This week we got to experience some triumphs and downfalls. And I learned a lot more about students. Jump past the break to see what happened!
I gotta say, this week was definitely a real week of teaching. As I mentioned in last weeks post, this is the point where we start digging in to real teaching, and are now out of this first week of school honeymoon phase.
This week didn't really have much going on with it, no assemblies, no football game, no performances, just a regular old week of school.
Or not.
This week Todd had me take a much more active role in teaching. Up until this point I've done mostly paperwork, a little bit of grading and some amounts of conducting. But this was the week that he threw me into the shark tank. I got to actually lead classes pretty much solo! Now before you get way too excited, because I know you guys already are, I emphasize pretty much solo. He was still around, watching, but he let me do my thing.
What's my thing you ask? Hell if I know. I didn't even know I had a thing, or a way or style, but this week I started to discover it. We had the task of deciding seat placements for certain sections in both bands such as Clarinets, Trumpets, Flutes and French Horns. For Wind Ensemble, he would take one section out at a time and had them all play a section from a piece of music. He then told me to work with the ensemble while he was doing that.
In Wind Ensemble I was tasked with working on English Folk Song Suite by Ralph Vaughan Williams, a fantastic piece if you've never heard it, and for those that have an extremely difficult piece for a younger Wind Ensemble. I should mention that he let me pick this one for the group, so we'll see if my ambition exceeds my ability. Anyway, I decided to work on the first movement primarily. It went pretty well for the most part, and the band was very respectful and attentive. We were able to get a lot done. After that, Todd told me to have them sight-read Amazing Grace by Frank Tichelli. And then disaster hit.
You see, Wind Ensemble was missing several copies of the music in each section, i.e., not enough Clarinet parts. So instead of making them share music, like an a total noob, I spent incredibly valuable class time copying new parts for them. Why was this a bad decision? I mean it only took like ten minutes. But that ten minutes was enough to completely derail my rehearsal, because during that time they were talking, goofing around, noodling and everything else that is a band director's worst nightmare. We finally got parts copied and I was somehow able to get back on task and start playing. Thankfully, Wind Ensemble did nothing less than astound me with their ability to play musically, especially with new music.
Todd thought the auditions wouldn't take long so he told me just to do those two pieces, which I prepared for ahead of time with score study, prep, etc. But the auditions ran long. So I and the band sight-read the third movement of Folk Song Suite and worked on it for a bit. They played it pretty well, despite the fact that at this time all hell was breaking loose with lunch being only minutes away. That bell finally rang and a sigh of relief escaped my nervous lips, as I had just finished my first solo rehearsal.
Here is Folk Song Suite if you want to take a listen:
Mvt 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXkf0xB7n5Y
Mvt 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yao_Q6iVp58
Mvt 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXm0gOaWypk
I've purposely abstained from writing this blog because I wanted to take time and think about how it went and there we are. I think it went well enough despite the obvious setbacks and obstacles that just so happened to appear.
I was also able to lead a rehearsal for the Symphonic Band (our sophmore ensemble) and that surprisingly went better than the Wind Ensemble rehearsal did. Those kids were much better behaved and I was even able to get them through some difficult music featuring time changes and hemiolas. I think it is going to be a great year for my ensembles.
Other things that happened this week:
-I discovered I write really difficult theory tests, too difficult for my students. I had to curve many grades to make up for this so that they all didn't fail the class. Boy did I feel bad about that.
-One of my students who I thought would be eager to learn a difficult jazz standard just completely shut down when it came to improvising. At this point he had pretty much just spent time on a Blues but when tasked with something much more difficult than what he knew, he just fell apart. It was quite shocking to see this side of him. But I think he just needs some mentoring or some form of assistance, because I know he wants to be great at Jazz.
-I judged my percussionists as they did their weekly pass offs and gave them scores. First time I've ever done that. Also, I'm a tough grader too as I didn't hand out very many A's. But don't fret, most of them were in the B+ to A- range. And I think I'm finally bonding with the percussionists, that, or they are just messing with me. You never know with them, percussionists are definitely something special.
Thanks for reading, hopefully I will have other interesting stories and observations this coming week!
P.S. Sorry for no pictures, it was not a very photogenic week :(
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