So this cold is wreaking whatever havoc it can on me. In addition to the dry cough, the blocked sinuses, and the red, bleary eyes, last Friday night my ear clogged up and it's been stopped up since then (it is now Thursday afternoon).
It's been very difficult to do my job. We're sight-reading right now in the two large classes, plus switching instruments in 5th grade, and passing out solo-ensemble music in th 6th and 7th-8th grade bands. That means:
Not being able to hear the kids play their new music, which is of course also new to me and I don't know what it sounds like. I know what it should sound like, because I have a score in front of me, but I can't hear very well what the kids are actually playing.
Not being able to hear individual questions when a cluster of little 5th graders are all around me begging to have the instrument they picked.
Not being able to hear what I should hear in the middle-high class, which is ten trumpets, five clarinets, two flutes, three trombones, a baritone, and assorted percussion all busily working on their solo-ensemble music in happy, but distinguishable, cacophony.
It didn't help that I was out the last couple of days with sick children and when I'm not here the room always gets trashed and I'm behinder than I was (clearly a rant for another day, or never).
The worst part of having my ear clogged is that sounds go into my left ear and into my brain at one pitch, and into my right ear at another pitch. So for example, when the microwave beeps to tell me that the sixty seconds I waited for Chloe's oatmeal to warm are over, I hear two out-of-tune pitches.
Every pitch is like that: voices, the hums of computers and cars--and bands.
Remember the sick children I mentioned? Sick children cry, and they cry at a continuous off-key tone. Two children make two off-key, out-of-tune pitches. A mother with a clogged ear listening to two sick children cry hears four off-key, out-of-tune pitches.
A band teacher with a clogged ear listening desperately to 25 students sight-reading a new piece hears...fifty out-of-tune pitches.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the stuff nightmares are made of.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
lost my voice
Since I've been whispering all day I've had this strange sense of not quite being a part of the world I inhabit. Like something's off kilter, which it is, because I can't talk normally, but very subtly. I can still communicate just fine, except, in a whisper.
Losing my voice wouldn't be too much of a tragedy if I sat in a tiny cubicle all day looking at a computer screen.
The cubicle I work in is about the size of four cubic classrooms, kids come in and out all day long and play instruments--loudly. There has to be some structure and order to it.
Without a voice it's pretty hard to call attention to a class of 35 with instruments.
I decided to something totally different. I asked the teacher next door, the middle school reading and writing teacher, if I could have the kids do something that would help her out. Oh yes, I could have them do Study Island. At the same time, I decided I would make sure every kid had their solo/ensemble piece picked out.
Teachers would come in the room and ask me things or tell me things and after a couple of whispered responses they'd wrinkle their noses or raise their eyebrows. "You lost your voice?"
Nod.
The younger the kids were the funnier they thought it. Having to listen to a teacher whisper--what power! The merest wiggle or squirmy noise would interfere!
Some of the 7th and 8th graders very nicely said they hoped I got better.
One more day tomorrow and I think I'll do the same thing again, have the kids do Study Island and finish up getting copies of music out and solo/ensemble pieces copied for me and the kids, that way we can start Monday running--and by then I should have my vocal chords back in operation.
Losing my voice wouldn't be too much of a tragedy if I sat in a tiny cubicle all day looking at a computer screen.
The cubicle I work in is about the size of four cubic classrooms, kids come in and out all day long and play instruments--loudly. There has to be some structure and order to it.
Without a voice it's pretty hard to call attention to a class of 35 with instruments.
I decided to something totally different. I asked the teacher next door, the middle school reading and writing teacher, if I could have the kids do something that would help her out. Oh yes, I could have them do Study Island. At the same time, I decided I would make sure every kid had their solo/ensemble piece picked out.
Teachers would come in the room and ask me things or tell me things and after a couple of whispered responses they'd wrinkle their noses or raise their eyebrows. "You lost your voice?"
Nod.
The younger the kids were the funnier they thought it. Having to listen to a teacher whisper--what power! The merest wiggle or squirmy noise would interfere!
Some of the 7th and 8th graders very nicely said they hoped I got better.
One more day tomorrow and I think I'll do the same thing again, have the kids do Study Island and finish up getting copies of music out and solo/ensemble pieces copied for me and the kids, that way we can start Monday running--and by then I should have my vocal chords back in operation.
Monday, January 5, 2009
solo ensemble madness
It was the first day back after break, I'm sick with sinus gunk and the kids were nuts. It wasn't too bad, I wish I could hear and speak normally, though. Not great for a band teacher to be a quart low on speaking (shouting) and listening abilities.
While on break, we happened to go to New York City, where there happen to be sheet music stores so I stopped in at the one in back of Carnegie Hall, Patelson's, to buy solo and ensemble music on the easier side. Would you believe our little school district has an outstanding music library of intermediate to high advanced music? Not so much easy, so I managed to get albums full of easier solos for every instrument except percussion. All of the main ones, that is, since I have yet to convince anyone to play French horn or anything with "alto" or "tenor" in front of it.
So I brought my bag of sheet music to school today and when the kids came in for middle-high band class I told them about it. Some of the kids who went last year were so excited about it they asked me in the hallway before entering the room today. "Miss, are we going to do solo/ensemble this year?"
The mad part about it is the piano accompaniements. I'm trying to jump all over the available and capable pianists, our other music teacher in the elementary who is the sweetest lady imaginable and who could churn out some accompaniements with a smile, and a senior who is purportedly sick of playing piano but who would rather play a solo himself than accompany seventh-graders (hmm, not sure I disagree...).
Because there's NO WAY I can do it all myself. It's the funnest thing ever, pardon my kidspeak, and I love doing it. But it takes a ton of practice. I do it because I get better at the piano, and it's personal time with the kids.
Even my jaded, bored, too-cool trumpet players were kind of looking at the book with interest, trying to find "that circus song!" I thought, oh no, that's way too hard for your current level of effort, dude. We can find them something they can be confident of.
The kids who went last year are excited, too, because I stapled their music inside personalized file folders and then when I got the schedule I was able to write on the outside of the folder their room number and time, so that way nobody got lost or was late. It worked out well.
That was with seventeen kids, though; this year we'll have around forty. Cool. Let the chaos ensue.
While on break, we happened to go to New York City, where there happen to be sheet music stores so I stopped in at the one in back of Carnegie Hall, Patelson's, to buy solo and ensemble music on the easier side. Would you believe our little school district has an outstanding music library of intermediate to high advanced music? Not so much easy, so I managed to get albums full of easier solos for every instrument except percussion. All of the main ones, that is, since I have yet to convince anyone to play French horn or anything with "alto" or "tenor" in front of it.
So I brought my bag of sheet music to school today and when the kids came in for middle-high band class I told them about it. Some of the kids who went last year were so excited about it they asked me in the hallway before entering the room today. "Miss, are we going to do solo/ensemble this year?"
The mad part about it is the piano accompaniements. I'm trying to jump all over the available and capable pianists, our other music teacher in the elementary who is the sweetest lady imaginable and who could churn out some accompaniements with a smile, and a senior who is purportedly sick of playing piano but who would rather play a solo himself than accompany seventh-graders (hmm, not sure I disagree...).
Because there's NO WAY I can do it all myself. It's the funnest thing ever, pardon my kidspeak, and I love doing it. But it takes a ton of practice. I do it because I get better at the piano, and it's personal time with the kids.
Even my jaded, bored, too-cool trumpet players were kind of looking at the book with interest, trying to find "that circus song!" I thought, oh no, that's way too hard for your current level of effort, dude. We can find them something they can be confident of.
The kids who went last year are excited, too, because I stapled their music inside personalized file folders and then when I got the schedule I was able to write on the outside of the folder their room number and time, so that way nobody got lost or was late. It worked out well.
That was with seventeen kids, though; this year we'll have around forty. Cool. Let the chaos ensue.
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