Week Five and Beyond

My gosh, over already? It seems like we were just getting into the swing of things! The concert went very well; my beginning students nailed their instrument features (way to go, guys!!) and stayed together on the piece we weren't altogether prepared for. My intermediate kids did just fine, the timpani player on the piece I conducted got to play on real, full-size timpani instead of some ancient roto-toms, dynamics were pretty decent, and despite all the hubbub of people moving mid-camp, we did well. My advanced band really gave me a pleasant surprise on a tune called "Jamaican Holiday" by schooling a long-standing trouble spot and doing some killer dynamics; I'm nominating us for best section on the planet. :)

What I did well

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I think I got a much better hold on finding that state of "approachable teacher" rather than a teacher you don't dare go near or person you view more as a buddy and less of an authority. I didn't win over all my students (how often does that really happen, anyway?) but I certainly got many more smiles and many fewer scowls.

What I didn't do well

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I definitely didn't get as far as I would have liked with my beginners. Neither my trumpets nor my trombones got very far in Essential Elements (we had to skip forward to the concert pieces on p. 12), and while it would be easy to say that a third to a half of each group came in not knowing how to read music (so they claimed - I could have sworn they learned this in classroom music), I'd still say that it's largely my fault for not having gotten them through to that point.

What I'll do better next time

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Well first and most important, I have to make some new secret handshakes; the low brass handshake is apparently on TV now! No, really first and most importantly, I need to get comfortable with the idea of setting goals not for where my students are, but above where they are. I need to get comfortable with the idea that my kids might have to get severely left in the dust before they kick it into high gear. I need to get comfortable with giving them more than they can handle at once just to show them that they really can handle all of it at once if they try. That ended up happening when they got three band pieces at the same time; I would rather it have happened during the first week or two.

I also need to work more on note recognition in class. I tried this year handing out flashcards with the notes, note names, and fingerings on them so that they could work on that at home and we could work on other stuff in class, but looking back, I realize I've got it backwards. What we did in class was the fun stuff, and what I was asking them to do at home was the mundane stuff; big surprise there that they didn't work on the boring stuff at home. During the summer. Where it competes with video games. And baseball. I seem to remember someone warning me about this...

I think I'll keep the flashcards, though; some kids really did benefit from them, and it's nice to be able to have that option for silent "practice," like in a car with teenage siblings or at a cabin over 4th of July weekend. It's not much, but it's something.

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In other news, paychecks have finally started to come in the very week camp is ending!! No, that's okay, district, my car runs on happy thoughts, not on gasoline; I can still get to work. At least it means my bank account is back above single-digits and that I can buy things like food. In that time after graduation and before the first paycheck, I'd better find something that pays weekly. What did you real teachers do in that dead time?

Also, I got about $90 worth of music in the mail for my upcoming junior recital. I'm giving it a "trombone and organ" theme, so it'll be held at Trinity Lutheran Church in Moorhead just north of campus if anyone wants to come listen. The organ there is quite an instrument and a small giant at that, so if anything, come for that. I'm going to see if I can balance with its "tutti" on one of the pieces.

Anyhoo, more to come later. Take care,
-Greg

Week Four in Review

FULL BAND!!

Yessir, Monday, we put all of our beginners in one room and had them play notes at the same time. Oh what a happy, happy noise.

This means we've switched schedules to accommodate band so I only see each of the groups once per day instead of twice. When I tell my kids this, I always get the "oh my gosh, I'm going to have to practice" face; it's that kind of slight, innocent panic that I find a bit amusing.

In intermediate/advanced band, I lost my advanced horns and gained a group of intermediate saxes and horns. This means it's like week one all over again, so it's been a great opportunity for me to be doubly aware of setting guidelines and what not. ("Saxes, no squawking." "Horns, play louder." "Don't play while I'm talking.")

Funny update about my trumpets, too - they were super driven on Monday. Right from the get-go, two of them called out and counted off a tune! At first, I felt kind of threatened - "hey, this is my rehearsal!" - but then again, why push them when they're already running? They were really eager to show off what they had been working on over the weekend, and more power to them!

Thursday, I taped myself as part of a class I'm taking in the fall. I haven't watched any of the footage yet, but there's about an hour and a half worth of tape that I'll need to go through. Let's just say I'm not expecting it to be painless; I never like watching myself on tape in the first place, and I tend to be my own harshest critic, so we'll see how things go.

In other music related news, I'm playing the Carl Maria von Weber "Romanza" in church tomorrow - that's such a cool piece - and in other education related news, I got Ron Clark's "The Essential 55" yesterday, and "The Excellent 11" should be coming soon. I'm curious as to how I can apply Ron Clark's principals to music education, as they were originally intended for an elementary classroom setting, if I am not mistaken.

All for now,
-Greg

A thanks, a question, and advice on recording

First, I'd like to give a big thanks to Joel over at soyouwanttoteach.com for his kind words and response to my entry on my last post with his brief philosophy on teaching beginning band.

I really admire his three points because they cover just about everything. The first, behavior skills, sets the students up for a good relationship with the teacher because it lays that groundwork for a healthy teacher-student interaction where the teachers aren't angry and the students aren't frustrated. The second, encouraging "band weenie" (or, as I've heard it, "band nerd") attitudes, sets them up for good peer relationships because that feeling of comradeship can go a long way in many ways. The third, having a characteristic sound, sets them up for having a good relationship with themselves; fewer things are more frustrating than that sense of "I can't get it," and a base of musical knowledge and ability will at least carry them through the summer until they can start lessons again.

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Second, I'd like the poll the wisdom of those who read this and ask kind of a noob question : is it okay to advertise yourself as a private lesson teacher to your students? I used to take private lessons from one of my teachers, but he never advertised the fact that he taught privately, at least to my knowledge, and come to think of it, I've never heard any of my teachers offer private-lesson-style help at all. So, I don't know if it's just the precedent I've seen or something a little distasteful about saying "you can pay me later for what you're getting now once this ends." I mean, is there a tactful way to do this, or is it simply bad style in the first place?

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Third, I've been meaning for a while to write something on recording. We used to have some recording gear at my High School, but it was really pretty inferior; the mics were little dynamic mics probably no better than an SM-57, and each track started with a huge "CLICK," which sounded like you were punching the internal mic, which doesn't make sense because there wasn't an internal mic.

Up at school, I've been doing a lot of recording and am becoming the lead recording engineer for Concordia's Beat next year. (more on this later, maybe; the site also badly needs updating) Being around the caliber of equipment you'd find in a recording studio, I've found that it's often true that you get what you pay for. So why, in a school setting, should you splurge and get a lot of expensive recording equipment?

1. Most important, it's fun. I defer you here, to the Digital Music Educator, for a perfect illustration.


2. Also importantly, audition tapes can be expensive for an individual to record professionally, and yet be the easiest for which to assemble gear. Plus, this is maybe one of your best reasons for your administration to hear - audition tapes lead to local, state, and national recognition for your students, which reflects well on the school, eh? Read on for more about this...
   
3. It lets your students hear something on the other side of their instrument's bell. I still do this in my own practicing (just like the camera adds ten pounds, the microphone takes your tone back ten years), but are tons of ways to use a mic as a teaching system.


4. Posterity - we made a recording back in ninth grade and got a copy at the end of 12th; it was cool of course to hear how far we had come, but also to reminisce over some old pieces I had forgotten about. I'm sure my grandkids will look at it some day, too, and have some kind of reaction or another to it. :)
   

Now, about this whole audition tape recording process - depending on your gear, a really good setup can cost as little as maybe $300 and would fit very nicely inside any wishlist you drafted up. This depends on you having a computer, but would get you an interface with phantom power (haven't used one before but it looks like it would do the job) and a condenser microphone (we have a couple of these in our studio and they're fine for recording close alone and far if you're backing them up with something else), plus a mic stand and XLR cable (you may already have a few of these lying around).

That's about all you'd need, if I'm not overlooking anything. Most audition tapes can be done well with one mic; for recording a group, you'd best have at least two mics, but then we're getting into more complicated territory. You plug the mic into the interface, the interface into the computer, and start running a free audio capture program. From there, burning the CD should be just like any other CD you burn.

There's a lot more on this topic, and I'll cover it later; this post has gotten long enough for one Saturday.

On the flip side of using high-quality equipment, by the way, the wise Dr. Carter suggested using the worst-quality recorder you can get to listen back to rehearsals you record and analyze; it makes it that much harder to take the pressure off and rest on your laurels. :)

Hope all's well with everyone, and enjoy any leftover 4th of July burgers.
Grill on,
-Greg

Week Three Highlights

So we're past the half-way mark in summer band and I didn't nearly mention it enough. When I mention it, kids often get this shocked, wide-eyed "what, you're serious??" look on their face and come back after a couple days sounding a lot better. I hate to say that my best motivator is the reminder of a deadline, but I think that's because I haven't really gotten the hang of playing teacher mind-games yet, complete with the guilt-trip, the inspirational speech, and the hundreds of other tricks in a good teacher's bag.

Today in particular was a very interesting one, being the 3rd of July. One of my classes was very small because three of the five kids were gone a day early for vacation. Fortunately for me, one of the two left has a lot of natural talent, and the other one is a very hard worker and is going to be just fine if he sticks with it. (and works on his note-name-and-fingering flashcards!) On the other hand, since one of the teachers couldn't find a sub, I was teaching two horns, five bones, and a dozen-odd trumpets. Having not planned ahead and rearranged my room, we kind of formed into a circle with in the middle dancing around and keeping things going. It was actually really fun, and I wish I had recorded it to see if I did as well as I thought I did.

By the way, I base the assumption that I did well on the fact that there were kids smiling in the I'm-having-fun way and not in the I-can't-wait-to-tell-Billy-about-this-strange-teacher way. This makes me both feel really good and also really cautious because I've heard many teachers give me the warning that if the students like me by Christmas vacation (ahem, Winter Break), I've already lost control. I'm really of a split mind about this advice, but that'll be the subject of a later post.

Anyhoo, also this week, I led my first warmup ever! The teacher who was supposed to have been doing it called out the piece but then was taken out of the room by a parent. I realized, "oh gosh, I'm a teacher now! I have to do something!" So I jumped up on the podium, said something about half notes, Bb, and listening - it was all so fast! :) - and started rehearsing the piece. Woot! I really wish I had caught that on tape; that would have been golden footage for my instrumental methods class this fall.

Finally, what's the deal with finding out a teacher's first name? I don't remember ever having wondered about that as a kid, but I've been asked half-a-dozen times this week. Have we lost respect for our elders so much that a first-name basis is expected of your teachers, or is the beard not fooling anyone? By the way, my first name is "Mister" and let's look at "Hard Rock Blues."

Anyone else notice that you don't really find blues influences in hard rock? Rarely will you ever find a blues-like progression, eighths are always straight, and what about blue notes?

In other news, I'm playing 18th- and 19th-century music with the Century Brass tomorrow at Murphy's Landing. They're such a fun group to play with because I always get my butt kicked; their ears are so much more finely tuned than mine, and they have such wise stylistic points. I'm learning a lot.

Okay, that's all for now. Happy 4th of July!
-Greg

Trumpets and Motidispiration

Well, the trumpets did okay today. I'm really happy at how their mouthpiece sirens are coming along, but I was really hoping for more improvement on note recognition and such. I'm reminded of a talk I heard at the MMEA conference given by Dr. Peter Boonshaft on motivation, discipline, and inspiration. It was truly an inspiring talk, and I dearly wish I had recorded it because he was going through so much good information at such a break-neck pace.

One of his may points was (and correct me if I'm wrong, anyone else who saw it) that motivation, discipline, and inspiration are one in the same. Letting the reader mull that over for a second, I continue : I had given my trumpet players some motivation (the concert was soon), some inspiration ("Look! You can do it already! Just practice to make it solid"), but as for the discipline, I don't know what to think, exactly. They're all in a baseball league, and the progress I've seen in one weekend is great compared to what I've seen in other sports-minded kids who have the same kind of schedule, but there's always that feeling of "what if they had time to practice more?"

I'm reminded that we don't find time for things; we make time.

Still, today didn't sound like a Monday, and I am very very happy for that. Way to go, trumpets!

-Greg

P.S.: anyone have any better grasp on motidispiration than I do? Dan? Dr. Boonshaft? :)

More thoughts on motivation

The bit about lighting fires in my last post got me thinking just now about something that happened my first time around in the classroom - it came time to kick things into high gear, and my approach was to walk into that classroom with all of my friendliness gone and and start saying "I'm going to whip you into shape because I need you to do these things for the concert and I don't think you're ready yet so I'm going to be expecting a lot more work out of you." Big mistake. All I got from them was a begrudging attitude.

This time, and I didn't do this on purpose - I was just struck by the difference - at the initial reaction I got when I came in with a concerned but driven air (what's a word for that?) and said "Okay guys, here's the deal - we're half way done with camp, and you know that G that we've been having trouble hitting? Well I just saw the pieces we're playing for the concert, and we have to hit a C above that six times just in one piece! Now, let's buckle down today and see how much we can get done because there's a lot of work ahead of us."

This got a hugely different response out of them! Instead of mirroring my antagonism, they mirrored my sense for urgency and really buckled down hard. I'll let you know what happened over the weekend when I see them tomorrow.

-Greg

Week Two

What? It's over already?? That went far too quickly, methinks. Week two of summer band just flew by, and I've been left thinking a couple things...

First, I love this job.

Second, so far in my education classes, they've taught us absolutes - always establish procedures on the first day. Never lose your temper. All that. Still, I'm surprised at how much of a balancing act teaching is, not to say that I didn't get some idea of this in my classes - it's just that it's never the same when you're actually out teaching.

For example, I have one student whose teacher had him switch instruments three times within his first year of playing. He's only been on his current horn for about a month, and he's in a class with kids who have been playing for a year or two. He gets picked on by other kids, he doesn't get much slack cut from a sibling of his, and he has social disorders that make concentration neigh unto impossible. Is it any wonder that his self-efficacy is just about zero in regards to anything relating to music? Now, he's in the same class as one of the best musicians in the program. Keeping them both interested and invested in the lesson is not an easy task.

Similarly, there's one kid who seems to have a grudge against the world. He loves getting into arguments and people love getting into arguments with him. It's all I can do to keep the class from spiraling into disorder, much less rehearse songs that half the class doesn't like. If anyone knows any pieces like Bryce Canyon Overture but for one grade level higher, please let me know! Anyway, happy story with this kid - today, he brought in something that he had been lacking, and not only did he share it, but he offered to share it! I'm trying to think of the best way to thank him...

Also, I'm finding that group lesson balancing doesn't always have to do with skill or behavior - there's one kid who's coming to band a year late and is with the kids a year behind him; he's doing fine, but he's simply more mature in a lot of ways. A fun game is keeping the younger kids' attention while not losing him. There's only a year in difference, though, so the game is on "easy" mode.

Third, I love this job.

Fourth, I've been thinking a lot about how dropoff I've seen in music ed programs would be affected if students got to do stuff like this right off the bat - we've all seen people quit not because of the students but because music theory was hard or there was some departmental stuff going on even if they would have made fantastic teachers in practice. I feel like everything is backwards - first you go through all the drudgery and hard work, then you go out and teach and see if you like it - and that perhaps if it was the other way around, the people who decided to stick with it would have that to strengthen their resolve when facing 20th-century music theory and those things which are rarely used in a classroom. After all, I don't know about you, but I've got a lot more motivation to do things for my students than for my profs. (I still like you, profs!)

Fifth, I found today that the art of teaching is the art and timing of lighting fires under kids' butts - giving them motivation. I kicked it into high gear a little earlier than I have for my class of beginning trumpet players today - they still have to add a forth to their range by next week (up to C5) and if I did my job today, they'll be doing lip slurs and sirens and note flashcards every day this weekend. And if they do that, the rest of the program is going to be really, really fun.

Finally, I love this job. :)

Have a great weekend,
-Greg

PHEW! ONE DOWN!

Oh my gosh, I have been having the time of my life teaching the local summer band camp. It runs Monday through Thursday, starting this week and running for 5 weeks, and already, I am exhausted in the best way. Things so far are really going well, I think; the kids are settling into the routine and not constantly asking me either when they get out or where they go next, the beginners are off to a good start (not as much as I would have hoped I'd have gotten through, but still pretty good, especially for 4 days of playing!), and the beginning saxes are starting to understand what bad noises are and not only how to avoid them but that one should avoid them! That's probably the most exciting thing - a few sax players are already making a tone several years maturer than they are. Fingerings? Well, that's another story. One of the veteran woodwind teachers was telling me how different the learning curves of the brass and woodwind players are; trumpets and trombones are relatively easy to make noises on and learn those first five notes, but beyond that, there's a lot of work they need to do on their own to master much more. On the woodwind side of the coin, at this level, once your kids get a good embouchure and have their hands in the right position, they can learn all the notes you throw at them with little extra difficulty.

I'm also struck each year at how true all the music stereotypes are. A sample from each of my classes :

Trumpet :
*note note blat pause note honk*
"Geez, Billy, what the heck?"
"Come on, Mr. Albing, let me do it!"
"No way, Andy, I can do it better!"

Low Brass :
*fart noise on a low Bb*
HAHAHAHAHA

Horn :
"Good morning, horns. How are you?"
*silent stares*
"How was recreation?"
*silent stares*
"Take out your essential elements book and open to page six."
*Instant, silent complience*
"Amy, can you show us how to finger the first note of 'Lightly Row?'"
*silent stares*
"Anyone?"
*silent stares*
"Raise your hand if you're breathing"
*silent stares*

The format is difficult in the absolute sense of the word, but a dream when put in context. For example, I know that each one of my sax players could already be playing ensemble music if we had taken all this time for group lessons and invested it in private lessons. We spend an entire period just reviewing how to put on the reed and learning how to hold the instrument. This was day two; day one was just learning how to put the reed, mouthpiece, and neck together, with some basic embouchure work. The class is pretty close to that point of critical mass where you either need fewer students or an aide; fortunately, I have one of the latter, but they know very little about woodwinds. However, it was AMAZING today to be able to take one girl aside and fix her sax while he led them in some basic songs for a minute. In a nutshell, if I had had maybe one more class with them or had *that* much more skill in classroom management, I could have sent them home this weekend with a more focused practicing plan than I did.

As for low brass, I have a few kids who are studying privately, and BOY does it show! A contestant in the most difficult challenge of teacher summer band contest is definitely keeping these kids un-bored. One person (I don't know if they study privately, actually, but they very well could, and if not, should) I told to think of phrasing in in this one melodic line we were working on; another, I've told to pay close attention to intonation; another, I tell him to help out the people around him - well, I tell everyone to work it out with your neighbor, so I keep him busy while I can work with another kid for a second.

Three more contenders in the above contest are letting things go by, staying on topic myself, and boiling everything down to one sentence. First, for as long as I've been taking private lessons, I've always been looking at the nitty-gritty of music-making. Now, to hear these kids who have been playing for a grand total of four days, my gut instinct is to talk at them about the soft palate and breath support and what not, but the other side of me is absolutely joyous that none of my trombones are holding their slides with a death grip, and fewer than half are slouching in their chairs! Second, as for staying on-topic myself, I just love teaching this age group, so it's hard for me to not stop the lesson and have a chat about the evolution of the Mario games or debate which of the pokemon are the coolest. (Oh my gosh, the original pokemon came out around when or before these kids were born! Get me my cane!) I don't have trouble breaking up those conversations before they get too far, most of the time, but I'd be a liar if I said that I didn't hurt a little for having to do it. Finally, in that same vein, it's hard for me to boil down everything I want to say into one sentence; people who know me know that I can tend to ramble (ha, look at the size of this post so far) and so I have the tendency to stop rehearsal and explain everything in minute detail (see the first point); still and all, I've found that nine times out of ten, the kids are less bored, learn more, play better, and have more fun if I say the same idea five pithy ways (Dr. Wohlfeil, anyone? "Give me a pithy summary of..." - now I know what he was doing for us) and have them play after each time, rather than take up five times the amount of time and have them play once. Come to think of it, that holds true with any age or level of musicianship.

I'm going to have to end this rather ineloquently; I feel like a nap is about to take me by force. I wish everyone a spectacular weekend, good luck to all of those involved in the Concordia College Wind Band Institute (I went last year and had a blast!! Learned a ton, got to meet some great people, and am only not going this year because it's scheduled over Summer Band here), and remember to only practice on the days you eat.

Take care,
-Greg

Speaking of Electronic Music...

... I picked this up over at Tanbur this evening. For the more advanced types, look at this! Check out the links. Thanks!

Ooh, this one's really really good, too!

Now, anyone out there willing to port these to a portable device with a multi-touch interface?

Student Electronic Music Competition

I would like to offer my congratulations to the winners of the NSBA Student Electronic Music Composition Talent Search. (NSBASEMCTS?) The link to the MENC website is here.

A couple things about this in no particular order :

First, I'm surprised at how they talk about music in their essays and bios, the 9-year-old Spencer talking about musical themes and the composition telling a story; I don't think I was aware of either of these concepts in the third grade.

Second, only one one of the winning compositions used instruments electronic in nature. I suppose that this isn't so surprising, considering that it would be easier and cheaper to get the free Finale Notepad and hook your headphone jack into a line in, rather than get Cubase and a ton of plugins and learn pianoroll and and sequencing and mixing and all that.

Third, why on earth were the songs released in WMA format?? They could have gone with MP3, which everyone uses, or OGG, which is free and higher-quality, but they had to go with a lossy, proprietary format. I suppose I'm mostly surprised that they, as teacher types, weren't thriftier on the codec end of things, but also that as teacher types, they also probably have better things to do than worry about a system that they don't know about, so long as it works for them.

Fourth and fifth, in one paragraph... They all got their start young. This is a lesson for our school boards to not cut back on elementary music programs, but also a lesson to the rest of us that the best time to start any venture is now. No, not after you get done checking the blogs and watching the Simpsons reruns, now! But about their age, surely they must have had mentors and people helping them, and I don't mean that in the my-dad-did-my-science-fair-project-for-me way, which by the way, he didn't. I mean it in that Spencer did this as a game with his dad, or the way Erin's percussion lessons helped her solidify musical ideas, and how Daniel's uncle let him play in his band, which stimulated his musical growth outwards. (and how my parents gave me my first pad of staff paper; thanks Mom and Dad!) We teachers should consider it tantamount to a crime when we say "no" to helping a student explore something.

Finally, and along the same vein, I didn't look too closely at the scores, but it looked like they didn't always worry about the playability of something, and I mean that in a good way. I'd always get stuck in the practical matters of the music, like how the fingering here might be awkward or how I'd have to spell this with a flat instead of a sharp so it's easier to read or if I should put in a clef change or leave the section with ledger lines. This would, and still often does, hang me up when writing music; my first piece for band never got written because I didn't understand that 9 flute stands didn't mean 9 flute parts.

P.S. to the second point - does anyone know of any system of free synthesizers not unlike Reason that work pretty simply out of the box? I looked a while ago on the GPL and Linux end of things, but the difficulty in setting up JACK and ALSA and debugging MAKE files drove me insane.

That's all for now, folks. Please write in the comments section; no comment too off-topic!

Happy Monday,
-Greg

Live Concerts

Some of the best gigs I've seen are those with teachers I know playing. My former jazz director plays sax in a jazz quintet; my current trombone teacher plays in a funk band along with other faculty. Once, I was at a swing dancing venue and the band playing there was being led by a legendary former teacher of the area. Many of the Concordia faculty play in the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, and it's always a pleasure to get to go see them.

The value of seeing live performances can not be understated or overlooked, no matter what level. There's a certain magic that happens between performer and audience that can not be captured in a recording and can not be reproduced no matter how many audiophiles approve of your stereo. And yet, there seem to be so many impediments in the way of getting students, especially young ones, to see live music.

At the most practical level, though, we are talking about the business end of music, and most venues don't cater to elementary students, one classroom at a time. Because of this, many jazz clubs are expensive, many serve alcohol and can't legally admit anyone under 21 years old, and many venues' shows start once many 5th-graders are in bed.

Here's what I have seen done to combat this :

First, our High School's winter jazz concert always invites the 8th-grade jazz band to come and play some and then listen to what's in store for them in the years to come. The High School bands aren't professional, but they're still impressive to the kids whose crowning achievement was to play an 8-bar solo on "Louie Louie." Also for this concert, our jazz director works the budget so that he can bring in a name artist from around the Twin Cities area to clinic with the bands and play a feature and some solos with the top two groups. This has often been a wonderful experience because although some times the guests talk above our level, they often can play at such a level that is completely wowing to even the best musician but also something that your average Joe can dig and get into.

Also, I've seen the Dakota Bar and Grill sometimes open up their stage to various student groups, the business incentive being that you get all the friends and family members in the club, looking at their ads and buying their food. I laud them for doing this because it gives some real gigging experience to a beginner group while forgoing the cover to a really prestigious venue that has seen a lot of great names play there.

The same jazz director as above has also often worked deals with the venues he's played at to reduce the cover or otherwise help get kids in and see good music well played. One especially cool night was when I got to see their quintet play to a packed house at Brilliant Corners, and packed not with students, but with serious jazz lovers; this really gave our director some credence with the students and parents who were there.

However, I know that I come from a really extraordinary program with some really extraordinary people. In my own teaching, I'd like to try and make as many of the opportunities I had available to me available to my students. However, this just opens up a host of questions : Would arranging group discounts make things feasible for low-income families? With the rising costs in transportation, how can I budget that in? Would my administration look kindly upon having parent volunteer drivers? What about the busier schedules that kids have these days? Could they find time to come? Would it be fair to tie students' grades (extra credit or otherwise) to something that they're not legally required to attend? (because I as a teacher can't make them attend things after school and make it count for a grade - isn't that the law as it stands?)

Still, there are so many good things that I've seen come of getting that kind of interactive experience that I find myself with no choice but to try and make ends meet. Ideally, what I'd like to see is this : in class the days before, we talk about what we're going to see; we also draft questions to ask the performers, learn a bit about their art and about the pieces on the program, and learn about concert etiquette for whichever venue we're going to. The day of, however we get there, we show up and hopefully will have arranged for some sort of pre-concert lecture or discussion; I've seen the SPCO and the Minnesota Orchestra do both of these things to great effect. Then, the concert starts, my students are perfect little angels (oh please oh please!), and the concert ends. Afterwards, we hopefully will have arranged for a post-concert talk, formal or informal, for which the students will have prepared questions so we don't waste the time with this person/people. They learn a lot, and we have a brief discussion the next day in class to recap and for me to get some feedback.

In a case where I'd really have some budget to blow, I'd love to bring in a musician from the group to do a clinic with the band and have some one-on-one time that way. Perhaps this could be part of a pre-concert talk if we're lucky enough to have the group come to our school so we can share a concert, have the clinic, and not have to pay for our own busing.

Also, there's nothing stopping me from teaming up with other local schools to help cut the cost by splitting it between two schools. I've already told several of my friends that I'm going to be calling upon them once we're all teaching to do this if we end up teaching close to each other. Heck, if I expanded to enough schools, I could turn it into a regular jazz festival.

Finally, I'd love to know how to get parents involved in this process. I know there must be a myriad of ways to do so, but which would be the best use of my time and energy? Perhaps, if there's really some problem about concert etiquette from the audience at concerts, I could use it as a way to show how people listen to non-rock concerts. Or perhaps I could parents as further cash leveraging, saying that I could double their numbers by bringing parents if they could give us more of a discount. Obviously, I'd need parent chaperons, but the more I can get, the fewer discipline problems I'd foresee.

I'd love to hear what the community has to think about this, and if you've got any ideas you wouldn't mind telling, please let me know. Before too long, I'll try and get a post about fund-raising this whole operation out there.

Happy weekend to you all,
-Greg