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.