Choral

Making Room for Music

In many school music departments, storage can be a stealth problem. Unless you had input in the initial design of the music area, chances are the storage areas are inadequate. There never seems to be enough space to store the furnishings and equipment you use on a daily basis, or items used only seasonally. While you focus on day-to-day teaching activities, it’s easy for storage issues to escape detection – until one day, when the stealth problem suddenly demands your attention.

It might be the instrument cases cluttering the floor of the storage room, making navigation dangerous. Or it could be the file cabinets in your music library that are overflowing with sheet music. Maybe the choir robes and band uniforms are hanging unprotected in the open common area or shoved into overstuffed closets. Or, the worst could happen – an instrument is stolen.

If not addressed, storage problems like these can become time-wasting distractions that disrupt the teaching and learning process. In addition, improperly stored equipment is more susceptible to damage or theft. This article will offer trouble-shooting advice for common storage problems related to three of the most expensive types of equipment found in school music departments: instruments, sheet music and uniforms. For each type of equipment, solutions should strive to minimize the space required while maximizing the amount of protection.

UPFRONT: CULTURALLY DIVERSE MUSIC IN THE CLASSROOM

UPCLOSE: VANCE MILLER

It's a situation that most music students and directors can relate to: waiting backstage and experiencing pre-competition jitters. In this particular scenario, however, there is the added pressure of the television cameras and crew that have been following the director and his students for weeks, capturing all their feats and flaws on film.

The director warms up the orchestra students with one of the pieces they plan to play for the judges a few minutes later. The orchestra's collective bundle of nerves produces some unfamiliar and unwelcome sounds from their instruments, resulting in cringes and pained expressions on many of the students' faces. The director, Vance Miller, tells it to them straight: "I haven't heard you that bad in several months."

UPFRONT: UNITED IN SONG

One year after the September 11th tragedies, it's noteworthy to look back at how the country's music classes responded to the terrorist attacks that occurred on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday morning. Within a matter of weeks - and, in some cases, within a matter of days - music teachers and their students, all across America, brought their communities together in song. Some held impromptu candlelight vigils on the town football field, where friends and neighbors gathered to sing along with student bands and choruses. In many schools, students worked together on creating their own song to honor those who lost their lives and to express their pride and strength in the face of terrorism. Still other music classes paid tribute with a semester-long study of patriotic music, culminating in a rousing public performance of all they had learned.

Overnight, the singing and playing of patriotic standards like "God Bless America," "America, the Beautiful," and "The Star Spangled Banner" are striking a deeper chord, and it's the country's musical ensembles that are uniting the nation in song. Americans are rediscovering the power and beauty of patriotic music as students attempt to bring some solace and, if possible, some hope to a tragic situation.

At Great Neck North High School in Great Neck, N.Y., the September 11th attacks hit uncomfortably close to home.

REPORT: WHERE ARE ALL THE WOMEN DIRECTORS?

Male high school band directors outnumber women in that field by a ratio of three to one, according to a 2001 study conducted by MENC, the National Association for Music Education.

Circumstantial evidence and casual observation, including Web searches of high school music programs, informal surveys and enrollment figures at band director conferences, make that ratio appear even greater - perhaps as high as five to one.

UPFRONT: CONNECTING WITH A COMPOSER

Playing Tip of the Month