They DO sound better.

Just a quick note that the students DO sound better and the program IS better than it was when I first started. I think that sometimes I look so closely at the day-to-day rehearsals that I forget the underlying trend that is continuing to rise. I want them to sound good - not just better - but they don't sound as bad as they did three years ago. Progress.

Jaded: Reflection and Vision

I am feeling a little bit tired of not having a good group. I'm using the word "good" objectively, in the sense that my groups do not perform accurately or with expression. Individually, they do not show enough improvement. Basically, I'm getting tired of teaching a group of students that doesn't want to be taught. However, my personal morals dictate that I should make the best of the situation and try to do everything I can to make things better.

So right now I'm feeling jaded about almost everything. Let me break it down:

Kindergarten/pre-school: This is probably the group that I was feeling the best about about a month ago. I was going through their lesson book with great success and making their education meaningful. Then I had to start preparing them for a performance, and everything has been downhill. It also doesn't help that I started preparing every other group for performances, which took time away from preparing for Kindergarten. I still feel like I can turn things around in January once we get back to the lesson book.

First and Second Grade: We were making good progress until they were forced to rush for the Veteran's Day program. This group still can't sing in tune in unison. That's what we were working on. I don't like having them perform when they're missing notes because it makes them comfortable with being wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting them to nail every single pitch perfectly, but I do expect all 100% of them to at least get close to most of the pitches, and right now some of them are still stuck in chest voice and need more practice. But when I'm focusing on rehearsing parts for the play or songs for performance, there isn't time for practicing the basics. Again, this group will be better to work with once January arrives.

Third and Fourth Grade: I'm really pretty discouraged at having to teach an extra class this semester which has taken away time from Third and Fourth grade music. Last year, Reed and I had a good system going where the students were actually getting an extra 15 minutes per class to work on the recorder every day. This year, not only do they have no extra time, but they actually have 5 minutes less because they have to leave early so I can get ready for kindergarten PE. They also arrive 5 minutes late, so I only see them for 20 minutes twice a week. That's a huge problem. Accepting that, this group has been making progress. They actually made great progress while preparing for the Veteran's Day program. The last month has felt absolutely rushed and ungainful. I've also had to sacrifice musical teaching to rehearse the play, and even that seems like it will be objectively bad. They should be more than 1/4 of the way through the recorder book, but they're still on page one because there's been no time to practice the recorder without ignoring singing. I just don't have enough time with this group, and they really need the extra time because they have to be ready for fifth grade band by the end of the year.

Fifth and Sixth Grade Choir: This was easily the best group earlier in the year. The students were great to work with and made lots of progress. In the first month, they had a moment where I was able to envision them being a good choir, even a great one. However, it seems like we've hit a plateau and are back to singing like an inexperienced group of kids. This is partially my fault, and I'm learning to be a better choir teacher. I think what happened is that I heard them perform really well at the fall concert and then picked more difficult music for them to do at the winter concert, which has proved to be too much of a challenge and they no longer sound like a good choir with the harder music.

Fifth and Sixth Grade Band: This group is probably my most discouraging. Once we started working on our Christmas music, it seems like all progress has stopped. Students who struggle with playing a 2 measure phrase a month ago still haven't learned it. Others seem like they are literally getting worse, where they were able to play and understand certain concepts earlier and now they are getting notes mixed up and forgetting slide positions. The sixth graders are coasting because they can play all of the music easily, but they're not trying to get any better. The fifth graders who are behind are either extremely frustrated or just don't care. Only about half of them show the potential of being able to survive in the JHHS band next year.

JHHS Choir: This group is currently the one where I'm feeling good about their progress. At the beginning of the year, there was no way that they could do four part music, and now they are really getting the hang of it. I think that it's due to four students who are unofficial section leaders, ones that can hold their own part, and the rest of the section is joining with them. Anyway, the rest of the group is still too quiet, and I'm still learning how to be a good choir teacher, which is probably holding them back.

JHHS Band: I felt good about this group up until the beginning of November. We had about two weeks of good rehearsals with the new music, and then it seems like I only get to see them once a week as a full group. I missed 14 whole days with them at the end of November. They just aren't getting better at their parts, and now they've got to perform a piece that sounds bad. This is the group that stresses me out the most, because it's the one that I know how to teach the best. But because I only see them twice a week, I have to rely on them to actually practice what I'm teaching, and they don't practice. We also have some if not most of the junior high students leaving after the semester, so I'm going to have to totally redo the instrumentation. It's really a nightmare for me. I feel like the only way to get this group any better is to focus on teaching the 3rd and 4th graders how to read notation by playing the recorder, and then they'll be ready to work harder in 5th and 6th band, so that by the time they're in 7th grade, they're not totally lost when they play in the JHHS band. That and fixing the JH schedule so they can't leave half-way through the year.

Of course, there are ways to make things better. Here's my plan for improvement:

Kindergarten/Preschool: I really want to stick with the lesson book. They should be zooming through the Kindergarten book and into the 1st grade book as soon as possible. My goal is to really learn their lesson book so that next year it will be even better. I also want to start using conversational solfege techniques - especially having them echo rhythmic and tonal patterns on nonsense syllables. This sets them up for first grade when I start using 

First and Second Grade: The same idea applies with this group. I want them to zoom through the 2nd grade book and into the 3rd grade book as soon as possible. At the same time, I really want to focus on accurate singing. That includes singing technique (especially head/chest voice coordination and breath support) and pitch/rhythmic accuracy. How about displaying the music on the board? I know that it would take some practice at first, but wouldn't it be invaluable for the students to see the music as they sing? That would train them how to read notation without any explanation. I'd do it for the Kindergarten group, but most of them are still learning how to read ENGLISH, let alone music. It'd just be too hard for them. They should start echoing conversational patterns using the correct syllables and begin decoding patterns later in the year. The goal is to get them comfortable with using the syllables correctly and begin identifying correct/incorrect so that when they get to third grade, they are better at sight-reading notation.

Third and Fourth Grade: The biggest thing here is getting more time with these students. It worked so well to have 45 minutes with them because we were able to spend the regular 25 minutes on getting through the lesson book and the remaining 20 minutes on getting through the recorder book. Once I have that time back, I think it will be much better.

Fifth and Sixth Grade Choir: I think the best thing to do with this group is stick with easier music. They did a really good job, objectively, singing easier music earlier this year. I really want to implant that sound in their heads of what a good group sounds like, so that by the time they get to 7th grade, they sing with a good sound. They also do really well with sight-singing, and I want to keep working on sight-singing in unison with this group. Eventually, I would like to move unison and sight-singing down to the third and fourth grade level (using books like Get America Singing), perhaps during the extra time split between recorder and choir singing, and then have the fifth and sixth grade groups singing more advanced music, especially two part and three part music.

Fifth and Sixth Grade Band: Okay, where do I start with this group? The vision is to have them done with the 2nd year band book by the end of 6th grade. The question is, how do I get them to that point? Maybe I need to look at the books and enforce playing tests to make sure the students are on track. I could use that system instead of the weekly practice slip system, which frankly, isn't working. Honestly, I don't care how many minutes they practice. If they are on track, they might as well practice just enough to pass their playing test. If they're behind, then they need to come in and work with me as often as possible until they are back on track. Maybe that means requiring students who fail a playing test to come in on Fridays or after school or during recess. So then what do we do during class time? The first year students really should be learning completely different things than the second year students. It would really work better to have the students for 45 minutes at a time, maybe have half of them come in the advanced class and the other half in the beginning class, and while I'm working with one half they could either be spending time with Mr. Reeve or in another elective like Art. Really, putting them opposite of art would be the best option, or maybe technology. It just bugs me that each year, I have to start at the very beginning, even with second year students. And then we have to go so slow so that the beginners don't get frustrated. It's just a balance of frustration - go too slow for too many days and the advanced students get frustrated, go too fast for too many days and the beginners get frustrated. So really, my vision is that I would have separate classes to work on skills that are really only applicable to one year at a time, at least for the first part of the year.

> Interruption: Why I need two separate classes.

It's easy enough for me to teach a group of trumpet players how to play because I'm only having to give one instruction for each step. If I have a group of trumpet players AND trombone players, that's a lot harder because not only do they sound two different notes an octave apart, but they also read different music and also play with different techniques. So now I have to give somewhere between two to five instructions for each step, where earlier it was just one. Add French Horn, baritone, and tuba into the mix, and again it increases the difficulty.

But so far, these instruments are all similar because they use a brass mouthpiece and are played by buzzing your lips. Now, add in something like the clarinet, the alto saxophone, and the tenor saxophone. All of a sudden, I have to give a completely different set of instructions to these instruments because they make noise by blowing into a mouthpiece with a vibrating reed instead of buzzing their lips. They also read different music and have to use eight fingers and a thumb for their different notes instead of just three or a slide. Also add in a flute, which doesn't use a reed or buzzing lips, but plays by blowing across an open hole in the mouthpiece. There is also the oboe and the bassoon, which do not use a mouthpiece at all and instead have two reeds that vibrate against each other to make a sound. Now that one instruction that I was able to give to a group of trumpets has turned into about twenty instructions for the same amount of progress across the whole group.

Finally, add in the percussion players. They do not use air at all to play their instrument, but instead have sticks and mallets and have to play a variety of instruments including the bells and snare drum. That means that instead of just learning one instrument like the trumpet, they have to learn two or three at the very beginning just to make the same amount of progress. The non-pitched percussion don't even have notes, so spending time working on notes with the rest of the group is a waste of time for the percussionist. Instead, they have to learn advanced rhythms at a quicker rate than the rest of the group and have a whole set of rudiments to learn - and that's just for the snare drum. There are different techniques that they need to learn for each instrument, including but not limited to the triangle, crash cymbals, suspended cymbals, bass drum, tom-toms, shakers, maracas, castanets, wood blocks - and that is listing only the most common ones. They also have to learn the pitched percussion instruments like the marimba, vibraphone, and glockenspiel. Now that single instruction that I had to give to the trumpet players has turned into about 30 instructions just to get one class to play one note.

The final challenge is this: all of these students are at different ability levels. They will all differ in how much they understand each instruction, and how well they are able to execute it on their different instruments. They also differ in the amount of interest and self-motivation they have and in how much time they will spend practicing these ideas on their own time. Some students will need it explained more than once, and their neighbors will lose interest if you explain it twice. Now take all of these challenges, combine them together at the beginning of September, and then put on a show at the end of December where every parent and community member is invited to come and watch.

My extra challenge is that my first year students and second year students are all combined in the same class. While there is one limited benefit - asking older students to tutor younger ones, which does not always work out - there is double the number of challenges. The biggest challenge is that the older students have to play music that is too easy and the younger students have to play music that is too hard - there is no middle ground. The most productive solution is to split the class into two groups and have one group at a time play, but then I have to simultaneously teach one group and babysit the other. The best solution would be to have two separate classes.

JHHS Choir: I think that I will be losing some students at the midterm, but I am hoping to keep the best ones. Choir is different from band because there are at most only four parts that need to be covered, while band has upwards of 20 different parts. The benefit of having a larger group is sound and security, but having a smaller group is manageable. I want to continue developing the "section leaders" who have been important to performing four part music accurately. I also want to pick good music for this group and continue to develop everyone's voice in order to have more than one person per section who is capable of reading the music.

JHHS Band: My vision for this group is to have them performing real music, not just the educational pieces that are written for easy band or beginning band or developing band. In order to do that, I need to have good instrumentation and students who know how to play. My hope is that these students will continue to get better each year, especially focusing on getting them rehearsal-ready by the end of the sixth grade. I want them to be a group that sounds good on whatever they play, not just the easy pieces.