Impossible question of quarantine

"Are we gonna have a concert, or is it cancelled?"

A band kid typed the question that broke my heart. Two weeks before, we had still been operating with hope - continuing to practice concert pieces from a distance, hoping that we'd be together with instruments in hand.

No, fifth grade band won't have a concert this year. They won't have a last lesson in person. They won't get their promotion ceremony, their last day of elementary school, or a day to sign yearbooks with their friends. Coronavirus took all those things from them. 

This was a special group for me, I had most of them for 4 full years. Many of them have been "music kids" since the beginning, playing in Orff ensemble or strings or singing for special events. And yet I can't make a concert happen. I can't give them the satisfaction of taking a piece that they worked so hard on to the stage. 

This was the first year in awhile we decided beginning band would take on a full piece. It's tough since we don't see the full band together (homogenous or semi-homogenous before-school classes only, across 3 different schools) and we only get about 35 minutes per week of instructional time with them. We picked a piece called Dark Towers. The kids LOVED it. They rose to the challenge, we were 2/3 of the way through before school closed and still had almost 2 months until concert day. 

The good news: the piece will go with them to middle school next year, where they'll have a phenomenal director who's not only excited to work on the piece with them, but who wants to have me and my elementary band colleague back to perform the piece with the kids who had their end of year concert stolen. 

The not good news: we don't know what band will look like in the fall. If band will be. If making music in the same room will even happen. The concert is cancelled. I don't have a silver lining of certainty to answer that student question with.

I still vividly remember my own fifth grade band concert at the end of the year. We got to use a local outdoor amphitheater, to stand on the same stage where so many amazing musicians had performed. We played "Hot Hot Hot" and my Grandma brought me flowers. My students this year won't have those memories. But I hope they'll take with them memories of working hard, laughing a lot, and making music together. And hopefully, we'll take Dark Towers to the stage in a few months. 

Not Mozart's notation: How simplified notation helps beginning band sanity

Music notation is a valuable tool. Music literacy (including the ability to read traditional Western music notation) is an important skill which should be developed in order to help students achieve total musicianship. But lines and spaces are not always the best tool for every context, especially when it comes to popular music. I'm using a score consisting of tables for one of our beginning band songs this year. This song is a popular tune (and a student favorite) with rhythms well beyond what is typically covered in first-year band. Here's my score (note the lack of clefs, note heads, and even rhythm notation):

The lyrics are underneath, but before we get there: can you name that tune? It's certainly harder to sight read without the context of rhythm or meter. However, virtually all of my students have heard this song outside of school. So here's what a student part looks like:

Obviously, a beginning band student isn't going to get a whole lot if they just play those notes. I don't use the parts the first time we touch this song. Once we've learned the main sections (in this case, green blue and red), the written parts act as a memory aid. The small lines next to some of the notes indicate that they're "low" (below the tonic of the song). The dashes in the last line remind students to hold that note (the ending I used seems to be less familiar to students than the main tune). 

The benefit of this system is that students can play rhythms well beyond their reading ability. My group hasn't gotten to individual eighth notes yet, or dotted rhythms, but they can execute both well in the song because they know the tune and are playing based primarily on an aural concept. This "part" serves more as a reminder than something to stare at. Today, a student discovered that after a few weeks of practice, she can play the whole thing from memory! I teach band for the music, not the notation, so using this kind of part has helped my students play music that they care about and perform at a high level without getting caught up in music notation confusion. It's another way (not the best way or the only way) to write music to help student learning.

Band teachers: if you'd like parts and score for this tune, leave your gmail in the comments and I'll share with you.

The Beginning and the End

My school district hosted our All-Districts music festival last Friday. Before I made my way over to the high school to help out and observe some master conductors at work with the best and brightest high school musicians in the area, I held a before-school beginning band rehearsal for our first concert. It went well, as I expected it to. The kids have been working hard in their group lessons, practicing at home, and taking risks to help them improve their playing. We're taking on the beginning band classics, Hot Cross Buns and Mary Had A Little Lamb, and playing We Will Rock You for a fun ending that's a bit more relevant to pop culture. Our two "harder" songs have four notes each. This is absolutely normal and developmentally appropriate for beginning band, given our rehearsal schedule and the age of the students.

The All-Districts band I got to watch, on the other hand, was playing dozens of notes. They took on some amazing rep, including Wagner's Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral and a very difficult Persichetti piece. The chorus, orchestra, percussion, and jazz ensemble were likewise grappling with challenging music, pieces which represent significant artistic achievement in their respective musical fields.

It's fascinating to see the differences in these two groups, and the similarities. "Breathe together to play together", a phrase my beginning band students have heard enough to finish for me, doesn't just apply to fifth graders. Students talked and laughed together during breaks, just as my students tend to do. They left instruments in precarious positions, just as my students do.

For many of the All-Districts students, they're at or near the pinnacle of their musical journeys - for some, even near the end - while my fifth graders are just beginning to understand and experience band. It's gratifying to see where they're going musically, that their potential in six or seven years includes more than five notes and making beautiful music together. But it's also helped me to see the beauty in simplicity, in getting students to play simple music really well. So much of the limited district rehearsal time was spent on fundamentals, things that my students are already working on. Playing a scale in tune is hard! It takes years of practice! But it's important, even if it's not immediately gratifying. Good beginnings are so important in music, so that students can excel when they get to All-Districts or just life beyond elementary school band. It's not about Hot Cross Buns, it's about building the skills to go beyond the basics later.

Beginning Band and the Joy of Starting Again

If you've never heard a first day beginning band class, you should. Also, go hug your friendly neighborhood beginning band teacher. The first week of band is incredible, joyful, and totally exhausting. There's an entire world of things to teach, from how to assemble instruments to how to make a sound to how to get the spit condensation out after playing (gross, but necessary). But there's this spark in the students that makes it all worth it, even when I find myself saying "left hand on top" for the millionth time. They chose to play an instrument, and are so excited to finally get to do it. The first sounds are always full of squeaks, squawks, and whistles. They're often followed by laughter or disgusted-looking faces. But that moment right before they play, that first inhalation as a group... that's where the magic is.

One breath, one momentary collective pause, holds so much potential. They made the choice, honored the commitment and showed up, and now they're headed somewhere. It might be towards our first concert, middle school band, or maybe even a professional musician gig, but nonetheless we're working towards something. They're cooperating, collaborating, and all those other buzzwords. And they're taking a big risk, because after that breath in...

There's a sound. A joyful noise, as a I call it. Something, even if just a whisper of air, comes out of their instrument. But it's a start. Something to work from. The first note of thousands more to come. There's so much beauty in potential, in hope, in moving forward. In learning and improving. Beginning band has so much to teach... especially to this band teacher.