Midwest 2010 Day 3

Another day done at Midwest.

Started the day by going to a session by Paula Cider. It was very inspirational and spoke to a lot of issues that we have to deal with as educators.

After that I visited the exhibits for one last time and picked up a new baton and got a free case with it since it was from an old friend, Guy Lake.

I then attended an interesting clinic hosted by Mark Wood. It dealt with electric orchestra and rock and roll orchestra. I wonder if this will gain more popularity and if we will be seeing more of this in then schools.

The next session was hosted by David Vandewalker and dealt with ensemble clarity. Good stuff. Lots of practical ideas that can be applied to both band and orchestra. The big idea was to quantify abstract ideas to help clarify and make the rehearsals go more efficiently.

For the fourth session I went to a clinic on vibrato. Good refresher and had some interesting data to be shared.

To wrap up the day I finished with a clinic by Yo Goto. It was really neat to see how the Japanese club bands operate. There's a lot there to be learned. In essence the student engagement is through the roof as they give feedback and also run rehearsals/sectionals. The discipline and engagement is phenomenal. I am brainstorming how to incorporate some of these ideas into my teaching.

Gotta post a group pic of us later that we took at the end.

Goals/task:
- incorporate Japan ideas into my teaching
- quantify abstract ideas


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Location:S Indiana Ave,Chicago,United States

Midwest 2010 Day 2

Day 2 of Midwest was just as awesome as day 1, albeit a little tiring.

I started the day in a Sibelius demonstration where I picked a few tips and shortcuts in Sibelius. I also learned more about photo score and Got a couple of new websites to use to find music.

The second session of day involved standard based education in our ensembles. The idea I took away from it was to shift focus away from the group and focus once again on the individual student.

For the third block of the day I went to listen to a great HS orchestra and got some repertoire ideas. The afternoon sessions weren't as good but I did pick up some useful conducting ideas and movement ideas.

I closed out the day by listening to a great community band and then another full orchestra.

Great news for the day: I won a FREE copy of Sibelius 6 today!!!

Goals/ideas for future:
- use the Internet to help create a more well rounded music experience and address state standards (website/blackboard)
- create sight reading folders
- use photo score and Sibelius to create easier parts for struggling students
- use photo score and Sibelius to arrange more music from Internet for strings (e.g. String quartets)
- when conducting arrangements order original scores
- incorporate more student movement into lessons/playing


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:S Indiana Ave,Chicago,United States

Midwest 2010 Day 1

Today was the first day of the 2010 Midwest clinic. It was AWESOME!

After registering we went browsing around the vendors. There were so many. I purchased a set of suspended cymbal mallets that have no contact noise.

The first clinic I went to was on wind partials and the overtone series. It was okay and I received a very useful handout. It made me realize that I need to review my wind instrumental fingering and pitch tendencies.

The 2nd session of the day focused on string bass technique. Got lots of good info and also purchased two books with exercises and etudes for string bass. The new goal is to spend more individualized time focusing on the basses

The last clinic of the day focused on string bowing. Good info too and a good packet. After that I was speaking with H. Watanabe about method books and next year I am going to switch to a new method. The year after I want to incorporate the Essential Elements Book 4 as well.

To close out the night we watched the Marine Corp band (pic below) and then the Michigan State Jazz orchestra (which totally rocked!).






To recap goals/lessons from today:
- work on relearning wind instrument fingerings/tendencies
- incorporate overtone series into score study (be proactive about intonation)
- create a set-up for percussion ALL THE TIME
- focus on bass technique/development more (individualized attention)
- Incorporate more right hand technique exercises into warm up (pencil)
- transition to new method book over next two years


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Chicago, Illinois

2010 Winter Concert Reflections

This past Saturday was our 2010 Winter Concert at P.C.C.C.

Overall it went very well.  Here are some positives about the evening:
- Creating my action plan really helped to stay organize - next concert create one for presidents of both orchestras and maybe EMs
- Performance was at the level of expectations.  CO performed really well on the Ivanov.
- CO was well behaved and managed themselves very well; kudos goes to the officers for their diligence

Things to improve on:
- CS behavior before the concert was very unfocused - need to find a way to better focus them... some kind of activity perhaps
- Stage transitions were slow because of incorrect order (should be split in two; fill from front of stage first)
- EM's didn't all show up for loading/unloading

After evaluating their concert I think I would like to push them a little harder than I originally had planned.  I'm ordering a couple more pieces to help with this and am thinking of replacing one of the CO pieces with "Danse Bachanelle" that is more challenging. 

Q2 Almost Done

I just realized today that I've been so busy that I haven't updated in the past several weeks :(

Marching Band = Finished
- Festivals this year were wonderful.  The students did a great job.  Reflecting on it for next year, I think I'm going to create a better plan for warm-ups.  We should also re-evaluate the brass warm-up book - gotta focus on a tuning exercise more.
- Final Bash is such a wonderful event.  I had a blast and got to see the seniors on stage was really nice.

For the concert groups we've been working hard to get ready for concert.  They should be ready.  Next year I'm going to only do one wind piece so that I don't have to worry/stress out about the winds/percs.  Upcoming events/to-dos:
- picture taking (today)
- ticket sales
- seating chart

The piano class has hit a bit of a lull.  I haven't had too much time to plan/break this lull, so over winter break I'll be thinking about this class a lot.  I think I'm going to need to order more materials (supplemental) for them and also have a better long term plan.

My other to-do lately has been to create/compile all of my to-do lists into action plans.  That way next year I won't have to keep recreating my lists.

I'll post a video later of the marching band.

Q2 Underway

I know it's been a while since I've updated.  Things got really hectic.

To recap latest events:
1) Aloha week parade - was a blast.  Students did really well.  The experience here at MoHS is so much more positive... it actually makes the parade fun!  Next year gotta think about the cadence approach again.

2) Band camp - even bigger blast.  Students were well behaved and getting to know the staff was really fun.  Next year I think I want to find a way to help Seta out more to alleviate some of his workload.  Also work with officers to create check-list of to-do's so that they don't have to start from scratch every year.

3) Q2 - started and going strong.  My goals for this quarter is to get them prepared for concert.  I also want to cover a little more theory to make their musical experiences more well rounded.

On another note, B. Hirata from MiHS and I were discussing creating a Central District Honors Orchestra.  I'm hoping we can get the others on board and get it started next year.  Good things on the horizon.

Mene classic is this weekend.  The band is ready and will have a great performance.  More to come later :)

Catching Up

So homecoming has come and gone.  I must say it was really a blast.  The students had a great performance for this time of the year and we all learned a lot about what needs to be worked on in the future.  We've even paved ahead and are almost complete with movement 3 of the show :)

Seating tests are almost done (today is the last day).  They have been long and grueling.  I need to find a way to get/inspire all of the students to sign up and prepare for their exams a little better.  I think maybe we need to talk about "how to practice" and responsibility of practicing.

Our first PD day for the year has come and gone.  It was very long and in many cases very intimidating.  I did learn that the school has a voicethread account so I'm hoping to use that with the ensembles to share videos and comments. 

Another neat thing was this video that I'll share.  Hopefully it's the right one (I'm in school now so can't load youtube... grumble).

Next week: Homecoming

It's been a while since I've had the time to sit down and blog about the year.  Seating test are going strong and overall going well.  Marching band is going well too.  We just finished movement 2 on the field and the show is coming along nicely.

Homecoming here we go...

2010 Week 3 = Power Outages and a raining ceiling

Talk about a crazy week... Monday and Tuesday we had power outages in school.  This knocked out the air conditioning for almost the entire day.  It also lead to a complete lights out in the middle of my CO class.  CRAZY @_@.  But we managed and the kids behaved and handled well. 

On Wednesday, as I worked in my office, I heard what sounded like pouring rain in our room.  Looked out and saw the ceiling leaking and flooding the downstairs.  It was also crazy... we had to quickly find buckets, move valuable instruments out of the way, and then mop up once it was done.  @_!

Hopefully the rest of the week will be okay.  Tomorrow I begin assessing the students for the first time.  It's going to take quite a long time, but I am excited to see them one-on-one and hope to get to know them better.

Goals:
Finish drum break
Work on curriculum maps for my 3 classes (this will take a while)

2010 Week 2

Another week has passed and boy was it a long.  We had a booster meeting on Monday and open house on Wednesday.  Crazy.

Classes are going really well.  Got all the routines finally set in my big orchestra classes.  This has made everything run much smoother.  We have already begun to work on music and I am very satisfied with where we are starting off the year. 

The weekly workouts have been working out well.  I'm getting faster at writing them and the students are making improvements very quickly within them.  

Piano classes are going well as well.  I am focusing on trying to give each student individualized feedback and attention.  We had our first round of assessments this week.  These were intended to be formative in nature and gave me a good opportunity to see exactly where they are.  I am also very happy to see how far they've progressed already.  My only concern is addressing the new students who have been transferring in late.  I think next year I might tweak my lessons to start after the first couple of days to avoid this.  As an alternative I'm thinking of focusing on listening activities and such with the students in the beginning so that if anyone else comes in late they won't miss anything essential for later.

I've begun doing more detailed planing for marching band, similar to the planing  I do for my daily classes.  I think it's really paying off and making our practices much more efficient.  Time will tell though if it really makes that much of an improvement.

Things to work on for the future:
- Implementing snap grades into my routine
- Finish arranging 3rd movement and drum break for MB
- Work CO/CS officers into the fold more

2010 Week 1 = Finished!

Week 1 of the 2010-2011 school year is done.  What a week!

Most of the classes were focused on the nitty-gritty things at the beginning of the year.  Syllabus, classroom procedures, get to know you activities etc.  I know that these things are really important in setting up the expectations and routines that will help later down the road.  The only thing that I don't like about it is that it's a lot of didactic, me giving out information, teaching rather than a more hands-on-approach.

I'm hoping that the procedures I set-up for the CS class (of 130+ students) will be effective and efficient in getting us going.  I'm also using Sibelius to create a "Weekly Workout" for both orchestras.  Hopefully this will help to build the technical, rhythmic, and theoretical sides of their music education.  That way when we get to the real music, it'll be a walk in the park.

Goals for the near future:
- Continue to create/implement weekly workouts
- Get my Snapgrades and Blackboard accounts going
- Seating test! @_@ (130 + 85 students = a lot of time)

Growth vs Fixed Mindset

I read about this on one of the blogs I follow about people whom have a growth vs fixed mindset. 

It made me start to think about the students.  How can we foster a growth driven mindset into them, and get them out of this idea of fixed.  I think many of them,  more of them now then in the past, are stuck in this fixed mindset.  This is where excuses come from, such "I'll never get it, I'm just not talented". 

Perhaps through discussion and a safe learning environment we can foster this growth way of thinking.  That reminds me, I should start reading that book Drive by Daniel Pink.  Perhaps something in there will help as well.

Thoughts for the new year...

As I start planing for the new year, I find myself a little stuck at times.  I think mostly due to the fact that I am unsure what to expect from the students and what levels they are at.  I know that once school gets started and I get to know them, I'll have a much easier time planing for them.  Till then, I guess I'll just have to feel a little uneasy for now.

Things to do on the first day of class:
- Welcome students to new year
- Introduce myself and officers
- Go over grading policy, uniform requirements, required materials
- Rules and expectations of class/behavior
- Stand tags for each and every student (have them decorate maybe?)
- Questionnaire form (still need to create this)
- Procedures for entering/exiting class, bathroom, etc.

For the orchestra's I've been wrestling with the idea of using Sibelius (music notation software) to create my own warm-ups and exercises for them.  After speaking with a few people, I'm starting to think it'll be a really good idea.  I'm worried about finding the time to do it, and also the quality of my own work.  I suppose it'll be a learning process for me as well.

Still on the to-do list:
- Create syllabi
- Select pieces for orchestra
- Create questionnaire form for students
- Make bathroom sign-out sheet
- Stand tags...?

First Post - New Teacher Orientation

Just wrapped new teacher orientation at Moanalua High School.  Ready to start the 2010-2011 year... well going to be ready :)

I created this blog to serve as my place of reflection as I teach.  My goal: write in it at least once a month.  Hopefully I'll write in here at least once a week though.

So things I need to get done before school starts:
- Create syllabi for classes (Elden shared the grading policies with me today)
- Select a couple of pieces for the two orchestras

One last thing I'd like to share is related to the rigor, relevance, and relationship framework.  In my MSU studies, I'm working on a project to incorporate internet radio into my curriculum as a means of sharing new music with my students and also exposing them to exemplars of classical music.  I realized today that it ties in beautifully with the 3 Rs.  To read more about my research/epiphany click here.