An Attitude Shift

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." - Thomas Jefferson

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” - Charles Swindoll

"It's all invented!" - Benjamin Zander

In the last 15 hours or so I've had what might be a timely breakthrough, or at least the seeds for one. As far as what any of it has to do with music, or teaching, I'll get to that later, but the answer is, "Quite a bit."

Last night around 11 or so I went to Denny's to unwind. One of my favorite ways to unwind in recent years is to go to a place with coffee and do some planning. Instead of working on academia, I work on something else. But I'm productive. Maybe that sounds strange to you, or maybe not. Regardless, I prefer that or positive conversation to "veging-out". 

When I was an Active Member of Kappa Kappa Psi, I spent that time planning or organizing something related to my office. Since I became Conditional just over a year ago, I've instead directed that energy towards my future as a music educator, or specifically a band director. For example, I've read books on inspired teaching (a couple), rehearsal techniques, running a marching band program, and running a total band program. I've brainstormed what my programs would look like, and various other things. 

Last night I decided to start tackling the development of my leadership training materials. I've already outlined the curriculum for a Leadership Camp as well as a partial curriculum for masterclasses during Summer Camps. I'm now moving into a phase with my camp planning that I'm getting more specific than just topics, schedules, etc. etc. So I wanted to start working on those things. 

After an hour of talking to a former ASU Music student (much older man than me), I finally got to work. 

I started with the most basic, Role Modeling or Leadership by Example. Eventually I got to Constructive Leadership vs. Destructive Leadership, and so on, until I eventually started on the most complex topic, and what would surely be the first and possibly most fun session: "Attitude". I'm not 100% sure how I'll accomplish this yet, but my ideal attitude session involves not just explaining something to the students, but also putting them through activities where they experience the differences for themselves and hopefully buy in, thus planting the seeds for their own attitude breakthrough and consequent revolution.

Anyway, I remember writing about how you choose your mental reactions, whether you realize it or not, and later about how everything is what you make of it, like how failure can become growth and how whether you say you can, or you can't, you're right. To be honest, I was still really brainstorming the session. I was trying to throw in some specifics, but I found I was having a difficult time with it.

Interestingly enough, I've been having a tough time with some of these concepts myself. In high school I had them down pat. When the "Bad Old Days" came in my first two years of college, I often beat myself up more because I couldn't recapture it. And lately I've been finding it difficult to control my attitude, and my mental reactions to things. It's funny because every time I think I've reclaimed everything I lost during the "Bad Old Days", I eventually find something else I haven't fixed yet. Actually, I made some progress on this after meeting Benjamin Zander at TMEA earlier this year, but it seems my efforts were not thorough enough. 

Case in point, I've been nervous about this semester all summer. And sure enough, every day this first week had multiple things associated with it that caused me great stress. I felt like I was already in the second half of the semester stress wise, and if that were the case, what did that mean for the rest of the semester? Events outside of academia have also occurred that could honestly force me to get a job and, who knows, drop out half way through to make sure we can cover rent. I don't know! But anyway, it's been a hell of a week, and starting when I got home last night my primary goal was to unwind. The a second goal came to me when, in a moment of realization, I said to myself, "I have GOT to find a way to deal with all of this stress!"

That wasn't a tangent. Stay with me!

So I was displacing stress in this case by planning for what could be my first job as the only band director in a small town. And it seems that anytime you have books spread across a table and you look concentrated on planning or doing some kind of work, people at surrounding tables, eventually, feel the need to make a comment or ask questions and pull you into a conversation. Have you noticed this? Because it seems to happen to me almost every time. Not that I mind, of course. 

Oh, and sometimes when people find out you're going to be a teacher, and specifically a band director, they feel the need to tell you what kind of teacher you should be. That's what happened last night. 

At the table next to me were two older women. The talker, let's say her name was Betty, had a pretty depressing story. She was the oldest of four sisters, and both of her parents worked, but couldn't afford everything they needed. So Betty dropped out of school in the 7th grade to work full time. She basically took care of her younger sisters, went to work, where she was paid like a migrant worker, and came home only to fight over who got to use the shower first. She didn't have her parent's support to do anything extra-curricular. Band instruments were not provided at the school she attended, and her parents essentially told her she couldn't do anything (no sports, etc) because it would cost money. So of course now she's helping to support her granddaughter to make sure she can excel. 

"So what I wanna know is, what are you gonna do about those kids? How are you gonna help the kids that can't afford it, and have no choice but to work to support their families?"

Oh boy.

So I engaged the two women, Betty in particular, in a long discussion about the challenges those students face, and what they really need to succeed. My primary argument was that what they really need is at least one teacher that actually does care about them, and encourages them to succeed, perhaps even giving them opportunities or presenting them with pathways to success. But they need a great teacher who will just invest in them personally (to the extent that professional ethics dictate, of course!). I used the movie "Freedom Writers" as an example, which they were both familiar with. 

And her friend was nodding with me the entire time. Betty also admitted that I had good points here and there. But the truth is that nothing I could say would satisfy Betty. I knew that from the start, though. I knew that she was venting her bitterness and frustration onto me as a future educator, because her educators couldn't help her. So eventually I changed courses. I dared to start down the path of talking about her directly. I almost did something really gutsy, but really great last night. 

Almost.

I disagreed with her that some kids don't have a path. I believe that every kid who is determined can find a path to whatever it is they want to do. Call me an optimist. I admitted that kids from low income families have a wider range of challenges and obstacles, but I refused to accept that it was impossible. I then started to note that there exists many paths to the future. I said, "There are plenty of people who drop out, but later get their GED and go on to college."

Betty responded, "Yeah, I got my GED. I passed all the classes in six weeks. Hell, I'm smart! I know I'm smart! The only thing I struggled with was fractions!" Ah, progress! Opportunity, perhaps?

"Well, let me ask you Betty, who takes care of your siblings now?"

"Huh, I do! I still take care of them."

Not exactly what I was looking for, but good enough.

"Wow. Okay, so at what point do your siblings become responsible for themselves? We all have to grow up and take responsibility for ourselves at some point, right?"

"Heh, when they're 50 I guess."

And that's where I stopped. I knew what to say, but honestly I was afraid of telling her the truth. So I transitioned out with something like, "Well, at some point people need to grow up and learn to take care of themselves, right? At some point you should have the freedom to not have to support them so you can do what you want to do with your life, right?"

Now of course I knew that there were probably plenty of other obstacles preventing her from continuing her education after her GED outside of her siblings. I'm sure she isn't care taking the way she was as a teenager. But who knows, she's probably still giving them money here and there. I know how it is in that kind of family.

But here is what I almost said.

I almost said, "The only person that's been holding you back since your siblings became adults is you. You proved you were smart enough to move on to college when you got your GED. As far as your siblings go, part of parenting is teaching independence, right? So if they're still holding you back, do what a loving parental figure would do and force them to become independent. It's no different from me having to teach my son to use dinnerware to feed himself, or to use the potty, it's just more emotionally complex when they're older. You could probably get financial aid, but even if you couldn't you could probably knock off a class or two at a time until you had a degree that would let you live out your dream, assuming your dream job required a degree. And all of the wisest people I've met would agree that it is never too late to be who you want to be. That the regret of not having done something at all is far greater than the regret of not having got to do it for very long. Your circumstances as a child were very tough, and I'm sorry. But now you're older, and stronger for all of that, and you have the power to do whatever you want to do with your life. And once you set your mind to achieving you dream, once you really truly commit, nothing will be able to stop you, because nothing that has ever happened in the past or present will be a good enough reason anymore for you to not live your life's purpose."

I was on the brink of giving this a shot. Because after all, what better way to sell her on me as a teacher and my strategy of investing in students to help lead them to success, than to show her how I would do that? I learned about her past, and a little bit about her life, and even if she just considered the idea for a moment, that could be some measure of success. Had I gone through with it, it probably would have met with harsh resistance, but that's not to say perhaps she wouldn't have considered it more in a few days. I don't know.

But before I took that risk, I received a text message from my wife asking me to come home. It was after 2 AM. This was the perfect reason to excuse myself and cordially part ways. 

But between planning for leadership training, and thinking about how Betty's attitude influenced the course of her life, it all must have gelled together somehow to cause me to reflect on my own attitude at the moment. 

How could I have been so blind, so stupid, this entire time as to what I myself was doing?

I have such a high stress level because I choose to. And sometimes I rationalize this because it has been largely successful. I tell people that while I don't intend on using fear to motivate, fear has been an excellent motivator for me. It's gotten worse the more successful I've been, and the longer I've been with my family and at ASU. Funny, right? You would think that after a year in which I passed the Upper Level Jury (with all A's), and took about 20 courses that resulted in 19 A's and 1 B, that I would be pretty confident in myself. But this week proved that I'm more nervous and afraid than ever in my ability to overcome the obstacles before me.

But you know, most successful people see failure as growth (sound familiar?), something not to be feared. Despite that, I fear failure because I fear letting down my family, or dealing with repaying my student loans with a minimum wage job, or that if I don't succeed my entire life will be different. Instead of living my purpose and making a positive impact on the world, I'll end up in a job that I hate, trading time for money, instead of doing what I wanted to do, what I could've done, which is to positively impact lives through the power of music and music education. I fear ending up bitter over that. 

Like Betty, I suppose.

But it's a simple matter of how I choose to perceive things, and how I choose to react to situations. After all, I have experienced first hand the difference when you treat life as though it is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it. It's all invented, anyway, right? Everything is what you make of it. So why on earth have I been inventing situations where the likely outcome is failure (even though it never happens that way)? For motivation, of course. But after this week, the first week of the semester, I just don't think it's worth that anymore. The truth is, I don't even get that excited about making awesome grades anymore. So it's not worth the stress, especially not when I could still be just as successful and motivated with a different mindset. 

I will be a better player and musician because of the Senior Recital. Playing at the high level of technical prowess and musicianship that they demand to pass will indeed require endless hours of practice. But as long as I make the decision to do what I need to do to pass, and I really commit to that, then nothing can stop me. So why be so stressed out about it?

Yes, my course work is going to be challenging and burdening this semester, and will make it more difficult than I'd like to get enough practice time from day to day. Challenging, but not impossible. Why stress about it when I know I can handle insane amounts of course work? I know, for example, that what I consider to be poor quality work usually comes back to me with a high A marked on it. I don't know why. That's just where I've gotten to now. Again, it will be challenging, but I will grow through those challenges. And as long as I commit and do what I know must be done, I will be successful. 

And granted, things beyond my total control, like the ability of some family members to help support us during all of this (or lack of that ability) could force me into a situation where it probably would be impossible to get everything done, and practice enough, and maintain healthy family relationships. That's true. But instead of being stressed, I'll just do what I can, when I can, and hope for the best. There is a newly established scholarship that is being awarded next month that I qualify for. It won't make up for the grants I didn't get, but it will get us half way there if I am awarded it. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll get another scholarship for being the principal tubist in Wind Ensemble. Who knows? If I'm lucky, my lesson student will be reliable, and if I'm lucky, my part time job teaching elementary kids about the tuba will book me for more presentations this semester. If I'm lucky, maybe Tuba Therapy will pick up an occasional paying gig. But that's all outside of my control. So I'll do what I can, when I can, to manage the financial impossibility of this semester the best I can, and just hope for the best. 

If I have to get a full time job and am unable to continue classes part way through the semester? Well, it's a possibility. But in the long run, isn't there always a path? Maybe it's not the one I intended. I certainly don't want to make Jenn wait any longer before she can live her dream. That's part of the agreement of her working, after all. We're building a life together, and if I fail, that life at least gets delayed. But even if it takes longer, it can still be done. If I give up entirely, that's my fault, and nobody else's. So I'm going to do whatever I can between my two unstable, part time jobs and hopefully a scholarship or two to get us through this semester, and other than that I'm going to do my best not to worry about it.

After all, as Dave Matthews sings in "Cry Freedom"...

"The future is no place to place your better days."

Instead of inventing scenarios where failure is the likely outcome (that doesn't create many possibilities, does it?), I need to invent scenarios where growth and development are the likely outcomes, and where I know that success is virtually guaranteed once I commit to doing what needs to be done. Feeling overworked is still an issue, but fearing failure is no longer an issue in these mind sets.

That would be a major step for me. 

And besides, how can I expect to teach students these concepts if I have not been successful with them myself? I can't. They'll never understand it if I don't, even if I once did. I have to role model the concepts.

Fear is indeed an excellent motivator. But fear can become a tyrannical force in your life. Most people fear their true potential. I don't have that issue. I fear failure. But I don't have to. Not ever again, if I so choose. There is a difference between accepting success as the only possible outcome, and underestimating what is required for success. I made that mistake the first time I attempted the Upper Level Jury, so I won't make that mistake again. 

But I'm just worn out from the fear. And from now on I'm going to do my best to be done with it. 

Thank you for following me on this little journey. Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment or discuss, but otherwise, until next time, take care!

Musically yours,

Mr. Cooper

Risky Business

There was something else that happened at the first summer camp that was really cool that I wanted to document and share. I've said before that the camp was amazing, the kids were incredible, etc. etc. And that's all true. But the first few days of camp we didn't feel so much amazing as we felt like it was a crazy storm.

A lot of great things were happening. It was obvious that the previous band director did a lot of great things. These kids had great attitudes, they were comfortable in multiple keys, solid leadership, stand out players in nearly every section, and the list goes on. The director challenged them to do even more of the things a band with pride would do. For example, to keep the band hall clean (or face clean up duties), show up early, etc. We also made examples of the students who gave up part of their breaks, either by staying late or showing up earlier, to practice what they were having trouble with. Pretty soon we witnessed this incredible environment where kids were so motivated that it was common for the entire band to be in their chairs working on parts with five minutes remaining in the break, where at the start of the week you might have had a single student, but most likely expected kids to casually waltz in with only a minute or two to go. We're not just talking about warming up, or being in the right place at the right time. This was the kind of work ethic you dream about in a band.

So a lot of great things to say. But there was one really large problem. They couldn't count.

And it was a major problem because the director didn't want to order the "band in a box" Journey show. These were arranged by our mutual friend (a very talented young arranger and composer), and with few exceptions, the rhythms are pretty true to the song, especially the melodies. Which is to say that the rhythms were very complex, and that the music might have been over their heads. So while we appreciated their enthusiasm and work ethic, even on the first day, we knew this might mean serious trouble. That night we brainstormed.

I tossed out an idea. I thought it was crazy, and I didn't know if it would work or just be a waste of time. We basically had two options - teach them to count, or teach them by rote. To me the latter option, especially for a high school group, gives me knots in my stomach. And while the obvious answer would be to break down individual rhythms in context, that failed epically all day. They needed to develop not only a sense of pulse, but review basic rhythmic values, how to count them, and how to dissect rhythms. So I went with what seemed obvious to me, but also what I felt was perhaps a crazy idea that I'd never heard of being done before. Perfectly open to rejection, I threw it out there.

What if we started training them as if we were preparing them for sight reading contest? At that time of the year you break down and learn to play rhythms every day, and each time you gradually spiral up the complexity. The camp schedule included two sectionals and two full band rehearsals a day, so theoretically we could make 4 days of progress each day of camp, the end result being 16 days, or three weeks plus a day, of rhythmic progress. After some debate, Adrian agreed that it wouldn't hurt to devote as much as 15-20 minutes to this in each sectional, and asked us to start with some pretty basic stuff, such as dotted quarter note, eighth note rhythms, and nothing tied across the bar line. The next morning we went to work.

And it was a disaster! There wasn't much syllable confusion, but rhythmic values were all over the place. Foot tapping was a new concept. Even a dotted quarter, eighth, dotted quarter, eighth rhythm was nearly impossible for them to count accurately. I had only written four lines of rhythms on the board, and we spend 20 minutes just getting through the first line, and not nailing it. The woodwind tech had even more trouble, spending 40 minutes trying to help them get it. We realized it was worse than we initially thought!

But then the woodwind tech had a breakthrough. During full band he started working with a clarinet player. She didn't know fingerings above the middle line Bb, and had little concept of basic fundamentals, both in reading music but to some extent, thing like embouchure, etc. etc. In his hour with her they covered a LOT of material. One of those things was the rhythm tree, which she was starting to grasp after about 15 minutes of the tree and applying it to rhythms. It was a natural thought to use the tree with her, because she knew nothing about rhythms, and he knew that going into the lesson. We hadn't done that in sectionals because we figured they had all been in band for at least two years, so dotted quarter eighths would've been a good starting point (wrong!). Anyway, in the afternoon sectional, he wrote a rhythm on the board, and this girl, who had just seen the rhythm three for the first time a couple of hours earlier, was the only person to figure it out.

So did we have to go all the way back to the beginning? Perhaps that's what it was going to take! Certainly my afternoon sectional saw little, if any progress, from the morning sectional in counting. Great progress in other areas, but not in that one.

That afternoon I talked to the woodwind tech. I was curious to see if he was thinking of reintroducing the rhythm tree to everyone, because I was now considering it. He said that was his plan, and I jumped on board. This way the entire wind section would get it. We told the director that's what we were going to do, and he agreed.

Wednesday morning - rhythm tree. They had all seen it before, but it was rusty. As we went deeper into subdivision, we counted a few measures worth to get the hang of values and syllables. Then we went straight into a number of rhythms, mostly involving quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes. I wasn't prepared to use dots or ties. And they were finally getting the hang of it! Foot tapping, counting, transferring it to playing, all of it. They just had to go back to the very basic concepts.

One of the tunes, "Faithfully", was easily the most troubling. The first section they could barely hold together on, but as soon as the B section hit, everyone fell apart. In the afternoon sectional we quickly warmed up, reviewed the earlier rhythm lesson with additional rhythms, worked on another tune, then hit up Faithfully. Although I knew B was the major problem, I started from the beginning. Now that they could grasp 16th note rhythms, I could make the jump to dots and ties with rhythms in context and hopefully clean up A a little to prevent them from learning it wrong any more than they had. We managed that to an extent, but quickly ran out of time when we hit B. I felt like an idiot for not just going straight to the parts that sounded the worst, like my training told me to do.

Following the afternoon full band rehearsal, The director's concern grew exponentially. Everything else was coming along but this tune, and if needed he felt he still had just enough time to drop it and switch it for the generic version of "Open Arms", which would be much easier and possible to get somewhat performance ready by Friday. At one point he said, "I'm such an idiot! I can't even count some of these rhythms!" (which of course meant that he had to work at it with syllables, not that he couldn't do it). But I saw the progress they were making after seeing the rhythm tree. I knew that all they needed was to make the jump to dots and ties, and they could get it. They were SO CLOSE! I pleaded for more time, and we all agreed that they would be devastated if he pulled the tune after working so hard at it. So he gave us an ultimatum. They had to get it by the end of the night. He would cancel marching rehearsal to give us one more sectional and full band rehearsal. If we didn't get it done by then, he felt he was going to have to cut the tune.

So I put my war paint on. I couldn't relax all through the dinner break. I didn't know if I could pull this off, but  we were all going to give it hell, by God!

I got to the board 45 minutes early and started writing out every complicated rhythm on the board, starting in the B section, going to the end, then back to the beginning up to B. My plan was to have everyone in the group break down and count every single rhythm, play every single rhythm, and then have the section that actually had the rhythm put it into context. There must have been something like 13 of those bad boys. After our warm up we got straight to work.

It was like diffusing a bomb with numerous lives on the line, where the clock was ticking, and throughout the whole ordeal you were just screaming for more time.

They knew what was on the line, so all of us were on our A game. Even so, it was still often just beyond their reach when we looked at every new rhythm. For roughly an hour they plugged through one rhythm after another. Everyone could understand, count and play them on a Bb (even the tubas!), and significant progress was being made. We managed to hold together through the B section, and we managed to hit up a couple of the rhythms from the A section before running out of time, but when I looked at what was left I felt mortified. Like a failure.

We probably only made it through 9 rhythms.

I sent them off on break, forcing some of them, so that they could rest their mushy brains. Then I went outside, found a corner, and tried to fight back tears of frustration. I had worked so hard, and they were giving me everything they had, but I just couldn't do it!

After a few minutes I calmed down a little. They were starting to grasp the rhythms. We made it through the B section. There was still a chance they could make it the rest of the way after another 45 minutes with the director. Maybe we had done enough. "Don't lose faith in them, Chris!" I said to myself, "They might still pull this off!"

So I went back inside. I quietly went around to the brass players, fielding questions and fixing problems. But I never gave them the answers. I helped them break it down, just like in sectionals. The director allowed me to do this and occasionally worked with a different group while I did. They were working so hard, you could just feel the brain sweat pouring out and pooling on the floor! But yes, they were struggling, but they were understanding.

At some point, someone (not me) remembered that one of the main tricks to teaching rhythms with tied notes across the bar line is to simply remove the tie, have them count it, remind them of what happens when you add the tie in, and have them count it, and if needed, switch back and forth, with and without the tie, until accuracy occurs. What a great trick.

By the end of rehearsal the band made it through the tune, from beginning to end. It wasn't beautiful, but they made it, with the right notes, and most of the right rhythms. We met the goal!

But I still felt horrible. Like a failure. And then I realized something.

At approximately 8:20 AM, we started with the Rhythm Tree! The Rhythm Tree!!!

When we considered implementing remedial rhythm work, we all agreed that they probably wouldn't start to really understand the rhythms in their music until a week or two afterwards. In fact, I compromised and agreed to teach by rote in some cases until we reached a point that they could look at the rhythms and really understand what was going on, and why it was the way it was. But after rhythm disasters on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday we went from the beginning (rhythm tree!!) to some of the most complex eighth note/sixteenth note rhythms you'll find in a 4/4 meter. They knew just enough, were just hard working enough, and just smart enough, that they grasped it all in a day. And we helped them get there.

So actually, at that point, I started to feel pretty great!

Thursday I formally introduced dots and ties in our afternoon rhythm workshop, but after making the jump during rehearsal the previous night, all the sudden it wasn't so bad for them. It took a few tries, but they were understanding and breaking it down with great success. By the afternoon band rehearsal, when they played "Faithfully", they were nailing not just the notes and rhythms, but gelling with ensemble sound and making the jump to style and musicality. In fact, I thought the last time they did it that afternoon that, with maybe two exceptions, it sounded gorgeous. They were excited about it. Why they had every right to be! What an accomplishment!

Two weeks after their camp, at their debut concert, it sounded amazing. Their intonation became the biggest weakness once rhythm was addressed, and they've obviously turned that into a strength in the two weeks I was away. But rhythms? Pssshh. Those rhythms were locked in tight. It was the kind of cleanliness that only occurs when every student has a sense of pulse and understands how to play correct rhythms. They didn't learn it by rote. They knew exactly where to place those notes. And it sounded amazing! Not just on that song, mind you. The rest of their music dramatically improved as well once they gained more counting confidence. They're going to knock people out! I was so proud of them, and excited for them. Not only that, but now that they're on the same page as the director in regards to discussing rhythms, it will be so much easier for him to communicate anything that is going wrong.

So this crazy idea of remedial rhythm workshops within sectionals actually worked out, especially once we figured out that we needed to start all the way back at the rhythm tree, and that the key to teaching tied rhythms is to remove the tie first.

It makes me feel much more confident in some other ideas I've had for camps. I've actually considered in the past that devoting an hour a day for two days over the course of camp to dust off their rhythm skills with a review and working up to some rhythms that were a little more advanced than anything in our show or stand tunes would not be time wasted. I've also had ideas for other masterclass kinds of things, with the goal being to create highly knowledgeable students. The master classes would all need to be interactive in some way. I've only seen one band director dedicate a time outside of sectionals for "Masterclass". I don't know how well it worked out for him, but he also left that time up to the techs. Mine would be more structured and have specific learning objectives.

But I've always wondered if it would work, if it could be done. It seems unorthodox. But anyway, perhaps I'll write about that another time. Perhaps after I've tried it out. But this experience made me feel like, yes, it could work.

And the experience as a whole was incredible. And the kids were so grateful to learn how to do it, including those that were slow to hop on and participate. They felt so accomplished, so much better as musicians! And the truth is that they did grow quite a bit in a very short time. It was all very highly rewarding!

So anyway, I didn't have anything to propose, or questions to ask with this blog. I really just wanted to document what happened there so I'll have it. But if anyone has any thoughts, questions, or comments, please have at it!

Thank you for reading! And until next time, take care!

Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper

A Breakthrough on Friday

Friday was one of those days where my excitement level shot through the roof. In a private lesson with a student I helped her achieve not only a major breakthrough in her playing, but perhaps personally as well! It was one of those eye opening experiences where you are reminded of the power music has to positively change lives.

We'll say her name is Susie. But I'm getting ahead of myself just a little bit.

As mentioned in a previous entry, I've been taking the time to pull about a student a day from the full band rehearsals at the camp I'm working for private lessons. I started with the weakest students and gradually worked my way up. Most of what I dealt with were theory things: note names, understanding key signatures, chromatic finger pattern, figuring out fingerings, etc. etc. The last couple of days I worked with stronger students. When the director decided that he might give the band Friday off until picture and performance time, I realized I might not get to work with a couple of the students who had asked for help. On Wednesday I managed to get through two students, but that still left one who really wanted a lesson, and two tubists who were improving in their sound production through our sectional time, but still needed additional help in that regard. I wanted to pull at least two of them on Thursday, but decided since it was their last rehearsal before Friday's concert that they needed to be in the band. Instead I offered each of them a time to meet me on Friday, since there were no rehearsals. All three students eagerly agreed to show up.

Susie, a trombonist, was the first, and as it turns out, the only one I worked with Friday.

On her music bio she basically wrote that she wanted help with everything. Rather than a simple line, it was a paragraph of bullets. The thing is, she was one of the strongest brass players. She had good playing technique for a freshman. But she was also very hard on herself, which I later explained to her is both good and bad. Good that she can recognize and wants to fix what isn't going well, but bad because she wasn't giving herself credit for good things she was doing.

I then discovered that she wasn't even hearing the good things!

She confirmed my suspicion that she suffers from low self esteem, which carries into her perception of her playing, despite making the All-Region Band twice. I knew that to help her have a breakthrough in her playing, I also had to start planting seeds for her confidence and a better self-image.

Since we had done enough breathing in sectionals and had so many things to cover, we went straight to long tones and a discussion about warming up. She was blown away by this information because their previous teacher never really discussed what to do when warming up, and had never given them warm up exercises for individual use. She said she never really knew what to do when practicing. So I gave her the elements of a very, very basic warm up. Stretching, breathing, buzzing (we did a couple of exercises there), long tones, lip flexibility (which I pointed out was part of her band warm up), articulation and scales. I got her to a point where she was playing with a great sound on her long tones... but she couldn't recognize it!

Remember when I previously discussed how the entire brass section seemed unable to get excited about doing something great? It was like that, but worse. Even when she did something great, all she could hear was the one note she missed, or the hardly noticeable wavering of pitch on the last note, etc. etc. She couldn't recognize the tremendous progress!

Of course I asked her time and again, "Yes, there was that, but don't you think it sounded a lot better that time?" She often agreed, though timidly, and there were times when I didn't ask, but said, "Wow, that sounded so much better!" To which she often responded, "It did?"

So we had a talk. I talked to her about how the brain is hard wired for success, whether you succeed in playing poorly or playing well, doing something or failing at something, if you believe either one, you will succeed in that outcome. I talked to her about rewording her internal dialog so that instead of saying things like, "That was really bad" she could say "That wasn't as good as I want it to be." or "I can make that better". I talked to her about recognizing and appreciating progress, that while you should never be content with where you're at, you should be proud of any progress that you've made, because after all there is no limit to how good we can make a piece of music.

But in spite of her progress, she still didn't like her sound. I'd told her in the first week that she had a good sound, that trombones were supposed to sound that way, but it was as if she didn't believe me. So we went into the office and the director pulled up a video of Joe Alesi performing "Blue Bells of Scotland".

Given she wanted to discuss so much, I had scheduled her for an hour and a half. That ended up being a good decision.

So after she captured the actual timbre of trombone in her mind's ear, we went back to long tones. We also had to grease up her slide. It was sticking so bad that she couldn't play notes in time. Once that was fixed, she had less to feel bad about in terms of her playing. Okay, what else?

So she got to a point that she was feeling pretty good about her sound. She thought it could still be better, and I explained that she was right, but that it would take some time, with the promise that if she used long tones 4-5 times a week and pushed herself on the exercise, then her sound would continue to improve, and she would notice a major difference in the next couple of weeks and beyond. But we finally got to move on.

We did a very simple articulation exercise. I drew a diagram of what the tongue should be doing in the mouth, and we used quarter note wind patterns so she could practice a relaxed, light, but quick tongue action. She quickly caught on, and picked up her trombone and used a very nice, legato articulation. Then when I demanded she do it with the same sound she had on long tones, she did that as well. Articulations were another very frustrating point for her in her playing, and when she heard herself she finally felt a jolt of excitement!

My second student hadn't shown up yet, so I decided to apply these things to some of her music. She was game. So we pulled up her opening solo from the ballad. It's just three bars quoting the melody, but it was perfect for the exercise.

So I just let her have at it. Her inhalation was good, and I only had to occasionally remind her to keep her shoulders relaxed. Her articulations were awesome. But her sound was not (though better than usual). So we went to the part of the long tones that goes through that range of the instrument to recapture that sound. She played the solo again, this time significantly improved. But she wasn't happy! Too many small mistakes, not enough progress. Which was fine by me once she at least recognized the better sound. From there I had her play, buzz, and play again. Much better (of course). She noticed that whenever I had the brass section play, buzz, and play, it always sounded a lot better, so I explained why that happens, and that she should always feel free to use that trick.

There were still a couple of small issues left, but we eliminated those as well, and suddenly she sounded like an All-Area trombonist, if not something close to an All-Stater!

And this time, I didn't have to tell her how good she sounded.

Her face lit up, her eyes beamed, and her voice raised in pitch, in fact her entire body was bouncing in excitement! She was going giddily on and on about how much better she sounded and how happy she was. When she later went to put her instrument away, she practically hopped over to her case! It took two hours (though admittedly at a somewhat casual pace), but the transformation and the break through was totally worth it. In two weeks I had never seen more than a forced grin from her, and a single genuine grin from her boyfriend when I helped him with his solo the day before. Now, finally, she was filled with musical excitement and accomplishment!

If I could change one thing about that lesson, I would've liked to have done the same work in probably half the time. But it really wasn't because I didn't know what to do to help her. I made one right step after another. It was in part because of our attitude talk, in part because I was explaining too thoroughly, perhaps, in part because of the Joe Alesi video, and in part because of the time she took to grease her slide. But all in all, I don't regret the lesson. Guiding her through that playing transformation and hopefully a small personal transformation was indeed well worth the time and effort. My pacing could've been better. It's always worse in lessons than in ensemble rehearsals because I want to take some time to explain what's going on so that their understanding reinforces their concept of how it's physically done. But anyway...

THIS is the power of music education. I later reminded myself that band programs have the power to achieve that on a large scale, and then let myself dwell in the possibilities.

Through our programs, we have the power to transform lives.

We can create a safe and supportive atmosphere in which individual students with low self-esteem eventually feel comfortable enough to come out of their shell, be themselves, and open up to fellow students about the issues they're going through at home or otherwise.

We can use music to help them feel a high level of achievement. This is something they can become good at, and be proud of, and feel good about. The feeling of reward that comes from hard work paying off through inspired musical performances and thrilled audiences.

We can also use music and the mission of music as a whole to make them feel like they're part of something greater than themselves. To give them a sense of purpose. We're not just playing music for ratings or trophies. We're thrilling audiences, but more than that, we're delivering the deep personal messages of the composers and of the cultures/people from which the music originates. In this way, we can also challenge them intellectually to grow.

And we can take the opportunity from time to time to spread attitude concepts about self-esteem, time management, and the slew of other things that will help them grow into happy, healthy human beings.

That is the real mission. To use the power of music to change lives. We have the chance to not only change their lives, but perhaps if our performances are exciting enough, to perhaps get a few more audience members interested in the genre as well. After all, as Benjamin Zander argues, Classical music is for everybody.

So am I on the right track, or just crazy? I know we can't save them all. We can't radically change everyone, but even a few would be remarkable, don't you think? And you can't tell me that if we're providing that kind of quality educational and musical experience mixed with a supportive atmosphere and a dash of life coaching, that we wouldn't have a significant positive impact. Feel free to leave your thoughts!

Thank you for reading and sharing this journey with me. Until next time, take care!

Musically yours,
Mr. Cooper