What Makes Teaching Music Worthwhile

I’ve been a public school teacher for 13 years, and 3 years before that, I served as an instructor on the staff of a community youth band. In that time, I have taught full-time in 4 school districts, taught in 2 different states, and taught part-time in an additional district. I also worked with that youth band for 10 years. I’ve taught in rural schools, high-achieving suburban schools, struggling metro schools, and with the youth band taught kids from all of these demographics. In all of those varied experiences, there is one great constant between all of them.

Fantastic human beings.

Music teachers get a special privilege that other subject area teachers often do not receive. We get to work with students over the long haul. I get to watch students come into my program in middle school and work with them directly as they grow up before my eyes. I get to have a small part in their long-term growth. And now, thanks to social media, I even get to see their milestones as young adults.

When I think of Muncy Junior/Senior High School, my first teaching job, I don’t think about what happened there, I think about Mary, Mark, Clayton, Alyson, Brianne, Becky, Kristi, and other students with whom I shared some great days in the band room and on a school bus.

When I think of Lindenwold High School in New Jersey, I think of Tyler, Mark, Matt, Andy, and others who played in Jazz Improvisation class and for a short time became LHS’s musical ambassadors.

And at my current school, I think of Paula, Sarah, Chloe, Julianna, Joy, Liz, Katia, Ben, and quite a few more memorable characters who help make the Center for Performing and Fine Arts the unique and special place that it is.

I pray that political bureaucracy doesn’t take away the opportunity for more young people to make a long-term relationship with their music teachers in the days to come. Public school music education is in danger in many states of being outsourced to private institutions or discontinued completely. It’s time for adults who value the experiences they had as a child in scholastic performing ensembles to speak to their elected representatives and insist on funding for public education.

It’s time for music educators to continue to uphold the traditions of our scholastic performing ensembles while taking a step into the future by giving students opportunities to become independent musicians capable of creating their own music rather than just play an ensemble part. Music education is marginalized in part because only our “best and brightest” (less than 1% of the total student population) go on to a lifelong active music performance or teaching adulthood.

Music-making has always been a social endeavor. People bond, grow, and build together by performing and creating music. I hope that all stakeholders in music education will not go quietly and allow music making to be cut from their communities.

Thanks goes to Thomas J. West Music for letting us use his blog!

Thomas J. West is an active music educator, composer, adjudicator, clinician, and award-winning blogger.
thomasjwestmusic.com

Marching Band: Flexibility Is the Name of the Game!

By Alfred Author Victor López

Given today’s stressful life for typical high school students, band directors must take into consideration the rigor of academic demands and jam‐packed extracurricular schedules that students have to juggle (and still be able to have a life!). This can be a tremendous challenge for adolescents. In today’s society, high school diplomas are no longer sufficient, and students understand that a college degree is of the utmost importance. Therefore, getting into college becomes the priority.

The “school schedule revolves around the band” mentality is long gone. Expectations at the high school level and college level have increased, and the global competition has not made it any easier. Balancing the curricular demands and extracurricular activities has never been easy. It can take a toll on the young students both physically and mentally, not to mention the self‐imposed pressures teens are under. And although many would challenge the thought of calling band programs extracurricular, the marching band program, indeed, is definitely beyond the scope of all other music programs and involves many extracurricular activities. If the band is involved in marching competitions, the many hours of preparation that it takes in order to have an effective performance can take its toll on the students (and the parents!).

The stress level and balancing act can also be said of the directors themselves. The current economic climate is making things worse as arts programs continue to face cuts, and band directors are being asked to take on more and more responsibilities. Recently, many school districts have taken away the marching band supplement, violating contractual agreements between school districts and teachers’ unions.

Some thoughts on how to ease the situation:
1) We must keep in mind that it is all about the teaching and learning of music. If some students become professional musicians or end up working in the music industry, that is great! However, we should strive to make them good consumers of music.

2) Students have to realize that they cannot participate in everything. On the other hand, with some flexibility and planning, they may be given an alternate schedule that allows them to participate in various activities, including music learning.

3) Students are being stretched from all angles; consequently, long, prolonged rehearsals are tiresome, and after the attention span wears out, band directors find themselves kicking a dead horse. Short and focused rehearsals will do the trick. The more rested the students are, the better they will perform.

4) Schools must coordinate the amount of home learning with other activities at the school. Assigning three to four hours of homework on back‐to‐school nights is not good planning.

5) Based on the school/district calendar, school site administrators and band directors should agree on an adequate number of performance events for the entire school calendar year. Why? You may ask, because it is all about the teaching and learning of music. Recently, due to reduced school budgets, transportation to football games and other community activities have been drastically reduced. Consequently, many band directors see this as an opportunity to enhance the competitive mode of their program. That has translated to participating in fewer school‐sponsored activities and partaking in more marching band competitions. This often is not beneficial to the program as it adds more stress to student participants, making it tougher to get the community to sponsor a band that they never see.

In conclusion, most band directors know that the better the band becomes, the more demand for performances. The more performances, the more stress for students and the director. We all know that the marching band has educational values, which make it highly worthwhile. Additionally, we also know that there are many non‐musical benefits of competitive marching bands (Rogers, 1982). This article is not about doing away with competitions but rather focuses on the number of competitions and activities, and the well being of students, which should be a priority for all educators.

For a Better Ensemble, Give Your Attention to the Individual Student

Music ensembles in public schools are formed of students with varying degrees of musical ability and accomplishments. The ensemble, whether it be Concert Band, Orchestra, Jazz Band, Marching Band or small groups of like or unlike instruments, as the saying goes, is only as good as the weakest performer. Let’s think about individual performers and methods to improve the performance of each member of the ensemble.

Most schools offer instrumental music lessons in small groups of like instruments. It is possible for students to get “lost” in these groups and need individual attention, especially at the beginning level. You, the teacher, are completely scheduled and this individual attention is impossible in your availability. What do you do next?

Consider a “Buddy” Teacher, an older student playing the same instrument well, who can help the young student with basic musical problems (counting, fingerings, tone production, stickings for percussionists, etc.). Prepare the older student in basic teaching approaches and briefly view the two together during the first “lesson” to insure that the combination will work. This will be effective in two ways – for the older student who will take pride in helping another with his or her “expertise;” and the younger student who will look up to his “buddy teacher.”

On a broad basis, try a solo and ensemble requirement of every student in your program that will help all become better musicians. One teacher I observed had such a program and it was very successful. Each student had to perform in two recitals each school year, on one recital as a soloist and the other as part of an ensemble. The recitals were held in the school auditorium, sometimes in the evening after school hours or held during the regular daytime instrumental lesson classes. The performance materials were compatible to their ability and the older students were instructed to memorize their solo performance. Young students were given songs or exercises from their lesson books and performed them in class as a solo generally standing in front of the class.

Give each student in your program “individual” attention to their “individual” needs. Sounds tough for you? Probably, but it will make your ensembles better.

Hold On to the Marching Band

By Victor López,
Alfred Marching Band Composer

For many years I often heard band directors argue whether or not there was a real need for a marching band in their music program. They argued about the amount of time that it took to prepare for performances, the amount of money needed to fund the program, and whether or not the ensemble had any musical value. Some went as far as becoming advocates to convince band parents and school principals to do away with the marching band program at their school. This obviously was a no-brainer for administrators who were looking to cut liabilities, funding, and conflict in class schedules. They certainly welcomed the idea.

Eliminating the marching band is actually eliminating a very important marketing tool for your music program. In many instances, those who succeeded in doing away with the marching band soon experienced the negative impact of such programmatic change. They then wondered why their music programs were dwindling in student numbers, and why they were being asked to teach non-music classes.

As school budgets shrink, it is of the utmost importance that we keep our music programs alive by becoming creative and making certain that ensembles which give us the most visibility are not dismantled. That may take some sacrifice, but ultimately it will pay off. There is a unique and exciting aspect to marching band which young people seldom find available to them elsewhere. They develop a sense for community and responsibility, which are qualities needed for their adult life. The recognition and exposure from participating in the program is immense. Think of the amount of people who really attend school concerts or music festivals, as opposed to watching the marching band at football games, parades and other community functions. Yes, besides marketing your program, the marching band is prime visible evidence.

A former principal once told me, “the marching band is a shining window in this building and I keep it clean.” That says it all. So… HOLD ON TO THE MARCHING BAND!

Classical Music for Marching Band?

By Patrick Roszell
Alfred Marching Band Writer

Some purists in the band world just rolled their eyes so far back in their heads that we heard a collective thud. A few of my former teachers would argue that the only place for “The Classics” are symphony hall or in the symphonic band/wind ensemble literature. However, a point made to me many times by my first arranging and composition teacher, who incidentally, was a classically trained oboist with degrees from the Eastman School of Music, was that more people see marching bands in the course of their lives than they will ever see a symphony orchestra, a wind ensemble or a symphonic band.

We live in a culture that loves football! Both of my alma maters, the Jacksonville State University Marching Southerners and the Troy University Sound of the South, have very fine marching programs. Each group has membership well over 300 and both perform for hundreds of thousands of people each fall either at football games or at marching band contests as the exhibition band. If one of these ensembles played Carmina Burana (both have) or A New World Symphony by Dvořák, how many people would hear these spectacular pieces for the first time and realize they like something they had never heard before?

If we are to truly educate our audience as well as entertain them, doesn’t classical music make sense for the marching field?