Does That Make Sense?

This is a tough topic and it’s not one that I claim to have all figured out.  Let me start by saying that.  At thirty-three years old, there’s still a ton of stuff about which I know NOTHING.  The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve learned and the more I’ve been enlightened.  That enlightenment has generally caused me to realize that I still don’t know too much, but each day is an opportunity for me to grow as a person.  (Along those lines, I’m reading Lake Wobegon Daysright now.  It’s a picture of small town life in the Midwest, written by Garrison Keillor and I’ve really been enjoying it!)

 I heard a version of the title phrase many times from Matt Lababara.  Matt & I taught together at West Jessamine Middle School in Nicholasville for seven years.  He taught orchestra, I taught band.  We shared an office, students, a classroom, and tons of jokes.  Whenever anyone (often myself) did anything that Matt thought was stupid, he’d say “Let me know how that works out for ya’”  I told him that I thought the 8th grade band could play on their own at Festival, not combined with the 7th grade band.  When I told that to Matt, he grinned that “you’re nuts” grin and said “Let me know how that works out for ya’”.

Well, I often see students (and plenty of adults!) make decisions that will lead them to a certain endpoint.  That endpoint is something that will definitely frustrate them and they’ll complain about how miserable they are.  Then when another similar decision comes along, they’ll make the same choice…DUH!  Here’s

• Example A: Tina is in a band mood because her boyfriend Joe treats her badly.  They talk it out, things get a little better.  Then two weeks later, Tina is complaining again.  Why?  Joe treats her bad.  Uh, yeah he does.  How’s that workin’ out for ya?  Is the complaining worth the good times?  If the good times are really that great, then maybe the bad times are just the price you pay.  If so, well, don’t complain!  You did, after all, purchase the product [Joe] did you not?  If the price [being treated like crap] is too expensive [the good times aren’t that good] then don’t buy “that product the next time you’re at the store [talking it out]  It seems logical doesn’t it?
• Example B: Bob always skips class and blows off turning in his work.  At that moment of skipping, he’s having a little bit of fun [benefit].  Instead of doing his work, he’ll spend time online: playing video games, working on his really important myspace profile, or reading some teacher’s blog…[benefit].  Two weeks later, he’ll be grounded [cost] because he has a D and two C’s in classes that should be easy A’s and B’s.  Is the grounded-ness worth the really high score on World of Warcraft?  I doubt it.  Was the “benefit” worth a caring and influential teacher thinking Bob is lazy and irresponsible?  Nope, probably not.  Oh, the best part will be be when Bob complains.  Don’t complain!  You danced and now it’s time to pay the piper.
• Example C: Pat’s mom really wishes that Pat had a place to fit in, be involved, make something special out of their high school experience.  “I hope Pat gets more out of high school than I did, I never got a chance to do alot because my parents didn’t encourage me.  I’m really pushing Pat to be active in school.”  Why doesn’t Pat play in the treble kazoo choir?  Pat’s pretty talented!  In fact, if Pat had shown up at Solo & Ensemble, they’d have gotten a Distinguished rating for sure.  It’s too bad they couldn’t get there…  “Well, I couldn’t get Pat a ride to Solo & Ensemble because I work third shift.”  I’m sure that’t tough, I wonder if someone lives nearby that could give Pat rides to band events.  “Maybe so, we’ve never asked.  It just too much trouble”.  Okay.  Is the price [Pat is stuck only doing things that offer bus transportation] worth the benefit of a third shift job?  Maybe a 7:00-4:00 would pay a lot less, but offer your child better opportunities?  It could be that with a 9:00-5:00 job, you couldn’t have unlimited texting/high speed internet/cable TV/two car payments, but Pat could be more active in school.  That same activeness might get Pat into college, which might allow Pat to get an ideal job where Pat could set the hours, which would allow Pat’s kids to…

I guess that what I’m trying to get at here is this: if you keep you doing things the same way, expect things to stay the same.  If you’re truly happy and fulfilled right now, don’t change.  If you spend a lot of your day frustrated, angry, disappointed, do change.  Things seldom happen because of bad luck.  If things aren’t going your way, do something to make that change…DON’T sit around and expect things to get better on their own.  If things are going your way, try to examine why.  Is it your hard work?  Great support from family/friends?  Do you have exceptional skill/ability/intelligence?  Has God blessed you in some particular area?  Once you determine what it is that’s gotten you to a place of happiness, don’t let something trivial [boyfriend/girlfriend, part-time job, video game] block that from your life.  You are in control and you can make life what you want it to be. 

• There was never room in my office for any of my stuff.  I’m not too sure how it all started, but usually Adrian, Matt V., Elizabeth, and Rebecca left their instruments in my office.  Besides that, Brittany’s letter jacket was always on the chair, even on warm days.  In fact, her jacket was still there three days after graduation, so I moved it to the storage room.  Andrew would routinely leave a lot of his stuff in there, I think it saved him a trip to his locker in the middle of the day or something.  Landon would always leave stuff piled up by the wall for no apparent reason.  I mean, is anyone really going to steal someone’s homework?  Landon’s?  Please.  Marcey didn’t leave her stuff in my office, but she did hide under my desk one night and totally freak me out.  Jessi didn’t ever leave her stuff in my office, not this year anyway.  She’d always set her trombone/euphonium/battered folder in some random spot in the band room.  Crazy.  I don’t think Hannah ever left anything in my office except for her cynicism and piles of Hannahness.
• There is an entire class (45 people or so) of marching rookies that have only seen one example of leadership.  Last year’s group of rookies (lots of freshman, quite a few sophomores, even a junior!) had the experience of watching a group of thirteen seniors that always worked hard, didn’t complain, were flexible when schedules changed, and took rehearsals seriously (usually!)  Now, that group of students will be starting their second year in a few weeks and the only marching band that they’ve ever known was that of 2007.  Think about that for a second and you’ll realize just how significant that could turn out to be. 
• Standards have been set very high for academic and musical excellence.  There were eighteen seniors, right?  Of those, NONE of them could be classified as weak players and fourteen made All-District.  That’s made even more impressive by the fact that I only expect two or three of them to still be doing something music-related as their career in ten years.  Those statistics should be telling: you don’t have to become a full-time music major/band nerd to still play well and take playing seriously.  Another really neat thing: of the twenty or so 4.0 students that got recognized at graduation last week, seven were band students.  Two others weren’t really band students, but they spent more time in the band room than many band students, so I have to claim Bayo and Lauren as two of my own.  I do see the musician/academic legacy continuing, though, that’s the good news.  Many of the strongest juniors and sophomores are band students.  As for the freshman, it’s a little too soon to tell.  I expect to see the All-District domination/academic prowess stay high for a few years.  Striving to be your best is something to which we should all aspire.  Whether that means working up the All-State music because it makes us better musicians or studying a few nights AHEAD of time (novel concept) before a test…  Now when it comes to the Commonwealth Diploma, that’s another story.  Yes, I know that some of you reading this right now skipped more class than you should’ve this year.  Cut it out, seriously.  The senior class did it right regarding growing as musicians and making the grades.
• The band has reached new levels of excellence.  The marching band had a successful year, despite having fifty-percent rookies.  Twice we were named Reserve Grand Champion, made finals at Festival of Champions, and had a memorable and emotional performance at BOA-Indy.  We had forty-three students in All-District, eleven in All-State, an undefeated winterguard, and literally too many participants at Solo & Ensemble to count.  Maybe the most important thing was how the bands performed at Concert Festival: out of the fifteen judges that heard HC Bands at festivals this year, fourteen rated them as Distinguished.  Included in that was straight 1’s for the Symphonic Band and straight 1’s at state playing grade 6 for the Wind Ensemble.  The seniors all played a part in these tiny steps toward WBD, so once that peak is reached (one day) the class of 2008 deserves a little recognition.
• I have lots of new & genuine friends.  Personally, this collection of people (notice I didn’t say students) is unique.  Many of them have very similar personalities to mine and I really hope I’ll be able to keep in touch because I’d love to still be close with them as they move through the college/marriage/kids ride that is so much fun.  In terms of numbers, the Class of ‘08 is already replaced.  They had dwindled to a really small group of kids and there’ll be so many more new members next year, the band is going to grow by 20% even with these students leaving.  Regarding musicianship & leadership, it will be tough to fill their shoes, but I’ve no doubt it will happen.  I’m not sure who will step up or when, but someone will.  After watching nine “irreplaceable” senior classes graduate in my time, things always work out.  In terms of relationships with individuals, they won’t be replaced.  As people, they are admiriable and they will be missed.  These students were fun, focused, and they have many traits that I hope to see in my own children in a few years.  Personally, I count their friendship as their biggest impact on my life.  That, I already miss.

Thank you Class of ‘08.  In the words of one of my favorite liberals: “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

It’s time for a “thoughts from” blog and that’s good because there are lots of little things that deserve comment.  I’ll cut right to it:

1. Jody White, the HCHS athletic director let me into the guard shack in front of the school this afternoon.  What?  That’s where the school’s mail gets left on Saturdays and I had a hunch that the first installment of the 2008 marching show was going to come in the mail on Saturday.  The school was pretty empty on Memorial Day afternoon, but Jody was there and I figured (correctly) that he had a key.  We went out and checked the mail together and sure enough, there was an envelope addressed to me from Columbus, IN.  More on the show music in a bit.  The significant thing is the band’s relationship with Mr. White and most every other administrator at the school.  Whether it be athletics, test scores, or World Band Domination, practically everyone involved with education really has the same goal in mind.  I’m not going to get too mushy with talk of student achievement, positive life-experience, blah blah…  I will say, though, that the cooperation among most all of the faculty at HCHS is great and particularly that which the band gets from Jody White.  Working with him in his first year as AD at HC has been great and I hope he’s planning to be a Colonel for years to come!
2. Forty-five students came out on a rainy Memorial Day morning for a voluntary performance.  The Henderson Memorial Day Ceremony is one of the largest in Kentucky and the crowd is even enough to fill the Holy Name Sanctuary on a rainy day.  A few more trumpets would’ve been nice, but all in all we had a good sounding group for the performance.  The kids that were there did a great job, big thanks to Lauren for playing bass drum and Sarah Beth & Sam for an unexpected presentation of Taps.  Sandy Watkins and Tom Davis had lots of positive comments about the band.  Something that the students have done this year has made a really positive impression on the decision makers of our community (cough, assistant director, cough)!
3. I spent an hour and a half at school this morning BEFORE the Memorial Day fun working on grades.  Am I finished?  Oh, no.  I hope to get some more headway done tomorrow, but I’m stuck now until I can talk to Beth Roberts and/or Kerri Geiser.  I hope they’re going to be at school early!
4. Plans are going along great for the new Assistant Director position.  There’s a possibility that we’ll be doing interviews late this week, but more likely, it will be next week.  Either way, I can’t wait to get the process going, get someone hired, and get the ball rolling.  It seems like there are some awesome folks interested and I’m positive that the right person will be in place soon.  Trust me, this will make a huge change in the progress toward WBD.  We’re getting there, but with a second teacher, we’ll start getting there A LOT faster.  This person will also be able to spend two hours a day at the middle schools!
5. My brother, his wife, and his son have all been spending the weekend with us.  It’s been great to have them around!  They’re really our closest friends and it’s a shame that we don’t get to hang out with them more.  Alan (my brother) is in his final months of finishing his Master’s degree in Trombone from Indiana University.  After that, he’ll probably be enlisting in the Army to spend some time playing professionally in one of the best bands in the world.  I think there’s some irony in the fact that I LOVE band music, but he’ll be the one that will be getting paid to play it each day.
6. For all practical purposes, the senior class is done.  I don’t think they’ll even be at school these next two days!  I hope to write an entire blog about them sometime soon, but not today.
7. The Cubs finally got back on the winning side today after dropping two in a row.  Thank goodness they are back at Wrigley!
8. So, I’ve got the music to the first minute of the 2008 marching band show: “Going Up?”  Well, it was worth the wait.  It starts A LOT like the 2007 show, which is not a bad thing.  Ostinato in the pit, clarinet solo which turns into duet, big build into an impact.  It all works very well and I’m excited about starting work on it.  There’s even a logical spot to add a little bit of narration.  I’m thinking the show starts with: “First floor, clarinet duet & dance feature.”  Then the music begins.  About half-way into the opener, the narrator will say “Going…up?” and then we’ll hit the big impact.  Nice.  I sat down and worked on numbers today, we’ll have the drill written for 118.  That’s up 22 from last year, good healthy growth. 

That’s all for this Memorial Day 2008.  It’s exactly one month until we head off to Louisville to prepare for the Europe trip ‘08.  I should spend some time with the boys, not the computer.

I’m more excited about the upcoming concert than most.  It’s not because the music will be played perfectly, it won’t.  I’m not excited because there’ll be standing room only with hundreds of people clambering for seats, there won’t.  I’m mostly excited because I believe there will be lots of memorable moments, lots of “highlights” during the concert.  For one, all of the pieces are challenging AND fun.  It’s no often that there’s an entire concert without a single dud, but I think Tuesday just might be one of those rare concerts.  Also, thinking back to how each band sounded on the October Concert, each band has improved immensely!  I guess that’s kind of the point of the whole year, right?  On to the preview:

Concert Band-They’ll start out with Fanfare & Jubilation.   We had actually learned this piece in February, but it just wasn’t going to get polished up enough to be “Distinguished” for festival.  We broke it back out, picked up the tempo and it will make a great concert opener.  When you compare this piece to Semper Melior (played by the Concert Band in October, similar level of difficulty) it’s amazing how much this band has improved.  Next will be Rondo for Solo Instrument and Wind Band.  It’s a transcription of a movement from the Mozart bassoon concerto and Rebecca Farley will be playing the solo part on oboe.  This has been a real challenge for the woodwinds and it’s a great piece to show off an outstanding high school oboe player.  Rebecca is such a gifted musician, if she doesn’t have a serious case of “perfectionitis” on Tuesday night, you’ll hear some really beautiful oboe playing!  Finally, the concert band will kick of the John Williams theme by playing John Williams: In Concert.  This piece hits most of the great soundtrack moments from the late-70’s and 80’s.  It’s really fun, the band sounds great, and my personal favorite moment section is the Cantina Band. 

In between-We’ll hear from a senior quintet.  These five students worked up the first three minutes of Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat for the community baccalaureate service at First UMC.  Good musicians, good music, it makes me think we need to get more going on the small ensembles next year…

Symphonic Band-They’ll continue the John Williams theme by playing the most current possible movie music: Raiders of the Lost Ark!  I have to throw props out to Brent Johnson for letting us borrow this from Daviess County.  It’s just the right level of difficulty for this band and the new movie comes out in two days!  How perfect!  Good trumpet moments, lots of flute exposure including a solo by LindsEy Pfingston.  Still in the JW mindset, you’ll next hear Schindler’s List.  This somber ballad will feature the beautiful musicianship of Leslie Potts.  She is the first All-State flute player that I’ve taught, so it’s cool to let her solo with the band.  Lastly, the Symphonic Band will play The Ascension.  This piece is Robert W. Smith at his best!  Really exciting, and certainly a huge challenge for this band.  Awesome horn parts and lots of percussion.  Dixie Classic rates this piece as a Grade 6, so it’s on a whole different level than what these students have ever played before.

In between-The Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble percussion sections have been working on some traditional African drumming for the last few weeks.  They’ll all be set up for an African Drum Circle that should be really cool and a great opportunity for these kids to get some “world percussion” experience.

Wind Ensemble-Well, we’re going to give The Cowboys a shot.  I’ve heard this arrangement performed twice in my life and both times it was really cool…and by COLLEGE BANDS!  It’s super hard, but it’s also my favorite of all the JW soundtracks.  This is a unique collection of talent and they’ve worked pretty hard on this piece for the last two weeks.  With the trip to state festival, Wind Ensemble has only had a couple of weeks to learn the rep, but they’ll do fine.  The final student soloist of the year will be Matthew Vincent playing the Rhapsody for Euphoniumby James Curnow.  It’s a really fine piece, good solo & good band parts.  Matt is the best euphonium player that I’ve taught and he will likely hold that distinction for a few years.  Finally, the Wind Ensemble will wrap-up the night with an outstanding transcription of “Mars” from the Planets.   This is an awesome arrangement of one of the coolest pieces ever written.  It is SOOOO fun to conduct, I’m already looking froward to it.  Monday will make the forth day that we’ll ever rehearse it, so it won’t exactly be CD ready, but it will be a lot fun to perform!  Taylor Payne also did some research and found that George Lucas used this as background music during the early stages of the first Star Wars movie!  That certainly explains the similarities in sounds between Mars and Imperial March. 

I’d love to end the year with a combined piece, but I think learned from the Sleigh Ride crash at Christmas that we just don’t fit on the stage.  If you really want to hear all 150 kids together, come to graduation and you’ll hear the largest rallentando ever leading into measure 41 on America, The Beautiful!

Well, the biggest news in the last two years of Henderson County Band came this week.  The position of Assistant Band Director has been approved!  This may come out of the blue for some folks, but it’s been on the back burner, quietly simmering for over a year.  Finally, on Tuesday, the position was posted on the Kentucky Department of Education website as a certified job vacancy. 

In these four days, I’ve heard from a lot of qualified teachers.  I won’t discuss any of that here, but I will say that whomever gets hired for the position: we are going to wind up having an awesome band director in the office next to mine next year! 

What I’d rather focus on in this blog is just how significant this position is in the big picture.  This is a downtime for budgets and it likely will be for a year or two more.  Many schools and districts are being forced to eliminate positions, how is it that we are fortunate enough to be ADDING one?  Well, the single biggest motivating force is certainly numbers.  The average enrollment in the three band classes next year is 62 students.  If you add to that two Humanities classes of 30 kids each, there will be about 246 students in the band room each day.  Divide that by 5 classes and you get an average class size of 49!  Most teachers see around half of that each day, so the numbers do justify a second person.  There are also some band duties that will be much more realistic including supervision and the craziness of basketball pep-band that will be better. 

Having a second band teacher (I really don’t like the word assistant.  I prefer to think of the new person as Another Band Teacher, not Assistant Band Teacher) will also make the load on a substitute MUCH more manageable.  In fact, there will even be some days where a sub isn’t needed!  SO far this year, I’ve had to miss over twelve days, but none of those were really sick days.  Those were all days that I was taking students to an honor band, taking the jazz band to an elementary, going with the clarinet choir to Louisville, on & on…  Some clever sub plans can be effective in humanities classes, especially since they trade students each nine-weeks.  There isn’t a clever enough sub plan in the workd though to make a band class productive.  With a 2nd band teacher, kids will be playing most every day!  That is a real significant change that will be able to bleed over into the middle schools as well.  If Mr. Metzger or Mr. Vincent need to be out for a day, other HS band teacher could come in a cover their classes!  This new band teacher will help bridge that 8th-9th grade gap that swallows too many band students.  Indirectly, by having this forth teacher in the county, the over all band numbers will likely increase.

Does this help us with WBD?  Hopefully, it will help a TON.  Besides the flexibility of having someone to pull out sections during class, this will also allow the program to truly expand.  We have been missing the technological aspect of band and now we can remedy that.  I’ve wanted to get smartmusic going in the HC Band for a while, but now I think it will really be happening.  If you’re not familiar with smartmusic, go to Smartmusic.com and be impressed.  I spoke with Virgil this week and for $2500, we will be able to get 3 new computers.  We’ll get these set-up in July and have things up and running in August!  A second teacher will also allow us to have more specific after-school opportunities.  Hopefully, we’ll be able to have two jazz bands next year, an advanced band and a lab band, that way we can have kids playing the music that’s right for them. 

Finally, this is a huge vote of confidence and approval by the school and district about the direction of the band progam.  Due to great students, hard working parents, and God’s blessings, the Henderson County band program is heading the right way and the people that make decisions are willing to support that.  That is a commitment that really impresses me about the Henderson County administrators and it says a lot about the community.  It also makes me excited about teaching here for many more years!  Even though some things may sound cool (winning contests, getting big ratings at festivals) this is really the biggest accomplishment for the band program in these last two years.  As usual, I’m so excited about the current direction of the HC Band program.  You should be, too!

Finally, on this third day of Tri-Fest we have some nice weather.  Lots of parents have put time into the Tri-Fest booth, their help is really appreciated!  There are lots of band bills to be paid and lots more that are coming up soon, so any fundraiser efforts are important the progress of the Henderson Band.  Now, on to the thoughts:

1. I was a little disappointed that the band didn’t get to be a part of the fireworks, but performing in cold/rain isn’t fun.  It was great to see how many kids were checking up to find the status of the performance, even though they didn’t really WANT to play.  Being willing to do the right thing when you don’t feel much like it is a big deal.  Very few kids complained about the band’s responsibility to perform, but tons were glad to hear that we didn’t have to.  I think that’s cool.  To me, that means those kids were going to do it, but not because they wanted to; they were going to do it because they needed to.  Just as 6th period band can tell you, a frequent phrase hear in the HC Band room is: “We do what we have to do, so that later we can do what we wantto do.”  (I stole that quote from Denzel Washington.)
2. A great first practice for drumline and pit.  There were around twenty kids there and most all of them have a good sense of how to drum.  The bass line was already doing some runs that I’ve not heard an HC bass line do in a few years.  There were eight kids in the pit and six of them already knew the scale patterns!  I believe the other two will work hard to become great performers, too.  Now, last year’s drumline auditions had three kids tryout that never came back after they made the line.  The question remains: which of these kids are going to quit?  Some?  A few? NONE?  Next week, on Thursday, James is planning to have them put the drums on and march some.  That will separate the “men from the boys.”  Carrying around a bass drum or a set of tenors is no easy task.  Still, with James around all the time and a really talented freshman class coming in, this has the makings of the best percussion section in the Colonels Brigade & Guard for some time.  I can’t wait!
3. The guard will also be back over twenty.  Right now, it looks like there are twenty-four or twenty-five girls in the guard.  That means the size of the field guard will have tripled in just two years!  From what I could tell, they were also spinning about as well in April as last year’s rookie-filled guard was doing in early-October.  Of the twenty-something girls, a little over half have spun before, so that bodes well from an experience aspect.  I believe the horn line will have a positive veteran/rookie ratio as well, but we won’t know until after testing.
4. It’s back to concert prep in band the band classes.  We had spent the last three weeks preparing for Tri-Fest and learning some pieces that we’ll need later in the year.  Now, though, we’ll start focusing on pieces for our May 20 concert.  I’ve got two pieces already picked out for each band, I still need to find one more.  The Wind Ensemble is also going to State Concert Festival on May 5.  We’ll play our original repertoire for that performance.  I don’t think a Henderson Band has played at State Festival for a few years.  I took a West Jessamine Band five or six times, but we never could achieve that elusive “Distinguished” at State.  I believe the HC WE has that potential, but we’ll see.
5. Tomorrow starts the testing cycle at HC.  We’ll still have band class each day, but Wind Ensemble will not have a full line-up for a few days.  Concert Band and Symphonic Band are nearly unaffected.  That’s not really due to the testing schedule so much as it’s due to having a really small class of 11th grade band students.  There are only twenty or so juniors in band, so most of the classes can still rehearse.  I am not too excited about being a test proctor for the green unit each morning for two hours, but I do understand that it’s needed, so I’ll be sure to wear my comfortable shoes and bring a travel mug of coffee!  Good luck on the tests!

Okay, there are two big topics in the recent life of the HC Band. 

 First off, the Florida trip: it was really a great time.  The highlights for me were the performances, but just being with the band students and parents was really memorable.  The comments that we got following our concert performance were very positive and helpful.  The judges were really impressed and the ten minutes that we spent on stage in the “clinic” were great.  I’ve been a part of three of these “clinics” now, two with good bands, one not-so-good.  I recall each of them pretty well.  The first was at Northwestern University with the WJ Band 2001.  I think we played the Vaughn-Williams Folk Song Suite, or at least tried to play it.  The second time was at a Dixie Classic festival in Virginia with WJ 2006.  We played Rhosymedre and Trail of Tears, pretty well (I might add…)  Third was at the Disney Festival just last week.  After playing In the Shining of the Stars and When Angels Weep, the clinic that we had was actually a good experiences.  Way to go Disney!  The parade in Epcot was also very memorable, mostly because it was a parade through Epcot.  It’s my favorite park and the kids did a really great job.  Hearing the announcement wherever we marched was pretty cool, too!  I feel like I really bonded with the 50 kids that went, seeing them at school today was neat.  I’ll also remember standing line for an hour with Allison Fowler to ride the tallest water-slide I’ve ever seen.  Great company and a great ride!  What’s next?  Hopefully New York City in 2010, but in the meantime, we’ll take a short/cheap trip to either Cincinnati or St. Louis in May of 2009.  Which one?  Well, that depends on which is cheaper and which can offer the level of concert festival that I’d love to do.

The second big thing in the HC Band realm is the wrap-up of the Winterguard “Season”.  Even though the group didn’t give their best performance on Saturday at the Tri-State Circuit Championships, they were still almost six points better than the next best guard in Class B.  All season was truly a case of being in the wrong class.  It was awesome to win, though, and the students and staff really do deserve the “gold”.  Working together, fighting together, surviving long hours on Friday nights, LONG bus rides, and eleven stops in Corydon (exit 105 along I-64) all paid off to get HCHS the title of Champion.  After watching most of the A-3 guards, I think we would’ve still won that class, but just barely.  Harrison County and Owensboro Catholic both had great equipment, but our show design (thanks Sarah & Russ) really was outstanding.  How would we have fared in A-2?  I think we’d have been around 8th or 9th, but you never know…  What’s next?  Next week are auditions for field guard.  I really hope we’ll have 30 girls (and boys?) trying out.  A guard of 20 would be great!  Next year is the year that our guard will start to mentioned in the same breath as some of the really great guards in our region (Madisonville, Daviess Co., Calloway Co.).

Now it’s time to get ready for Tri-Fest!

No, I don’t mean little ones like driving the winterguard to Northern Kentucky as we did today.  I mean on a charter bus, stopping at rest-stops, multiple nights in the hotel, watching new couples form, watching old couples deteriorate, eating too many french fries band trips.

As a student, I only went on one: Florida my freshman year.  As a director, I’ve taken groups to Chicago, Virginia Beach, St. Louis, and Cleveland (twice).  Coming up in just a few days is going to be trip number six though, and it’s a biggie: Florida!  As always, February and March were so busy with All-State Band, Pep Band, Solo & Ensemble, Pep Band, and Concert Festival, I hadn’t really been able to think much about the Florida trip.  Now, though, I can. 

First off, the itinerary looks great!  It will be a busy trip, but we’re not leaving home for five days to sit around, right?  I’m disappointed that there aren’t more kids going, but I think the combination of the price and getting the info just before Christmas break was too much.  I think families need far more advance warning for expensive trips and I need to do a better job of being sure that happens next year.  If we do another short/cheap trip in ‘09 it will likely be St. Louis and I’d love to have details in kids hands by September.  Hopefully ‘10 would be NYC and that info would need to be to kids twelve months in advance.

Nonetheless, we’re heading to Florida in four days with one very loaded bus.  There are some musical opportunities that I hope go well and we’ll kind of start to figure that out on Monday afternoon.  You see, Monday is the first rehearsal of the “trip band”.  The trip band is a combination of 48 kids from all three band classes.  That means finding literature to play without a lot of rehearsal is challenging.  We’re going to go with one piece of the Symphonic Band and one piece of the Concert Band.  Hopefully the Wind Ensemble kids can get the hang of these quickly enough.  We have an hour after school on both Monday and Tuesday, that should get the pieces going well.  For the Festival Disney performance on Saturday morning, I hope to get a good performance venue and a memorable experience for the kids.  There are lots of bands in our class and from looking at heir websites, they are some pretty top notch groups.  Now, I feel the HC Band is pretty top-notch too, but we don’t have one of our three bands actually going to play.  Right now, I’d put the Wind Ensemble up with most any band at any festival, but it’s not the whole Wind Ensemble, so who knows how we’ll do from a competitive standpoint.  Mostly, it would be good just to play well and be proud of how we did.  You never know how these things are going to turn out.  I’ve taken weak bands to Music In the Parks festivals and won every possible prize.  I’ve also taken really good playing groups to festivals and come in pretty low.  The thing is, you never can tell!

The Magic Music Days Parade through Epcot will likely be more memorable, but at this point is a little more stressful.  Not the winds and guard, they’ll be fine.  It’s just that the percussion is going to be VERY piece-meal.  We are barely going to be able to fill out a battery, and I’m a little hesitant about how that’s going to go.  I guess we’ll see tomorrow!

Now it’s time for the “Top 10 Things About Which I’m Excited Regarding the Florida Trip”

1. Having some time on the bus to read.  I’ve been slow on books this semester, especially with Quad-State getting cancelled.  I’ll finish my Dale Carnegie book and likely begin Harry Potter 7!
2. All of the great meals.  Looking at the itinerary, I expect to gain 5 pounds on the trip.  Seriously.
3. Getting sun-burned.  It’s been a while since I’ve had that sore, warm, pink feeling.  I bet I’ll have it on Friday!
4. Being in a hotel room with cable and a remote control.  Living in a house with 8 channels, being in a hotel is ALWAYS a treat.
5. Kidding around with the band kids.  I really enjoy picking on the students.  Now, there’ll be no classes to save them.  Poor Hannah.
6. Being alone at some of the parks.  I’m not a freak or anything, but sometimes, it’s just nice to be alone.  Not for days and days, but a few hours is nice.  I can still recall an entire day that I spent all by myself at Disney-MGM in 1997.  It was pretty nice.
7. Watching kids.  Band kids are really funny, especially when they are in new settings.  It will be fun to see who acts more mature than they are and who acts less mature than they are.  At least it will be fun at first. 
8. Sleeping on the floor.  After four summers of drum corps, I’ve learned that the best place to sleep on an overnight bus ride is the warm floor.  The floor, a rolled up towel for a pillow, and some Ny-Quil…
9. Wearing shorts.  Finally.
10. Spring break.  It’s nice to know that once we get home, we still won;t have to go to school for five more days!

EDIT: By the way, the forecast is for highs in the low 80’s with only a 20% chance of rain the whole time we’re there.  Woot!

With Elizabethtown’s stifling defense last night, my life (and the life of the HCHS Band) has suddenly gotten much simpler.  At times, it looked like the Lady Colonels had three sure fire offensive threats: Alyse down low, Rinesha on the drive, and Bing from outside the arc.  Well, last night they had none of those.  Our cheerleading squad did get recognized and that was really cool.  I know a lot fo those girls from humanities and they most all of them are great, funny, smart kids.  I was really happy for them and it was cool to be there for the awards and play the fight song FOR them.  The defeat of the girls team means I’m here in Paducah for my two of my boy’s joint birthday party at the grandparent’s house.  You see, Grainger and Gus were both born on March 27; Grainger in 2003 and Gus in 2005.  Typically, they’ll do a lot of sharing of birthday parties.  My birthday is only 10 days before that: March 17.  So, it’s big birthday party day in Paducah-’08!  On to the thoughts-

1. In the last three weeks, we’ve had eight road pep-band games, three bands go to concert festival, and a concert at South MS.  Oh yeah, there were also ninety events at Solo & Ensemble, a winterguard contest in Louisville, the jazz band’s performance downtown for the Lion’s Club, and the clarinet choir’s performance for a breakfast meeting.  No wonder I’m tired!  Thankfully, things are about to get much more calm and settled.
2. So about pep-band.  This was a shorter post-season this year, primarily because there were only two district games.  Since Providence HS no longer exists, we will usually only have one girls and one boys game at the district level.  We went to two games at Webster County HS and those were my favorite of the whole year because they invited the band directors to the hospitality room right along with the coaches, etc.  It was there that I had the best mac & cheese ever.  Thanks Trojans!  We had two games at Hop-town (long drive, huge gym) and two games at Mad-ville.  Neither of the games at Madisonville were very well coordinated at all.  When we got there, no one knew where we were supposed to go or really seem to care for that matter.  Now I’m no post-season basketball expert, but I’ve done pep-band at tournament games at West Jessamine, East Jessamine, Lexington Christian, Lexington Catholic, Mercer County, Crittenden County, Frankfort, EKU, WKU, Hopkinsville, Union County, Webster County, and Madisonville-North Hopkins.  Out of all thirteen of those hosts, the MNHHS organizers seemed to be the most apathetic and “in over their heads”.  The spot where it would appear the HC Band should go was already full of Christian County fans.  We decided to fill the empty space left by the Madisonville band’s departure.  That worked fine until there wasn’t room for the fans.  Then, the band was asked to stand on the stairs so that there would be more space for Madisonville students.  At least, I think that’s what happened.  Anyway, I was proud of how the HC Band students handled it and glad that we could still play some of the time.  I had always held that community in pretty high esteem for their support of the arts, but after Monday night, not so much.  I guess we’ll still go the the MNHHS Band Contest, but I doubt we’ll make the drive to Madisonville for anymore Regional Tournament games!
3. The Cats lost a tough one today, but it might actually turn out to be a good thing.  I still think they’re in the tournament, but a run in Tornado Alley/Atlanta might have lifted their stock to a 8 or 9 seed.  Now, I think we’ll be a 10 or 11 and get an easier 2nd round game.  I guess we’ll know by tomorrow!
4. The Concert Band played at Festival on Wednesday and earned three I’s and a II+.  They really played well, about as could as they were capable that day.  The last few days of rehearsal really helped to nail down their sound on the march.  Listening to the judges tapes, they were generally impressed with the control and style of the group.  Their biggest weakness was that the good style and sound didn’t remain consistent at the loud and soft moments, but that’s a tough thing for any group.  Rhythms went well in sight-reading, but key signatures did not…no surprise here!  I’m super proud of this group and I’m looking forward to them improving even more over these next two months.
5. The Wind Ensemble also played at Festival on Wednesday.  They earned three I’s and a I+.  Those are pretty heady ratings and the judges were all really impressed.  Joe Stites (band director at WKU) really had some insightful comments, though.  He could tell that we weren’t as comfortable on the Ticheli as we were on the fanfare.  He’s right on about that and we are really close to nailing it.  After listening to the recording (which sounds kind of boomy) I realize that we did have a very good performance and it’s easily the best band I’ve ever taught.  There’s still a lot more room for improvement and I want to get us to that point.  We’ll need to keep working for another few days to get the Ticheli at top form and then we’ll try to record it again.  This collection of student musicians is unique and we need a clear recording of this band so that ten years from now we can look back and listen to an awesome group of kids.
6. The Symphonic Band is going to Murray for festival on Tuesday.  We were forced to reschedule from their original Thursday performance in Madisonville.  I don’t know what to expect about the Murray Festival, I hope the standards are realistic and similar to those of Madisonville.  Still, the band sounded pretty good in class on Friday and I think they’ll be able to get the sound back before we head to Racer Land on Tuesday.
7. Sarah called and said the winterguard had a great show, hopefully they got their bad show out of their system at Butler.  I’m looking forward to going to Simon Kenton with them next week!

I’m going to wrap this up so that I can go eat more.  I love visiting family!

Here we are in the throes of pep-band.  Solo & Ensemble is done, that took a ton of class time.  The good news is, I’ve recently finished a book and it’s time to pick out a new one!

We’ve had three games in the last six days.  There’ll be three more games in the next three days.  Likely, there will be three or four games next week.  It’s great that HC has good basketball teams, but it’s also an aspect of competing in a weak region.  There isn’t a girls team that has the talent to beat the Henderson girls.  Christian County is good, but our girls playing their best game are far better.  I’ve had two of the girls in class (Rinesha & Alysse) and I really would love to see them do well.  Those two are great girls and I can only assume that many of the others are as well.  Our boys play really smart, I think the new coach has trained them very well.  I’ve had a few of them in class too (Brandon, Jacob, Andy, Coleman, Ryan) and it would be awesome to see this team make it to Rupp.  With Jon Hood out at MNHHS, the only team in the region that is strong is University Heights.  They might be a more talented team than HC, but it’s possible for us to beat them on Monday night, so we’ll see.  The good news, I enjoy seeing the students and coaches be successful, it adds to our already strong community spirit, and the bonding time between band kids is fun.  The bad news is, I’ll go for two or three days at a time without seeing my own kids awake.  When I leave for school in the morning, they are still in bed and when I get home at night, they’re already asleep.  It becomes really exhausting getting in after 11:00 and getting back to school at 6:00, not to mention expensive eating at concession stands two or three days in a row.  Still, that’s just part of the trade off for getting to teach at a large school.  If dedicating a couple of weeks to pep-band is the price for having 190 band kids next year…I’ll gladly pay up.

We had 88 events at Solo & Ensemble last Saturday.  I was really pleased that we had so few cancellations even after all of the snow days.  Of course, without Ms. Schoenfeld and Mom listening to students during class, there wouldn’t have been nearly as many performances.  We didn’t have as many accompanied solos this year, I would’ve liked to done more, but there wasn’t time.  In all, I feel like many of the solos never reached a level of polish that would have been nice.  Still we’ll be ordering over 150 medals and there were 120 students there participating, so that was a great day!  I was especially proud of how far the percussion section has come.  Each section’s ensemble performed and was distinguished (flute choir, clarinet choir, sax choir, brass choir, and percussion choir).  Compared to last year, that’s great because we didn’t even have a sax choir and the percussion performances were at a much higher level!  Now paying for all of those medals…

I’ve been going back and forth on which book to read next.  I finished The Chosen this weekend and really loved it.  (Thanks, Jessi)  That was pretty light and easy to read, so I’m counting that as a fun book.  That means it’s time for a serious book next.  The nominations were: Catch-22, Pride & Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter, or A Portrait of Dorian Gray.  Well, I think it’s come down to either Catch-22 or Pride & Prejudice.  If we’re out of school tomorrow, then I won’t see Matt Vincent, who is going to bring me the library’s copy of Catch-22.  He’s got it checked out, but he’s since bought his own copy.  If we’re out of school, I’ve got a copy of Pride & Prejudicethat Tasha just checked out for me.    I felt a little embarrassed to check it out on my own.  I’m not sure if it’s because I’m 32 or because I’m a dude, but either way: thanks Tasha!