General Information
We are back in full swing this week and the students are doing great! We are prepping for our Fine Art Night performance and the students continue to impress me with their hard work. Our March Madness is almost complete as well! Jupiter from The Planets representing Britain won when it faced off against Spring from the Four Seasons from Italy and we are waiting on the winner from France vs Germany. Those two pieces are Claire de Lune for France and Carmina Burana (O Fortuna) for Germany. The winner between these two will face off against Jupiter next week to determine our final winner!
So far I do not have a lot of dates at the bottom for everyone to be aware of. On paper, this semester seems to be easier schedule wise with performances, but things may pop up as we go along so I appreciate your continuous flexibility as things are possibly added.
Private lessons: I have had a couple people ask what these are. Private lessons are an excellent way to help support your student’s growth on their instrument. They are an opportunity for them to learn from a licensed teacher of their specific instrument. These teachers are able to meet your student where they are skill wise and provide additional support and techniques to help them improve outside of band. Various music stores offer lessons, my college MidAmerica Nazarene University has a program, and there are various individuals across the metro that teach out of their homes as well. Please let me know if this interests you at all!
Announcement: n/a
Advanced Band
Practice logs will be tracked from Tuesday-Tuesday. I gave them out next Tuesday and would like it back filled out and signed by the following Tuesday. 30 minutes minimum a week is a place to start.
This week we worked on our Fine Art Night pieces. The main focus on each of them has been style and tempos. Down to the River works on developing their lyrical sound. The goal is to play each note as smooth and connected as possible to create the correct lyrical style. They are also working on learning how they pass the melody line back and forth between all the sections. This helps them learn when to play louder and when to back off to listen for their friends. We also worked on Pirates of the Caribbean this week. They have been learning all the various themes in this piece really well so now we are working on connecting each of the sections and bringing them up to performance speed. I am considering making one change to the piece by cutting measures 87-95. My reason for this is the piece is already quite long and this section is very exposed. They can play it, but I want them to feel completely comfortable when they go to perform and this section might not feel that way. The students are aware of the idea and are okay with it.
Beginning Band
Practice logs will be tracked from Monday-Monday. I gave them out next Monday and would like them back the following Monday. 30 minutes minimum a week is a place to start.
This week we worked more in our books with our new note and starting to work on our piece for Fine Art Night. The piece for Fine Art Night is from their books on pg. 20 and is titled Procession from Water Music. This piece is a classic piece of musical literature and continues to challenge the students on playing for longer stretches and more independently. We might also look at Banana Boat Song, on the same page, depending on time so if they want to start looking at it at home they are more than welcome to. Exercise 56 introduces their most recent new note that we are working on in class. We have worked on breaking it down and finding the pitch of their new note so I would like for them to continue working on this exercise at home. Long tones also will continue to be a great way to build up their playing muscles when practicing. This is seen in exercise no. 42. This will really help out brass players specifically. They can also practice just sustaining their buzz on a mouthpiece to help maintain their sound.
Upcoming Events
05/15- A AND B BAND- FINE ARTS NIGHT AT 6:30 PM