soundscape imitating nature or other sounds--in this case, a thunderstorm with a heartbreaking cello solo. Only when the storm is over does the piece launch into the familiar strains of the "Lone Ranger" theme.

Well, the kids have been working, well, not exactly very hard, but enough that the piece is starting to sound good, all 65 measures of it. Our version begins with a trumpet fanfare to which low brass and snare are added for a final enthusiastic note before the clarinets take up the main theme.

Kids have to count measures rest. They have to watch me for their entrances, which I make great show of penciling into my music as a way of modeling what they should do. They've never had to do that before, it's all been unison.

The clarinets are then joined by the flutes and trumpets, who afterwards take off with the secondary theme. The snares pretty much have the same rhythm throughout the piece except for the end, when, tacked onto a short piece such as this is an ending worthy of any fifties Hollywood western. Everyone has to observe the same rests and if anyone plays on the rest, well, I stop and make them do it again.

When I hold them to a high standard, they meet it.

I would say 80% of the notes are correct, and none of the subtle things that make a jumble of notes into true music, but the fact that we are this far along with one of our concert pieces 6 1/2 weeks out is a triumph. We are going to need all the rest of that time to work up our other stuff.

Hi ho, Silver, and away!

A band that's got it

Last night I saw a band that's got it, and I mean, got it goin' ON.

I went with the former band director of the aforementioned program to a special chili supper and field show performance last night, and got to see what they do.

We sat high in the stands so we could see, even though there was a cold breeze blowing. First, their middle school band performed. About eighty kiddoes, all different sizes, in white jackets and black trousers setting up their show. They marched onto the field very well; they didn't move much while they were playing but did a fine job playing their music and staying in formation.

My initial thought was, "how the heck do you get all those junior high kids to stand still?" I'll call the band director who invited me Tom, even though that's not his real name, just so I can keep the privacy intact in this blog, and it really doesn't matter anyway. Tom said to me, "look at that one kid wearing white sneakers instead of black shoes, and the girl not holding her flute up straight. I wouldn't have let them march."

I hadn't noticed them up to that point, and it made me realize that Tom knew marching and field shows the way I know--well, the way my husband knows basketball. After thirty years, Tom ought to. He notices the tiny things that an inexpert such as me would not.

"It's about pride," he said, kind of offhandedly, but man, did that sink in to my skull. Pride.

Pride.

Next came the high school band, and this is what really blew me away. Every single girl and guy in the band did their job, perfectly. The music was quite difficult, selections from Jesus Christ Superstar (I've actually played all of it, as a pit orchestra member for a theater production, and the only point of saying so is that I really do know it's hard) but it was more than that. The way they moved their bodies as they stepped, but kept their instruments pointed front. The fact that every single member had their uniform on straight and the shoes were clean, and the gloves were white.

What impressed me most (again, this is a little rural high school we're talking about) was the drum major, representing the band, took delightful pride in who he was as an entertainer, and when the command came to snap the instruments to play, it was as one movement. No one was late, no one was sloppy.

I'd already seen the zillions of banners in the band room that said "State Championships, Finalist" on them.

At that point I began to get a little panicky in my gut. I thought of my fledgling program, where we're still working on basic skills of playing, much less marching, with virtually no high school kids to speak of. I thought of the kids talking their way through rehearsal and thinking band class ought to be "free time". I thought of my inexperience, both with teaching, and with knowing the things I need to know, that I have no idea that I need to know, such as buying three of the exact same tubas so they're always in tune.

Then I started thinking about where I started, and the progress I've been making, just this week, implementing the breathing exercises that I've been learning how to do at grown-up band. (J, if you're reading this, thank you, it's really doing wonders for their discipline and intonation.)

At the end of the evening Tom and I were talking about the sacrifices he made to keep his program going. He basically didn't get to see his kids grow up.

That was a sobering thought, considering I have kids who are just at the very beginning of their growing-up process, and I want to see them grow all the way up.

Seeing those field shows made me think about the baby steps I could start with. It made me realize that yes, in fact, I do believe I'm on the right track. It made me realize how much easier it is to develop a band program when one does not have a newborn.

It made me think about pride.

And we're going to start talking about pride a lot in our band. Yes, a lot. And I want our t-shirts to say PRIDE on them.

There's nothing I didn't see last night that we couldn't do if we chose to, and nothing I can't learn.

And now I'm realizing that my little program does have it. All the potential in the world.

Music in the car

On the way up to Longmont today, the under 3 set and I listened to the following:

Cars soundtrack. Cars is such a good movie on so many levels, that I have watched it approximately forty-seven times and I am not tired of it. A large part of that is because of the music. The only good song Rascal Flatts has put out is on the album, a remake of "Life is a Highway." Brad Paisley contributes two songs, both inimitably his breezy, slightly humorous style as well as highly singable. An oldie from Hank Williams is there, along with Chuck Berry's famous Route 66 song, which we can all get our kicks to. Even the music composed especially for the film is fun to listen to, particularly the song that plays when Lightning and Sally go on their first real date, I mean, drive, and she shows him Route 66's former glory.

Dr. Seuss and the Cat in the Hat's songbook, beginning with McGrew's Zoo. The narration is wonderful (I love "cute old man" voices), and if you've read the book you can picture the strange beasts in your mind. The rest of the album consists of songs with funny, Seuss-y lyrics sung by a mixed choir accompanied by piano. The songs are ok but the musical style starts to feel dated after a while and then midway through the cd, especially in a long flat stretch of highway, you think you might drive off the road if you don't change the cd NOW.

A major disappointment occurred next when I discovered that Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf narrated by David Bowie was not in its proper case. Andrew loves Peter and the Wolf. The first time we listened to it, we were driving home from school. It was one of Chloe's first days at the daycare and she conked out immediately because she was so tired, but Andrew sat quietly in the back listening intently--until the moment when the wolf snatches up the duck and swallows her whole. (Sorry to give a major plot point away, but there it is.) It is a rather sudden musical moment, preceded by a lot of tremolo sneaking up on the duck by the wiley wolf that lulls you into a sense of mild anticipation. When the strings screech their fortissimo protest all of a sudden, you find yourself thinking, that wasn't supposed to happen! Up until this moment in the music Andrew was perfectly silent, and afterward, the event seemed to make such an impression on him that he talked about it even while Peter was catching the wolf by the tail. The music is unparalleled in its delightfulness and perfect use of leitmotifs, so I was really looking forward to listening to it again while driving through the mountains. But to my dismay I discovered that not only was the Peter and the Wolf cd not there, but that The Greatest Hits by ELO was sitting in its place.

I switched tactics altogether and put in Talking Timbuktu by Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder. The reason I originally purchased the cd is because there is a song on it that is used every day by the Public Radio International program The World to introduce its Geoquiz segment. The song is haunting and catchy, and I wanted to hear all of it. I was reminded again today of how much I like African music, even contemporary music composed by an African--Malian in this case--musician who has clearly heard many western influences. According to amazon.com, the album illustrates the connection between African music and the blues without intending to. Listening to it today I was struck by how similar some of the rhythms were to the Blues, with its heavy emphasis on beats 2 and 4. And I just love the sound of the guitars on this album, slide, electric and acoustic, accompanied by hand drums.

We were almost at the tricky part, the freeway driving, and I decided to put in Alison Krauss's latest, a collection of all her unreleased and random songs from here and there, including her duet with Brad Paisley, Whiskey Lullaby, and the foot-stompin' Sawin' on a String that she performed at the Country Music Awards long ago that we put on our tivo and never took off. I think the album is a little mixed; some of the songs are so familiar that they don't resonate like the new songs, and some are so sad as to almost be un-listenable. My favorite happens to be 100 Miles or More, the song which gives the album its name. The verses of the song seem to wander and it's almost like jazz the way she sings the words so separately from the beat, but then at the chorus the words and melody and beat slide together perfectly.

By the time Alison was almost done, we were there, and now the wee ones are upstairs listening to a cd that is a bedtime favorite of the under 3 we are visiting, acapella Pawnee songs that occasionally surprise the listener by breaking into English.

When we get home, my first goal is to find that Peter and the Wolf cd.

Done thinking about band for awhile

The last thing I want to do right now is blog about my job, 'cuz I have had my last students til a week from Monday!! Wahoo!! (Not that I don't love them dearly, but we can all use a break from time to time.)

Tonight I get to do Grown-Up Band, and I couldn't be more excited. What an antidote to rowdy kids, the pressure of concerts.

The teenage boys in my alternative performance class (loud rock is what they do) are sitting with their head in their hands because they think they didn't do well because their performance was "sprung" on them. If you consider four weeks' notice springing.

I could just kick their arrogant little butts, but I have to remain professional.

I told them four weeks ago they would play the last day of the quarter for the middle-high students. They probably thought I was kidding. I wasn't kidding two days ago when they were sitting around moaning about not being ready and I said, you guys have to step it up. Maybe it was because I wasn't there for their class yesterday, when I was going to have them move equipment. Maybe because they're just, well, not wanting to ruin their egos with a less than perfect performance.

And it didn't help that the audience was rude and one of the girls in the class with the guys on stage was talking and laughing loudly to her friends the whole time.

Earlier in the day I had my sixth graders perform. They did awesome on their little in-class concert. The room was packed. All the fifth graders came plus administrators and teachers and a bonus of one eighth grade class. It was so cool to have everyone in here for that.

Yesterday right before their class I had to take my 3-year-old home with a fever. His teacher showed up with him to my room and the little boss didn't look very happy. So I left the class in the dubious hands of the students' assistant football coach, who has a rather different relationship with the kids than I do. The room was erupting in high-decibel yelling and drumming and bleating when I left. My poor miha's little face was so worried about that.

Today I got my baton out and everything in honor of their concert. And they did well, all except for the surprise ending of Bingo. It seemed to be a surprise to most of the band members.

Anyway, tonight my husband and I are going to do the Hokey-Pokey with the cars and the kids in town so I can be on time to Grown-up Band. My assistant in the middle-high school class laughed when I told her about Grown-up Band, and she didn't even need an explanation.

Saturday I'm taking some of the middle-high bands students to our local college football game as a reward for doing everything they were supposed to do at our home game last weekend.

As if I haven't had enough!

How knitting is like teaching band

I am a knitter, and I love the Yarn Harlot. If you are not familiar with her blog, her books, or her knitting, I invite you to check out all three, and if you're not really a knitter, perhaps you know one, or someone in the arts, and could appreciate this recent post.

In honor of the Yarn Harlot, who is currently in Seattle where things turn green in the winter and brown in the summer (as a former Portland resident I totally get this), I would like to humbly attempt to knit knitting and teaching band together.

Top ten reasons why knitting is just like teaching band:

10. If you don't keep busy doing it every moment you can, you tend to get a little rusty.

9. You never know what you're going to get when you combine unknown elements together, say, a terra-cotta worsted single-ply and a variegated cream and purple fingering weight; or, say, a sweet quiet girl who suddenly learned she really could play the drums, and a girl with no top teeth who can play the heck out of a clarinet.

8. Sometimes you just go round and round in circles.

7. The feelings of start-itis are about the same. Itching to delve into the music library/stash boxes and get started.

6. Problem-solving is a must. Today I fixed a saxophone spring, a clarinet pad, and pulled a trombone mouthpiece, and tonight after the kids are in bed I will probably figure out how to fix a loose gauge on a dishcloth and whether I can change yarns on a sweater front when I get to the shawl collar.

5. Finishing is a chore. I can knit a lovely project and sit with it for months because I don't want to sew the thing together. You can hammer a piece to death trying to get the last few elements perfect, but eventually you just have to perform it and let go.

4. Sometimes there's nothing else to do but frog it and start over.

3. A really nice piece of knitting feels good every which way around--pleasant in your hands, easy to work with, lovely to look at. Same with a good band.

2. That feeling of satisfaction when you finish a project or do the concert.

1. If you don't keep on top of your knitting/your middle-school band, it tends to unravel.

Heavy heart

I wrote two kids up today. I hate doing that. It makes me feel icky and bleah inside.

The reason was for Disruption of the Education Process, or DEP for short. Whatever. Unfortunately, though, they did it.

The reason I feel particularly icky about it is because of this.

Kid #1: He lost his dad several years ago and recently lost his mom in a car accident. (She was born three months after I was.) While I hate to let a kid get away with bad behavior because of personal things, sometimes it's hard for me to separate the behavior from the kid. It's a total package.

I'm a contextualist, even in my former life as an art person. Now my works of art are kids, and I try to understand them in their proper context. Still doesn't excuse me having to wait for them to get with the program and take valuable time which would otherwise be spent in good solid rehearsal.

Still.

Kid #2: This kid has been at the football games and enthusiastically played the cymbals. His behavior is otherwise ok in class, but the last few days he's testing the rules, maybe because he's being a space cadet? Don't know. Hated to do it to him, too, but had to.

And now I'm beginning to think that my 8th graders think they're immune because one of them is consistently bringing gum to class and another one has started talking to her neighbor, right under my nose, not even whispering.

I'll happily remind them that they were just like the 7th graders last year, because, well, they were 7th graders.

And I'm definitely having to tighten up the rules because it's such a large group.

It's not as fun as it used to be. I like being able to joke with my students. But if I do that, they think that all the rules go out the window.

So I had to do the referrals today, and I take it personally.

'Scuse me while I laugh ironically at the thought that these referrals might possibly upset me more than the kids.

Cute band teacher top

So today I decided to take a little bit of a risk and wear a cute pink top with lace on the front to school today. It totally backfired, because one of my fifth grade students wore The Exact Same Top!! How humiliating!

In case you're wondering whether this has anything to do with being a band teacher, it does, really.

Why should language arts teachers and social studies teachers have a monopoly on cute tops? There is absolutely no law that says female band teachers have to dress dowdily because they might be single and have ten cats, or married and have two small children that are constantly sliming you with snot and crushing cheerioes down your front.

Male band teachers have it made. They can wear the same starched white button-down shirt and khaki pants year-round. It makes no difference what climate they live in or what season it is. I've never seen a male band director wear anything different, unless it was a navy blue pair of pants.

With the deepest regret and sorrow imaginable, I will tell you that I've had to completely give up on cute, high-heeled shoes. (Shut up, I might cry.)

In my former life as a young single urban professional (only one cat), I had a closetful of cute shoes, any pair of which I would happily take as my One Thing to a desert island.

There were the brown suede ankle boots with the lace up backs and the wooden heels that made an authoritative clack on a gallery floor.

And the pair of black and red pumps with an ankle strap that made me feel like a million bucks even though I bought them for twenty dollars at Nordstrom's Rack.

I had a pair of berry-red Mary Janes, with three-inch round heels in black. No wait, I still own those, although I haven't been able to wear them for five years because my feet gained a size after I had my first baby. I cannot make myself give them away because I love them that much. I still keep them in the lineup as if I could still wear them. Those shoes are the bomb...

Anyway, getting back to the clothing. When I moved out to the country and got married, I noticed that not a lot of women wore high-heeled shoes, in fact, they were wearing very practical clothing like pants and jeans and boots. Shoes with heels don't walk over the dirt very well.

After I started teaching, I wore high heels a couple of times. That didn't work out very well. Being a band teacher means you're on your feet a lot. Pretty much all class period, every class period. Furthermore, before rehearsal starts you are solving problems like not having music, needing reeds, and questions about upcoming events that students would get to ask when the entire group sits down so everyone can hear, so you have to rush around in a frenzy. Wearing high heels or shoes with cute but pinchy toes isn't really conducive to that.

So I gave up the shoes in favor of comfortable flats. Unfortunately I have far less success in the shoe store--of which we have approximately one in my rural milieu--judging whether or not flats will look good on me. Because, as one ex-boyfriend gleefully pointed out, I have kind of heavy calves, and we all know, at least those of us that are ladies, that a) boyfriends who say things like that should be dumped immediately, and b) high heels make your legs and ankles look slimmer.

But cute tops, getting back to the subject of this post, are not outside the realm of possibility for a youngish band teacher wanting to look her best every day and not like the stereotypical band teacher/working mom, and I'm just so depressed that a fifth grader had the exact same top on today.

What does that say about my taste anymore???

Getting my head out of the sand

It feels like I've had my head in the sand the last week or two. I haven't done much blogging about my job, because I've been so busy doing my job. I have been solving problems and stressing out. And, to top it all off, our home internet is down and the phone company are being turds. (Or is it, "is being a turd?") This prevents me from blogging at home after the kids are in bed provided my eyes are still open.

Here, in chronological order as they occur during the day, are the updates to all of my classes.

1st Hour: Seniors and juniors sailing along just fine on their independent music studies. My gum-chewing flute player thinks that doing grown-up band with me is a good idea. I agree, however she will probably not be allowed to chew gum at grown-up band.

2nd Hour: The fifth graders are remarkably well-behaved for kids that just got instruments to play. Which is to say that every moment with them with instruments in their hands is a challenge for me to keep them quiet, focused, and learning. But by hook or by crook, we have managed to learn a couple of notes despite all the talking and squirming and banging on drums and blasting trombone notes and questions and problems and anxiety and wanting to know if they can go to the bathroom and not lining up and being seventeen minutes late for their next class because they'd rather play with the saxophone than put it away and go do something boring like check out books.

3rd Hour: My choir-class-that-turned-into-independent-music-studies-class is also going fairly well, despite a recent downturn in mood in the room during this hour due to one of the students learning to play Barber's Adagio for Strings on the piano. If you have never heard Adagio for Strings, you should only listen to it in the bleakest part of winter when you need a good cry and have a couple of hours to spare, and a bottle of cheap gin would help too, because that's really the only way you can genuinely appreciate the stark raving sadness of this piece. It even makes me feel sad to think about a piece for fifty-seven violin, viola, cello and bass players being distilled down into a few piano notes.

4th Hour: The sixth graders are getting ready for their first quarter concert. Which is to say, they are getting ready to play songs out of their method book for a few staff members who have graciously agreed to stop by and listen. We will do our best to create a concert atmosphere with our behavior, a program (complete with skill sets for each song tied to district standards and benchmarks--hopefully that'll impress my boss, and why does it seem like I have so much extra time this year...oh, I'm not breast-pumping or nursing three times a day), and even, if I have my act together, cookies and tea.

5th Hour: LOUD. I've taken to bringing my work to a little desk outside my room and people walk by and say, Miss, are you in trouble???

6th Hour: Hokay. This is the class that made me cry two days in a row as soon as they left the room. The second day, I hunched over in a toilet stall (why is it that when we need a cry, women always choose the most disgusting place to do it--maybe it's because only by wallowing this low we realize that it's silly and then pull ourselves together and roll heads or whatever) and thought, dammit, this is the last day I cry.

I ran into another teacher in the hall and something she said really resonated with me: She said, I get mad, then I get even.

I thought, I'm pretty good at the getting mad part, but not so good at the getting even. So I made up a spreadsheet with all kids' names on it, and listed the bad behavior at the top.

Every time I saw students not paying attention while I was talking (nearly all), not being ready when I wanted to start playing (almost nearly all) and talking when they weren't supposed to be (all) I'd start going down my list and marking off students exhibiting that behavior. I'd stop class and cheerfully call out that student's behavior and then make a big show of hunting for their name--mostly it wasn't a show because I was so nervous that I forgot the students' last names. Usually the students would get quiet, and I'd go on.

After a few times of this, one girl asked, Miss, what are you doing? Oh, I cheerfully replied. I'm just documenting behavior for referrals.

That shut them up. Long enough to sight read the William Tell Overture (an arrangement, mind you) twice. Except technically the second time isn't sight-reading. And they did SO well. I wish someone would tatto "effort = success" on the backs of their arms. Because the effort really does result in success.

I may have said I was doing all of this cheerfully, because I am so determined to just stop getting mad, and go straight on to getting even. I hate writing referrals because it, well, it's so depressing; on the other hand, I'm not the one that needs to be crying after class.

It's time for these students to ask themselves, is it worth it to not pay attention and show some effort in band class?

The other coincidentally behavior-changing event that happened is our new homework policy kicked in. Right at the end of yesterday's class my boss came in to hand out the homework referrals, that basically say, kiddo, you go to the after-school homework program to get your stuff done or you're toast.

I'd done a number of these for kids who I think are struggling in band and therefore don't pay attention, and they are required to meet with me this coming Monday afternoon for some extra help. I did this because in a group that size, it's impossible, even in sectionals, to give every student some individual attention. Not only did the homework referrals help wake them up to their behavior, but I'm getting the idea--after I explained til I was blue in the face that it was not 'cause I think they're bad but because I want to give them extra help--that they now realize I care about them.

Huh.

Grown-up band

I just about cried on my husband's chest last night, I was so grateful to him.

It's because he agreed to help me with the children so I can participate in Grown-Up Band. I love my students to death, but truth be told, I really could use some Grown-Up Band right now. All day, every day, I work with students at various levels of musical competence and interest, and I hardly ever get to play the piano, much less my true love, the oboe.

In several of my classes, I have high school students working on independent things. They only need me to check in on them weekly, I trust them to work on their goals. With this minimal amount of what they see as interference, I can keep them on track and happy.

In the other classes, it's barely controlled chaos (see Chinese fire drill and The Covenant).

My fifth graders are working on opening cases and putting instruments together "slowly" and "carefully." These happen to be the same words I use with my three year old. These little guys are jumping all around, they're so eager to get their instruments, the problem is, you can't jump around with an instrument in your hand, especially when everyone else is jumping around too.

In the sixth grade, we are working on one song at a time out of their method books, and having to stop and learn new fingerings at the same time. It's such a big group that it's really hard to give any one student individual attention. What's most difficult is that at that age, they clamor for it. So I solve problems at the same time that I try to keep the rest of the thirty-five kids occupied, at a noise-level that is acceptable, and by acceptable I mean less than 100 decibels.

In the middle-high band, it's like pulling teeth, or, as I told them, brushing a three-year-old's teeth the hard way. I have to do everything I can in that class--firmness, frowns, humor, dances, self-deprecation--everything, to get them to do what I want. Even then, some students still struggle with the notes. Some students won't hold their trumpets properly even if I remind them every day. Some students take forever to learn the notes and by then we've moved on.

So my life, with regard to music, isn't easy. Kids with instruments. I love them all to death, but they drive me nuts.

Here is what Grown-Up Band involves. Adults and responsible high school students coming to rehearsal on time. They've practiced their music at home so they are familiar with it. They don't have gum in their mouths.

During rehearsal time of Grown-Up Band, these aforementioned responsible, prepared, non-gum-chewing individuals--gasp!!--stay quiet. They listen to what the conductor is asking them to do, and then--may the heavens open and shine forth a bright and beautiful light--they do it.

And beautiful music is the result.

No teeth pulling or brushing the hard way. No waiting for silence. No waiting for the trumpets to get with the program and participate. Nobody sitting in the back pretending to play. Best of all, no drummers messing around tossing mallets or poking each other with drumsticks.

It's a thrilling feeling, one I didn't know I've missed all these years, to be part of a living, breathing organism called a wind ensemble, where all the individuals who are a part of it work together, participate fully, are competent at their musical craft, and where the resulting whole is much greater than the sum of its parts because the individuals have laid aside their personal agendas in favor of the greater good.

In just two weeks, I get to be a part of that, once again. Aside from the worm of panic squirming in my gut wondering if I have any decent oboe reeds, I could dance on a cloud, because I'm going to get to go to Grown-Up Band.

Now, I have to go mop up the front of my husband's shirt.

Chinese fire drill

I hate to be so politically incorrect, because I certainly have no prejudicial intent toward residents of China or our esteemed fire fighters, who bravely do their jobs every time they are needed.

But everyone will instantly know what to picture in their minds when I start talking about passing out musical instruments to ten-year-olds.

The last six weeks of school, for the fifth-graders, have been about getting them up to speed on how to be good band students. We tackled the concepts one by one, starting with whole, half, quarter, eighth notes and rests, and then moved on to the staff and the pitches. I didn't spend a really long time on that because I knew we'd get to it later, one note at a time, with their music books in front of them.

I also know that you can't just expect kids to know how to be a good student in a rehearsal setting. You have to teach them. So I sat them down and showed them a conductor's beat pattern, and told them what to do at every moment of the rehearsal. (I love that part.) I showed them which books they will need and how to read the instructions for learning new things.

But it takes a while to master, and in the meantime, the kids are positively falling all over themselves, itching to get an instrument--any instrument--in their hands. And no matter how carefully you plan, and go over procedure, the actual event is something like a, well, Chinese fire drill.

Today's class has certainly earned their instruments, sometimes a bit painfully. I think most everyone could indentify a quarter note under duress, and they will know, by reading the poster on the wall, the things I expect them to bring to class, chief among them, a thinking cap.

"Who is interested in playing the drums?" I asked.

Seventeen hands shot up. Hmm, that wouldn't do, especially because the class only had twenty-three students and they were all talking at once.

But I noticed who was saying what. One kid, who looks to me like a particularly intelligent kid and who has not unduly distinguished himself by bad behavior, asked me what the big drum was.

"A bass drum," I said, and added, "if you're interested in that you will have to be a leader, and be able to help me lead the band by keeping a steady beat."

That sounded fine to him, and I marked him down. Twenty-two to go.

I walked around to individual students, remembering their effort in past classes and the way they interacted with other students. Some students had already told me what they wanted to play, such as a trombone, and I was happy to oblige.

Slowly I found the trombone players, several boys willing to try the saxophone, a girl who thought the trumpet sounded good.

My cache of instruments dwindling, I assigned a couple of girls with piano experience to the xylophone. I remembered that one girl had a violin. I'd bend my rules about non-band instruments because, frankly, I was getting desperate. I even assigned two girls to play auxiliary percussion.

It came down to a question of the flutes. I only had two left. (By the way, this was only the first set of fifth-graders to be assigned instruments. I have another class to figure out on Friday.)

Four girls were interested in becoming flute players. Very interested, and not willing to consider another choice. I talked to them for a minute, saying that we had to solve the conflict in a grown-up way. I could see the look in one girl's eyes that said, "if I don't get a flute I'm going to create drama. Big drama."

Finally, two of the girls said they would consider the trumpet. Thank the Lord. I wasn't going to have to draw names out of a hat and deal with the diva.

Once the instruments were marked down by their names I arranged them in order. We practiced coming into the room and the beginning rehearsal procedure. They were extremely quiet, watching me for the cue of stepping behind my stand to get rehearsal started.

That will happen again approximately never.

Today, an activity I had been dreading was over. I'd been worried about it partly because I don't have that many instruments left because my other groups are so big. I'd also been worried about it because it would be a kind of chaos for a little while, and there's nothing I can do about it. I've tried giving the rest of the class an assignment to do but that never works, not when we're talking about instruments.

The cool part is that a whole new group of beginning students will get that look on their face that you can't find them with in any other class. They get behind their instruments and they feel important. They have an identity, one that they will forever associate themselves with. Kids need that, and playing music gives that to them, something that will never be taken away.

I'm sorry, but calculating the area of a rectangle just doesn't compare.

The part I just really like best about my job though, when dealing with brand-new musicians, is transforming a chaos-minded batch of kiddoes into...a band.

E.'s As

Today I want to tell you about one of my students. Since names are changed to protect the innocent and the not-so-innocent, I'll call him E. E is a student in my 6th hour class, middle-high band. See my posts Die trying, or Just Die and The covenant for more about middle-high band and what this kid, and I, are up against.

This particular kid falls on the side of the innocent. Well, in my class, at least. I've seen his standardized test scores and I've seen his grades in his other classes. They're fairly pathetic.

And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Somehow or another, somewhere along the line, E. just isn't getting the hang of x and y, the five-sentence paragraph, the scientific method. He's not quite grasping the applications of mean and mode, mass versus weight, and what a business letter looks like.

But in my class, he excels.

Let me explain my grading methods, that is to say (forgive this little bit of teacher-talk) my formative and summative assessments. Formative being the feedback you give along the way--"great job with the rhythm in that section, now add the flam on the second beat"--and summative being the final exam kind of grade, for me, the performances. In my class, I give constant formative feedback every step of the way, and I go as fast as the kids go, and I rehearse what needs to be worked on, not what doesn't. If the kids learn, we go forward, if they don't, I stop and explain it again.

I grade the kids on their effort. I can't possibly grade them on mastery of notes and then the next week move on to the rhythm, and two weeks after that, teach about the dynamics and key signatures. Everything's mixed up, so the best way for me to gauge progress is to see the kids making effort.

And wouldn't you know, the kids who make some effort, see results. It's really not rocket science.

Anyway, E. comes into class prepared every single day, except for today, and is extremely polite at all times. In fact, I can't think of another student who is quite so polite. He always says hello and goodbye. He's the first one with his hand up when I ask for attention with my "high five" sign, he's the first one ready to play, and he knows his parts. Um, because he pays attention when I teach them to him.

I recently had the opportunity to see him in another context, at the cross country meet. He was doing his mile and a half race last week against some other schools. At the finish line, where I was poised to take nametags off of shirts as kids ran through the chute, I had the chance to see E. running as fast as he could to beat another kid and we yelled and cheered for him. Unfortunately he didn't come in before the other boy, but I could see the effort he was putting forth. Some days, the other kid beats you no matter what you do.

I am very impressed with his effort on the race course and in music, and I can see that as he gets older, he's going to be the student that everyone loves to have because of all the characteristics that I mentioned.

He's going to be that kid that a teacher in math, science, or language arts goes home at night, pours him or herself a celebratory beverage, and thinks, I'm SO happy for E., getting him from an F to a D....

In my class, he's the kid I look forward to seeing. I wish I had more like him.

But I get to say, "I'm so proud of E. for getting an A in band!"

My own personal live music

"That brings joy to my heart," I said. "Not that you care about my joy, but it's what I've been waiting for these last couple of weeks."

Last year, every fourth hour, around 11:00 or so, five guys would strap on their guitars, slide behind the drum set, and crank their amps. Then they'd jam.

They had a set of songs they worked on. First the chords, then the sequence, then getting the structure of the song down, and finally, the start and end. It was a real hands-off kind of class. All I had to do was sit behind my desk and make sure they knew I was listening. It was kind of impossible not to listen.

The occasional request to turn down the volume notwithstanding, most every teacher in the building seemed to enjoy it to a certain degree, probably not as much as me, but they did kind of like hearing the five guys working together and producing a cohesive sound.

I considered it my own private live music every day. Loud, but mine. And I LOVED it.

I have a little confession: I was raised on opera and classical music. Yes, that's right. While I was in the womb my mother played her cello mere inches from my rapidly developing self. I went to my first opera at the age of five and have been to several dozen since. The Nutcracker ballet was a yearly ritual that I attended with my dad and my sister, just them, because my mom was playing in the orchestra. Organ music makes me weep with joy. I've heard or played about 70% of the classical repertoire, and the strains of a symphony orchestra or wind ensemble still elicit a visceral memory of sweat, spit, muscle coordination, furrowed brows, and the flash of a baton.

So why do I like rock and roll so much? Rebellion, pure and simple. Sorry Mom and Dad, but it's true, the electric pulse of amplified guitar strings and rhythmic drumming set my heart afire, too.

The hardest part for me is letting these five guys work it out for themselves. Unlike my other groups, where I conduct and tell them how to sit and when to breathe and what to do every second of the class, these guys, like most teenage boys, would rather splinter their guitars into shreds and never play again than be told what to do.

So I have to let go and let them do their thing. When they do, it's beautiful.

The first few weeks of school were a little out of sync. The drummer wasn't, or isn't, sure if he'll stay out his senior year or move with his parents. The lead guitar is the sweetest kid imaginable, and darn smart, but emotional when things don't go his way. There was a switch of a lead guitar for a bass, who had to learn the songs and then teach them to the old bass player. (Go figure.)

Last year they were in their element, doing what they loved, trying not to smile too wide. None are going to shatter records as an athlete, or become Ivy Leaguers. But every one of them is a musician to his soul, and I got to see their souls soar every day at 11:00 am.

This year, I figured, first day, they'd get right back to it. It took them two weeks. 'Til today, they sat and worked on their own stuff, and it sounded like, well, four guitarists and a drummer sitting and working on their own stuff. Chaos. Cacophony.

A little unpleasant.

Which is why, when they played together for the first time a song they did last year, it was like the heavens parting, revealing a ray of sunshine. I breathed deeply, soaking in the fresh waves of coordinated sound, and carried on with work at my desk.

And when they stopped, I told them with a big smile on my face, "That brings joy to my heart. Not that you care about my joy, but it's what I've been waiting for these last couple of weeks."

They laughed and kept on playing.

The covenant

To review with you on what happened yesterday in my last class of the day, middle school band:

I've been having a miserable time trying to get them to behave with positive rewards. Points equaling one minute for a party? They didn't care about that. Didn't care about nuthin'.

What they did care about was ending up in the AP's office, getting their butt chewed, with some paperwork documenting their bad behavior. This is something their parents might actually find out about.

I vented and strategized to my husband last night. When I could take no more and my eyelids were drooping, I slid down into bed, only to promptly lie there wide awake thinking of all the nasty things I could say to the kids and what they might do or say in response. There were some bad little voices in my head saying things like, are you really cut out to be a teacher? Are you sure you want to do this?? Remember...it's your tenure year.... what if the AP and the S/P hear you say something they don't like????

Those voices, and the awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, reminded me of when I got out of the pool and headed out on the bike portion of the olympic-distance triathlon I completed a couple of weeks ago, and I got out on the county road and felt the breeze and soaked in the beautiful blue sky, and saw the green grass and then, to my horror, saw the enormous hill up ahead that I was going to have to somehow pedal my bike up and over, and so I started cranking my gears down one at a time, and while I was doing that and realizing there was no way my legs would carry me over that big bad hill, the evil little voices of despair started in saying, what made you think you could do this anyway? You're not the athletic one! You're never going to get over that hill, much less twice, you can't hack it... Yeah, the situation in class reminded me of that, as I lay in bed last night.

But I did get up and over that hill, twice, and both times I did not do it according to the prescribed strategy, which was, to ride it. I have gained some experience in beating back those voices of despair by counteracting them with a positive pep talk, like say, with the voice of Hulk Hogan. Both times I went over the hill by getting off my bike and walking over it. And once I got over, it was smooth sailing. I didn't care what anyone thought of me walking my bike, I was gonna get over that hill.

So I lay in bed pretending I was Hulk Hogan: "you can do it! Don't be a whiner, don't give in! Just get in there and do it! Don't let a bunch of twelve and thirteen year olds make you miserable and doubt yourself!"

And it worked. I fell asleep. Ok, then I woke up thinking about it again an hour before I was supposed to wake up this morning, but I did fall asleep.

This morning I went to my AP and talked to him. I warned him that I might have a stream of students leaving the room that hour and why. He agreed, go negative. If the positive isn't working, nail 'em.

When the class time came I felt like I had grasshoppers in my stomach. I wouldn't let the students in the door. They had to listen to me talk straight with them about a deal. If they abided by my expectations, we'd have a good class. If they didn't, I'd write a referral right then and there. I got mad, and they knew it. But I gave them an opportunity to make a choice, and to ask questions. I laid it on the line.

Unfortunately for me, and for them, some very formally dressed official-looking men and women showed up at the front door, which is right next to the lobby where I was letting my students have it. (For here, "formal" means cowboy boots you've scraped clean and a nice shirt. They were all wearing suits and ties.) I had to tell the students to please move so they could pass and tell the formally-suited people where the office was. I hope I don't get in trouble for blocking their path with my rant.

Anyway, I told my students straight out--again--what I expected. And what would happen if they didn't meet those expectations.

Class was better. It wasn't perfect, but it was better. I had to pretend to nail a lot of students. Including one poor motherless child who was examining her friend's hair when she should have been getting ready to play. It just about broke my heart. The expression on her face when she left made me want to cry. I told her I didn't really want to go to referral today, but she needed to try to set an example.

I don't care if I'm fired tomorrow. We sounded like the bomb today.

Die Trying, or Just Die

When I found out that I would have all of last year's 6th graders in band and all of the current 6th grade class in one band class, I knew one thing was certain.

I was either going to die trying to get them somewhere, or, just die.

It's my fault, really. I tricked them into thinking they had to be in band. I told the secretary, who was partially in charge of arranging the school's schedule of classes, that I wanted her to put everyone in band. That way I'd get a chance to build the program. I'd increase my numbers, get a chance to work on the kids another year, and hopefully capture plenty of them before they decided they weren't going to do it any more because of being in high school, or sports, or wanting to play video games, or tired of the high expectations. Or whatever.

I wanted this. So It's MY fault I'm about to cry.

Right now I'm leaning toward the "just die" end of the spectrum. Forget "die trying. "

The classes are slipping out of control. Everyone was kind of on their best behavior the first few days of class and I thought, oh well, the classes are huge but it won't be bad. But yesterday I had a somewhat negative day with my 7-8th graders. Today was worse. I wanted so badly for it to go well and be positive. I reminded them of expectations. I told them how they could earn points for their party.

One of the ways was bringing me a box of kleenex and someone did.

But the real way they need to be earning points is staying quiet while I'm talking, and they don't. They have to stay quiet when we finish playing a piece. They don't. They have to pick up the room before they leave. They don't. They have to get through a class period without knocking anything over. They don't. They have to get quiet when I ask them to in 5 seconds or less. They don't. They have to be ready to play when I ask them to. They aren't.

They can't seem to get themselves together long enough to earn a SINGLE freaking point. Other than the box of kleenex, which is coming in real handy right now.

I just finished printing rosters with names and phone numbers on them. I will be starting to call parents. I just have to be prepared for them to say, "my kid hates band!" And then to explain why. That they hate band because they hate having to stop talking long enough to show some discipline and focus.

I really really wanted to be able to start calling parents to say, "your kid is showing real leadership. They are living up to expectations. They are doing a great job helping their neighbors and being ready when asked. They know their notes."

But I just can't, right now.

There are definitely some kids that sit quietly and do what they're told, or don't know what they're doing so they sit quietly. I regret that I can't devote more time and energy to them. But the rest of the class is just screwing themselves up. It's at the point where they are seeing me get frustrated.

Hah! We made Miss get red in the face!!! We made her voice crack!

Some kids should be left the heck behind.

Ok. Now that I've reached that low point, I will gather the shreds of my sanity and attempt to put them back together into something resembling a functioning human teacher. Someone who can actually write decent lesson plans and see if we can get the classes into sectionals, which will hopefully help.

Today, I'm going to die trying.

Immersed

It's amazing to me that I spend seven hours straight each day immersed in nothing but music. The occasional teen problem or paperwork issue, but mostly music. I never left my band room today, the students just came and went like ocean waves.

A long time ago, I was totally immersed in music. About the age of 16-17, I lived, breathed, and spoke music. School band and orchestra, two regional ensembles that had weekly rehearsals, public school regional band and orchestra, weekly private oboe lesson, and regular paid gigs.

And then it trickled away. In college I continued my oboe lessons for another year. I played in the concert band for one year. I took guitar lessons after that, so I didn't really ever quit music in college, but I laid the oboe aside for a while.

Quite a long while, as it turned out.

Once done with college, I pursued other interests--art, mainly, and went back to school for a degree in art history and got a job at a big city art museum.

I sang in the church choir for a while, and my singing voice got better, and I went back to playing oboe a little bit, at funerals and occasionally in regular services.

Finally, I moved to Colorado to get married. A couple of years later, I found myself with that teaching job I mentioned, the one where I blurted out, I could do that. I hadn't played piano in twenty years, I hadn't played my oboe in four, and hadn't even opened the guitar case for about fifteen.

And now, it is a wonderful blessing to be able to sit at the piano and describe the circle of fifths to a student wanting to become a better bass guitar player. It is wonderful to be able to play a phrase on my oboe to show someone how to articulate that phrase. And despite the students' struggles with talking and fidgeting and dissatisfaction with having to meet my high expectations, I even think it's pretty cool to sit and conduct a 36-member middle school band.

I get to play piano whenever I can, and show 5th graders how cool a trombone is. On open house night I brought my 3 year old son into my room and he sat at the drum set banging away. When I set my little baby girl at the piano, I get to watch her face explode with delight.

I suppose if you have to immerse yourself in a job, it couldn't get too much better than music.