orchestra directors

Survey: Game Changing Technology

How different are the tools in your classroom today from the tools in the classroom ten years ago?

2011 Annual Director’s Resource Guide

2011 Annual Director’s Resource Guide

An Apprenticeship Approach

Use Your Elbows

Tape Your Flute

Masterfoods USA proudly presents: Playing Tip of the Month

"In an effort to build and strengthen breath support, we created a challenge, called 'Long Tone Challenges.' The students challenged and timed each other while holding a long tone. The maximum time they could challenge one person was twice and they must write the times for both students. They listed their time and the student that they challenged on the paper. This was a long-winded race! Prizes were awarded to the student who could hold the note the longest and the person who challenged the most people."

Lorene Veatch
Sisseton High School
Sisseton, SD

School music educators who submit their Playing Tips to School Band and Orchestra online will be eligible to win an embroidered SBO polo shirt as well as a special prize from Masterfoods USA. To enter, music educators can register their playing tips on the SBO Web site. One playing tip will be selected as the winner each month and, in addition to being awarded the prize, the winner's performance tip will be published in a subsequent issue of School Band and Orchestra magazine. Register your playing tip today!

Budgeting: Music Teachers’ Money-Saving Secrets

In the teaching profession, sometimes it’s difficult to keep necessity purchases to a minimum – particularly when the music education budget is slashed year after year. When there’s no money for incidentals and last-minute or “emergency” needs, where does that money come from? The music teacher’s own pocket.

According to a recent SBO survey of 100 band and orchestra directors, 76 percent of the survey’s participants revealed that they occasionally – and, in some cases, often – must supplement their music education budget with their own money. In many cases, the money is spent on office supplies or “emergency” sheet music that wasn’t included in the original budget.

Michael Carbonneau, director at Mansfield Middle School in Storrs, Conn., sums up the most cited reason for taking this route: “It is often easier to outlay a little cash rather than go through all of the red tape.”

REPORT: SUMMER REFRESHER COURSES

Summer is in full swing, and for many band and orchestra directors that means soaking up the sun by the beach or heading off on daring adventures. But for those teachers seeking professional enrichment, summer is a time to enroll in workshops and seminars designed just for them. It's a season of renewal in many ways - the only "free" time music educators may have all year.

In this Report, School Band and Orchestra provides a window into what's happening this summer, with a sampling of the 2002 summer refresher courses available to music educators. While many of these courses are already in progress, similar ones will be offered by these same schools and organizations next year.

Bands of America Summer Symposium
www.bands.org

SURVEY: RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION METHODS

Playing Tip of the Month

School music educators who submit their Playing Tips to School Band and Orchestra online will be eligible to win an embroidered SBO polo shirt. To enter, music educators can register their playing tips on the SBO Web site. One playing tip will be selected as the winner each month and, in addition to being awarded the prize, the winner's performance tip will be published in a subsequent issue of School Band and Orchestra magazine. Register your playing tip today!

Here's the tip from this month's winner, David Hale, Centennial High School, Franklin, Tenn.:

"Approach long tones with a specific goal in dynamic phrasing. Most long tones should actively keep the phrase alive by getting louder or softer. For younger students, this attention to phrase endings improves breath support. This type of dynamic shading may be dramatic, or may be so subtle as to be almost imperceptible. The result of this performance technique is a phrase that comes alive and leads into subsequent phrases."

The editorial staff at School Band and Orchestra would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the directors who submitted their playing tips throughout December and January. Please continue to visit our Web site for important information for school band and orchestra directors.

Long Tones and Dynamic Phrasing