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....