Photo Credit: Elizabeth Lonergan, Bandworld.org

Not Enough Time

I believe I learned nearly as much about my craft during the first year of teaching as all of my time spent in college. And this continues year to year, of course. There is simply so much involved in teaching band.  One of my great disappointments during the first year was the realization that 24 hours in a day is – apparently – an inadequate number. Over the years, I have learned to plan and utilize time more efficiently. I found there actually is time to do the things that seemed impossible previously. But not for everything. I have never been able to adequately schedule proper score study. Until now.

Mr. Maiello

I spent a couple weeks this past summer in Ashland, Oregon for my second of three years in the American Band College masters program. It was there that I was privileged to meet and work with Mr. Anthony Maiello, a guest conductor for the first of two summer concerts. Mr. Maiello is a music professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Something incredible happened. I was excited. Not in a professional way. Not because I was expected to be excited. Not because I wanted to kiss up to the director. Mr. Maiello simply made our rehearsals fun, passionate, musical, and real.  He authentically emanated enthusiasm and optimism. We had been acquainted with the man for less than 5 minutes and we knew that he cared for us and for the music deeply. Not just because he told us, which he did, but because he lived it. It was obvious. I’ve never enjoyed playing under the direction of a conductor as much as I did in those rehearsals. I want that for my ensembles. I don’t know that I could ever equal his enthusiasm or vigor, but I would love to see what would happen if I could find half of it.

Photo Credit: Elizabeth Lonergan

No Scores

A little while into the first rehearsal my horn section mates and I realized something pretty incredible. Anthony Maiello was using no scores. Now, that is certainly not unheard of; many fine conductors conduct from memory. But this was no concert. He was actively rehearsing the two bands on four grade 5 and 6 level compositions – with nothing in front of him but us! He knew rehearsal numbers, he knew measure numbers, he knew pitches and rhythms – for every part. He had truly digested the whole of these complicated scores and could draw on any part of them from memory at will. One of the pieces had just been given a world premiere two weeks prior and Mr. Maiello had never actually heard it – only in his head. He was very excited to hear one particular glorious horn section feature with his ears.  As we played it, he exuberantly moved into the ensemble toward us and jumped up on an empty chair in the row ahead to coax the magnificent sororities from our horns. His enthusiasm was inspiring. But how did he do it? How did he know the scores so well? How did he find the time to be so thorough in his score study? And more importantly, how can I do this? Again, it was amazing.  This happened nearly two months ago and I’m still amazed as I sit here writing this.

Mr. Maiello spoke to us about his process of score study a bit during rehearsal. I also had the opportunity to speak with him privately about it. He said that he carries his score with him everywhere: standing in line at the coffee shop, going to and from work, while running on his treadmill.  He simply took all of those moments that make up our lives in which we are momentarily unoccupied and filled them with the score.

I asked him if he had always undertaken this level of preparation.  The answer was no.  As one might expect, he started small and slowly – over years – built up his capacity for memorization.  He suggested I:

• Start with one score at a time.
• Begin by analyzing the overall form and memorizing that. Try to include measure or rehearsal numbers for the start of new sections in the music.
• Focus in next on a small section of the music that I really like and work to memorize it.
• Gradually become more detailed until it is completely memorized.

Now What?

It’s been a long time since I remember being so excited about something as I am about the prospect of improving in the area of score study. I’m sure it will take years to get to his level, and I may never do it – BUT the rewards of trying will raise my level of musicianship as a conductor as well as my students’.  The rewards of making use of otherwise wasted time to do something that needs to be done will have a big impact on my ability to make efficient use of my time in all aspects of my life.  It was obvious to me that Anthony Maiello puts in this level of study and work because he respects and loves his ensembles and he respects and loves the music. The idea of developing this level of love and respect is inspiring. For all of these reasons, I am starting this week.  If you see me at Starbucks, ask to take a look at my score!

I started this music education blog nearly a year and a half ago primarily to focus my own thoughts about teaching, performance, and music. A secondary goal was to be able to share ideas with other music teachers that I have met on Twitter.  There has been an unexpected third result which is the wide reach my blog has had across the world. It seems unlikely to me, but Sound Education has been read now in 100 countries, across 6 continents, with over 6000 individual visits. This is the incredible power of the internet.

What can be learned from this? Three things come directly to mind:

1. I need to keep writing. I am finding an audience that I was truly unaware of and am happy to be sharing my ideas with them. I enjoy the conversation that takes place in comments, email, and Twitter. Knowing that someone will actually read what I have written encourages me to be professional and make every attempt to write well.

2. All [Music] Teachers should be blogging. There are a good number of teachers sharing ideas via their blogs, but certainly most are not. What a huge resource that would be if every teacher at your school (and at every school) was thoughtfully sharing their educational ideas, techniques, triumphs, and flops online! (So start writing, if you aren’t!).

3. What’s up with Antarctica?! Ok, so I don’t mean to sound ungrateful but would it be that hard to get some research scientist on Antarctica to cruise over to Sound Education and get us a ping for continent #7? Speaking of which, I would be interested to know what kind of music is happening on our icy continent. It’s my understanding that the population fluctuates between 1000 people in the winter to 5000 in the summer. I know that many of these scientists were in band in school (because band kids on average are smart and do well in the sciences). Is there a community ensemble anywhere? A rock band? A handbell choir? Anything? There must be. Let’s hear about it Antarcticans – what is your social music scene like?

photo credit:  adampadam – Photo adapted

I’ve been working to incorporate more music theory into my concert band ensemble class for the past few years.  My perception is often that we just don’t have the time as we are always building toward one performance or another. I think this is likely a common feeling among band directors, however it is largely not true. If rehearsals are better planned, organized, and executed more can be accomplished in less time. And the inclusion of cogent bits of theory during rehearsal is not only possible, but will enhance the musicianship of the ensemble.

In addition to greater music theory content during rehearsal, I’ve introduced my students over the past two school years to music notation software.  Last year we used primarily MuseScore for a few small composition assignments.  I encouraged the students to download this great freeware program at home so they could experiment with it as well.  This year I’ve also included Noteflight Crescendo accounts for all band students.  The interfaces are quite different and each has its fans. I honestly don’t care which method they use for writing as long as they are writing.

Concert Band has written melodies over a given chord progression. Jazz Band is writing lead sheets of varying complexity depending on their own experience level. I also have all students transcribing parts for me for various parts that have been lost or when transpositions are needed.  This helps to improve their facility with the notation software and fills a need within the music library.

A few students have been writing their own compositions and – more commonly – arrangements for band. Pop, video game, and Anime music seem to be the most popular. I don’t care what genre they work with as long as it is engaging them. Plus they’re getting great experience with orchestration as they hear the band read their charts and realize needed adjustments.  We’re starting to incorporate some of these arrangements into our Pep Band rotation.  I’d love to get them working out full jazz combo or big band charts soon.

Given an understanding of the mechanics of music, great software to help facilitate writing, and the encouragement that they can actually compose, my students are having fun as they embrace music composition. This is certainly worth that little bit of extra rehearsal time “sacrificed” to help it happen.

photo credit: mingusmutter

I’ve always been a little conflicted on the idea of assigning a practice log to my band students. On one side, I want to encourage practicing away from the classroom and positively reward those who do. However with the traditional listing of minutes practiced, its pretty easy for students to just fill in numbers that may or may not be accurate. It also puts the focus of practice on time, not music.

I had the opportunity to speak with Tubist Andrew Hitz recently about this subject. He does not like the idea of practicing for time and prompted me to rethink the way I had designed my practice records. When you’re focused on how long you have to practice, it can become torturous and boring – certainly not musical. Hitz suggested creating a journal that records what is practiced instead of minutes. When you practice because it’s fun and you love making music, time flies by and is spent more effectively.

So for this year, I have created a new form – a Weekly Practice Journal. You will not find a place to list how many minutes you practiced for. Instead, it guides the student through a warm up of: long tones, lip slurs (or cross-break woodwind slurs), scales and/or rudiments. I recommend that each of my students purchase an instrument-specific etude book and work with it daily as well. There is a place to list which etudes and what repertoire music was practiced. And then there are larger areas to fill in specifics of: what was worked on (such as a rhythm, high range, m. 38-54, etc), what has improved during the session, and what still needs more work next time.  There are five journal entries on one side of the paper (I ask that they practice a minimum of 5 days a week outside of class).

On the back are two more journal entries in case the student practices every day (however these are optional).  I also list a number of practicing tips that I would like them to be thinking about. Finally, there is a spot for the students to fill in what relevant music they listened to during the week. I ask that all of my students listen to solo literature for their instrument, band literature, and/or other high level performances of their choosing in which they can find connections to their own music.

I would encourage you to try a journal-style practice record with your students. You are welcome to use mine, if you like. To view or print the form that I have created click the following icon:

Tuners

gStrings Free

by: cohortor.org

gStrings is a real nice little chromatic tuner program with a fairly slick user interface. You can set the tuner to tune a specific pitch or (more commonly) to auto tune. It also has a nice chromatic tone generator that is a fairly pleasant tone. This can be useful for ear matching or playing a drone through your sound system during the rehearsal to practice harmonic interval recognition, etc.  I have used this on my stand during a free warm-up time and the tuner remained fairly focused on my sound at the exclusion of the room “noise”. Many stand alone tuners that I have owned did poorly under similar circumstances. However because your device will likely not have an input for a pick up mic, you will likely use this primarily during individual practice time.

Features:

• Chromatic individual note tuner
• Chromatic auto tuner
• Chromatic tone generator
• Microphone sensitivity slider
• Optimization for specific frequencies (it shows string families, but lists Hz scale)
• 3 choices for tone generator octave
• Adjustable tuning (i.e. A=441 or similar)
• 34 different temperament choices from “Equal Tempered Perfect Octave” to ” Great Highland Bagpipe”!
• Optional use of Harmonic Product Spectrum algorithm & other advanced options
• [Edit] One thing I just realized that I really love is that when you stop playing your tuning note, the needle freezes where you were at.  It displays the frequency of the correct note and of your final played pitch.  This is very useful for self-tuning.  You can close your eyes or look away, then when you stop and look at the tuner your pitch is saved on screen. Brilliant!

Screen Shots:

Metronomes

Mobile Metronome

by Gabriel Simões

Mobile Metronome has just about everything I need in a metronome, and it’s free!

Features:

• Tempi from 10 to 230
• In addition to numbers, Italian tempo indicators are also given (i.e. Adagio, Moderato, Presto, etc.)
• Tap to find tempo.
• Adjust both top and bottom of time signature.
• Subdivisions: Quarter, Eighth, Triplets, Sixteenth, Quintuplets, Sextuplets.
• 4 preloaded sounds: Clave, Electronic (horrible), Classic Metronome, Cowbell.
• First beat Accent toggle.
• Volume slider.
• Visual: Medium sized bold number in bottom corner changes with beat. I don’t use the metronome “flash” anyway because I’m generally looking at my music.  But for those who like the big flashing light, this app may not be for you.
• Big buttons, which makes controlling the metronome easy.

Screen Shots:

Ear Training

Interval Recognition

by marchantpeter.co.uk

I’ve looked through a number of ear training apps recently and none that I have found can hold a candle to Interval Recognition.  I’ve used this quite a bit already and it has definitely sharpened my skills.  Plus, it’s fun.  Have your students download it.  Great for any musician!

Features:

• Plays intervals up to two octaves.
• Ascending, descending, or harmonic.
• User defines range or specific intervals to include.
• Choose from 128 general MIDI instruments (some are clearly better for this than others).
• Set playback tempo.
• “Listening Mode” to study the interval instead of testing on it.
• Choices may be viewed in long description (as above), short description (such as Ma2), or 1/2 steps (semitones).
• Phrase Mode: determine multiple intervals from a randomly generated phrase. You select number of notes, interval types, etc.
• Phrases may cover up to four octaves
• Plays common melodies beginning with the interval following a mistake – for both ascending and descending.

Screen Shots:

Mini Keyboard

My Piano

by Borce Trajkovski

I first dug up this great little app when I was at the American Band College over the summer and wanted to practice/learn my vocal part to a couple of ‘band with chorus’ pieces we were performing for Independence Day.  Not having perfect pitch, or a keyboard in my hotel, My Piano was a great find!  I’ve used it several times since then.

Features:

• 10 MIDI instruments
• Multi-Touch (My EVO maxes out at 2, which is a bummer, but the app supports up to 8 simultaneous notes).
• Note Velocity
• Note aftertouch
• Integrated Sampler (kind of fun)
• Sample record and save (I saved my vocal part and sang along to playback)
• Sample load / import
• Integrated recorder
• Sound Effects (reverb, echo)
• MIDI over WIFI
• MIDI note velocity
• MIDI note aftertouch
• MIDI volume control
• Toggle between 1.5 and 2 octave keyboards.
• 6 skins

Screenshots:

Drum Rudiments

Rude

by Skrivarna Software

Rude is a cool little app that basically shows you each drum rudiment, clicks a metronome while you play the rudiment on your drum or practice pad, and takes you to it’s website where you can watch videos of the rudiment on it’s own and incorporated into a drumset fill.  The app itself is pretty rough.  It doesn’t play the rudiment for you via MIDI, but you probably wouldn’t want to listen to that anyway. This is in beta and the developer is welcoming comments.  Note: tell your drummers not to play directly on their phone screens! (j/k)

Features:

• All 40 fundamental rudiments (name and order as listed by the PAS).
• Metronome with visual place holder in music (i.e. bouncing ball).
• Tempi from 20 – 200 BPM.
• Links to explanations and video examples.

Screenshots:

I’ve got a number of other apps to include.  But seeing how long this post is becoming, I am going to limit each entry to five apps.  I hope you have found this useful!

Where have I been?!

It’s been an action packed 7 weeks since my last blog post. I’ve been swamped with the end of a rather blockbuster school year of performances, my own performances outside of school, preparation for and now participation in the American Band College masters program in Ashland, Oregon.  I’ve not been meaning to neglect this blog. I have literally had no time.

However…

I’m am gathering some AMAZING nuggets at ABC that I plan on spinning into a number of juicy music education blogs. I am studying & rehearsing under such folks as:

• Michael Levine (trombone – Dallas Brass)
• Nick Petrella (percussion – Sabian, Univ. Missouri)
• Kathy Daniel (flute – Sam Houston)
• Dale Underwood (saxophone – US Navy Band, everywhere)
• Frank Ticheli (composition – USC)
• Peter Boonshaft (conducting – Hoffstra University)
• Andrew Hitz (tuba – Boston Brass, George Mason)
• Boston Brass (small ensemble)
• Arnald Gabriel (conducting – US Air Force Band)
• Randy Adams (trumpet – Sam Houston)
• Jeff Bianchi (horn)
• Louie Hall (oboe – Univ. of Maine)
• Jim Lotz (bassoon – Tennessee Tech)
• Matt Savage (percussion – North Carolina)
• Robert Spring (clarinet – Arizona State Univ.)
• Tim Lautzenheizer (band administration – Conn-Selmer, Ball State Univ.)
• Frank Tracz (band administration – Kansas State Univ.)
• Robert W. Smith (composition – Troy Univ.)
• Al & Gladys Wright (Perdue Univ Ret.).

Sound good?

If the American Band College’s 3 Summer masters degree program in the beautiful hills of Southern Oregon sounds good to you, check out the website: www.bandworld.org.

Posts to follow…