The Benefits of Clinicians

Watching a clinician at work
is like seeing a skilled surgeon
in action. It's awesome.

The term "clinic" is so appropriate to band for what it is. You bring in an expert to diagnose the
problems your band is having, prescribe solutions, and set your band on the path to healthy playing and ensemble skills. Kids love working with a guest conductor, but I think I gain as least as much out of it as the students do (if not more). It's hard to believe that anyone out there would not bring in guests to work with their band, but I assume that happens because almost every time I go to a convention there is at least one session on the benefits of clinicians. People compliment the job I'm doing pretty regularly, but even so I feel like I owe so much of that success to the expert teachers that we bring in to work with the students. For me, the more clinicians the better. And when you find a good clinician, your band will experience explosive growth in just one rehearsal! So why does it work that way? What are the benefits to you and your students? And if you've never used a clinician, how do you find one?

Motivate Students by Creating Structure

I'll be honest, motivation is something I'm still working on. I feel for the teachers who teach required classes because I myself teach elementary music, and 5th and 6th grade band is required (all of which I do on my own in addition to the HS band). Luckily I've done well with motivating all of the groups except for those required band classes. The Band is on a roll right now, having made incredible progress this year and having had some success at contests. The students are proud of themselves, and they're also getting great positive feedback from their fellow students, the faculty, and members of the community. It took a lot of hard work from everyone involved since August 1st, and often it felt like a struggle, both for me and them. Reflecting on these experiences, especially with the HS Band, I've thought of a few of the things that have led to successfully motivating the students throughout the year.

Three More Tips to Make Your Next Concert a Hit

When I grow up, I want to play on a
stage with that cool of a backdrop!

Greetings! Last time I shared three things we did (outside of rehearsal) to make our recent concert a hit. But there was still a few other things I wanted to share, so here we go with part two!

Keep Dead Time to a Minimum

If there's one thing that kills momentum, it's the time it takes for one band to leave the stage while another one sets up and gets ready to go. Find ways to keep this dead time to a minimum.

Three Tips to Make Your Next Concert a Hit

I recently survived my first winter concert, and I'm happy to report it was a smashing success. I'm in the of

These gentlemen understood how to put
on a classy performance!

rebuilding a program, and winter concerts in previous years were not taken very seriously. Students were allowed to dress casually and wear Santa hats on stage. The audience, from what I'm told, talked during the music. Kids and parents of younger bands left after their kids performed, leaving hardly an audience by the time the high school band took the stage.

My vision of a winter concert was completely different. In this small town, the high school band is as close to a professional symphony orchestra as they'll probably ever have. I wanted a concert with quality musical programming and an elegant presentation, or at least presented to the best of our ability. I poured a ton of energy into the presentation as well as the music, and it definitely contributed to the concert's success. Here are some of the things we did that you might be able to use, if you're not already doing them:

How to Organize a Music Library

Hello again!

You're probably not looking for a summer project, but if your music library isn't well organized, it would be a project well worth your time. Last time I talked about the four steps to organize any space, and in this blog we're going to apply those steps to the music library.

Have you ever needed or wanted to find a piece of music and found you had to go digging around in cabinets where pieces were not kept in a particular order, or that you had to go digging around in piles of music that were not yet organized? I have even seen libraries and offices where sheet music lay strewn about on the floor!

Hey, I'm not making any judgments here. What I am saying is that your time is valuable, and our goal is always to push ourselves to accomplish more for the program in the same amount of time. If your library isn't well organized, then this is something that is no doubt eating up your time. Perhaps you've even had to pause class because someone was missing a part, and then you either had to go find it or send a student to go find it (while other teachers have procedures to do these things outside of class, in either case somebody isn't playing for a while).

The bottom line is this - having a well organized music library will save you time. Not only that, but it will contribute to a clutter free environment, which not only helps your students to have more respect for the program, but it also reduces your stress level!

Four Steps to Organize Any Space

Hello again!

Do you need to organize?

One of the great challenges of managing any program, like a band for example, is keepings things organized. One of the gentlemen I met this past semester, who goes around and sees many band halls, said to me, "The only time your office will be organized is on the first day, and after that...."

Indeed, particularly when you walk into a situation where things are a giant mess, it is difficult and time consuming to sort through it all and get it organized. Even after it's organized comes the challenge of keeping it organized. I understand.

My wife and I live in a small apartment, and at one point we had way more things than we had space for. We still do. But at a certain point I was getting stressed from the clutter. So I went out and bought a book, as I always do. This one was called Organizing for Dummies. This book will tell you how to organize everything, from your work desk to your desk top to your time, to any space you can imagine. I got to work, and one space at a time, day by day, the apartment transformed.