Uniforms

Brandon Valley Band’s Web Site – Where Form Meets Function

Guest Clinicians: Inviting a Clinician into Your Ensemble

By Amy M. Knopps

Preparing for a major performance is a stressful time in the lives of many music educators; it is, however, an ideal time to invite a guest clinician to work with your ensemble. It is a point in the year when students are the most focused, playing their best, and working the hardest toward a common goal: an outstanding concert.

A clinic session for your ensemble can be very rewarding. Proper planning on your part can make a clinic even more satisfying for your ensemble, for you as a music educator and for the guest clinician. This article provides a step-by-step approach to making a guest clinician experience both valuable and productive for you and your students.

Benefits of Working with a Guest Clinician

The Best and Worst Job in Public Education

By D.L. Johnson

This is kind of a tough topic to cover. I know most educators will say they have the best and worst job in public education. However, there is nothing similar in education to the trials music educators face. The extremes in "highs and lows" that high school band and orchestra directors experience day by day would challenge even the best of educators. Ask yourself: how many classroom teachers are required to put their classes up in front of the general public (performances) and be judged directly by colleagues and parents as to whether they meet the subject standards, or for that matter, are a good or bad teacher? This has a direct impact on the longevity of music educators in the profession. I have heard the average high school band director lasts as little as four years in the profession before getting out. (I believe the longevity of school superintendents is just about the same.)

This summer, I attended the final concert night of the Monterey Jazz Festival Summer Jazz Camp. As we watched seven complete jazz bands perform their hearts out to an ecstatic standing-room-only audience, one thing prevailed over the entire auditorium - "Smiling Parents." It was the same jubilation I had seen and heard over and over at the many concerts I had conducted or performed throughout my teaching career. I know many of you know what I am talking about.

As the concert proceeded, I wondered how many parents knew the incredible sacrifices the directors of these fine young musicians had gone through just to get their child into a camp like this. Just how many of those parents knew the real battles each and every high school and middle school band and orchestra director was going through nowadays? Battles faced every day by directors throughout the education world. Battles not even conceived of by regular classroom teachers. The teaching of music has changed. There were other band directors at that jazz concert. I know they were getting one of the few rewards we get as directors - "A tremendous sense of accomplishment."

Because I Said So’

UpClose: The Gift of Attention

By Joseph Alsobrook

The following is an excerpt from the book. Pathways: A Guide for Energizing & Enriching Band, Orchestra, & Choral Programs by Joseph Alsobrook G-5641(Chicago: GIA Publications, 2002), 30-54. Used with permission. www.giamusic.com. (800) 442-1358.

All students long to be noticed. In fact, 100% of 22,000 teachers polled in a survey given by the Carnegie Foundation described their students as "emotionally needy and starved for attention and affection."16 This speaks for itself and emphasizes the need to take (make!) the time to help each student feel valued and important in positive ways. In The Joy of Inspired Teaching, Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser illuminates this point:

George N. Parks

In the first grade, he revealed his earliest tendencies toward a career as a marching band director: he conducted the woodblock band.

By ninth grade, he’d decided he wanted to pursue a career as a band director and, soon after, began his training as the drum major of his high school band. As a member of the Reading Buccaneers in Pennsylvania, he served as drum major for 13 of his 14 years with the drum and bugle corps. And for the past 27 years, George N. Parks has been at the helm of the 300-member Minuteman Marching Band at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

It seems that directing bands runs in his family.

UpClose: Overcoming “Non-Musical” Challenges A Chat With Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser

SBOSurvey: Fundraising

SBOSurvey: Fundraising

All music educators want the best for their program and their students, but very few are lucky enough to easily achieve all their goals without augmenting the "official" school budget.

To incorporate more ambitious elements, such as travel, into an overall curriculum - as well as addressing the more fundamental needs of music education (instruments, uniforms, equipment) - most directors turn to fundraising efforts to bring more revenue to the program.

SBO recently asked our readers to provide some feedback on what fundraising strategies have proven to be most successful and what role, in general, fundraising plays in supporting the efforts of the student musicians in their schools.

What types of fundraising have been most successful for your program?