So this week was a big week. Not just for me, but for the students as well. But first let us talk about me.
This week has been hardcore rehearsing in preparation for our concert, which is going to be November 1st and I think that all six or so of my loyal readers should come to this concert, if nothing else to hear our amazing bands play some spectacular music.
This week we spent copious amounts of time in Wind Ensemble rehearsing my piece, "Amazing Grace" and also the extremely challenging second movement of English Folk Song Suite. Now, our rehearsals were definitely not the most interesting but they were still good because they were enlightening. Much of the sections that I rehearsed pointed out weaknesses to the students for sections that they really need to look at and rehearse. It also exposed my own unfamiliarity with some of those sections as well, so needless to say, rehearsal was definitely not very fun this week. It dragged for the students and myself, I think we all kind of resented each other. But in the end, our rehearsals are really coming together and I expect huge things out of this week.
On another note, the Wind Ensemble has been particularly unruly lately and have been extremely talkative and disruptive. You can definitely tell that we are six weeks into the semester, so from a discipline standpoint Todd and I have been much more strict about talking and rehearsal behavior. I recorded our rehearsals this week so that I could listen and better plan my rehearsing for the following day and it's been helping out a lot. I've also noticed some deficiencies I have in my own conducting which I will be practicing more in the following weeks.
Symphonic Band has been pretty good for us from a behavior standpoint. We did much of the same thing with them as we did with the students, having them play the slow, difficult sections to expose weaknesses and make them go home and practice those sections. We used the boring rehearsals as a bargaining tool, telling the students that if they practiced those sections that we wouldn't need to spend so much time working on them in class. After all, as the teacher it isn't our job to teach them how to play the notes or rhythms, it's to work on musical expression and make the music come alive off the page.
Jazz Band has been pretty fun this week. That band is swinging so hard these days. They play matched articulations across the band and have even started automatically playing the dynamics in the ways that we want to, so as a fp crescendos on long notes and things like that. They sound really great.
Now for the tough teaching moment of this week that they don't teach you in music school:
This week we made all of our jazz students play their mixolydian arpeggios, memorized as a scale test. The entire band played them fine, with the exception of one student. I won't reveal her name, but I'll call her R. and make no mistake, she is a fantastic musician. I've noticed that you can have students that are absolutely talented, hard-workers that can have musically-destructive confidence issues. When I asked her to play her arpeggios, she had to turn around and not face me. She tried to get through them as quickly as possible and it hindered her ability to play them. She tried to rush through them and kept making mistakes. I could tell that she was having a meltdown and I could hear her voice break as she apologized for stopping, which I told her to take her time and play them right instead of quickly. I could see tears run down her face. And the worst part is I felt completely powerless to help and no matter what I said to try and comfort her, it just didn't help. It was a hard moment for me, because I'm going to have to actually deal with this someday, so I really need to figure out what to say. Just another learning experience I suppose.
Now for the students. The students discovered I play video games and they love me even more because of it: WIN. Also, they discovered that I like Avatar: the Last Airbender and they love me EVEN MORE because of that fact as well. I guess that is the perk to being a younger teacher, I can relate to them. This was also the week of our biggest football game of the year against our rival Bountiful High School.
Let me set the stage for you: we haven't beat them in over 25 years, they destroyed both teams that beat earlier in the season, and it rained the entire game.
Pretty miserable experience right?
WRONG! We took the fight to them and sent them packing with a 14-0 score! Much partying would ensue, due to the fact that the band feels at least partly responsible for that win, which is a great thing because they've worked so hard this year.
A party happened in the band room to celebrate this momentous occasion. And a very cool non-teaching moment happened. Earlier that night I saw my kids doing the dance moves from Gangnam Style, so after the game end I decided to put it on to see what happened. Needless to say, I am now the coolest teacher ever.
100+ kids all dancing to Gangnam style. Double WIN.
BONUS:
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chronicles of my life :)
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