Advocacy

Music needs to be a part of every child's life. It can help raise student confidence levels. Music has the potential to help students learn teamwork as well as some communication skills. Music can helps students achieve higher grades. Music is a great tool to help other subject learn concert. Having a music program is a great way to keep the arts alive in the community. Any of the music programs can play at any of the community events. Whether it be a dinner party or play some music at a school board meeting. The band plays at all the sports games. The band can also play in all the parades. The community can always attend any of the music programs concert. In the spring the High School Music programs will be participating in music festival, where each group would be adjudicated and the community is welcome to come and support. Music is important class that can help students later in their career paths.

Festival

On April 20th I observed the Willow Creek/ Harrison band’s performance at music festival. The group performed for Jay Smith and Rob Wells. They played in the Willson School gymnasium, which has at least a 4 second reverberation. Because of this the bands sounded very muddy. The band played Willow Creek Overture for their first number, which was conducted by Sandy Mabbit, the Harrison High School band director. Her stand was so high her arms were conducting at head level. The next piece was Brandenburg March which was conducted by Bill Frank of Willow Creek. Because of limited instrumentation,the band used alto saxes to double trumpet parts. The group sounded very good, but the gym caused the group to lack clarity. Jay Smith worked with the band. He talked more about the acoustics of the gym and constantly asked the students if they liked band instead of working with the group. The sight reading portion of the performance went very quickly in an effort to get groups back on schedule as they were running about 25 minutes behind.

Warm up

On Monday March 19th I did my teaching episode on “Warming up the Band”. First the activity that the band did was talk about spring break. Then Kelly Berdahl introduced myself as well as Karen. I went up to the podium and had the students start with a Bb Concert scale. Next, I had the student break into a round low voices were group one, group two was the alto voices of the band, and finally the soprano instruments. I told the band “lets do a Bb concert scale in quarter notes”... I confused them. I wanted them to do four quarter notes on one-note, they however, took it as each note geta a one quarter. I replied back at them, “Ha, I tricked you, I wanted to see if you were paying attention.” they laughed and then we played the scale the way that I originally wanted too. I attempted “POP” a warm up that make the band keep a steady pulse to all come in. Once I was finished Mr. Berdahl took the band back and they worked on Harry Potter.

Tone

Tone is important in an ensemble because having a good tone is essential if the ensemble is to sound good. In order to have a good tone an ensemble needs to learn how to breath as one. Having the ensemble breath together, also helps the group to feel the phrases. In addition, having good tone will contribute to having a good balance between sections. The pyramid of sound is the best way to achieve this balance. Lastly the ensemble should listen to recording of themselves as well as other musicians. Having a good concept of what they sound like will allow them to compare themselves to other musicians in a productive manner.

Elem Band

On April 2nd I observed Jennifer Murphy’s fifth grade band. I found it interesting that she used “Band in a Box” and had a small giggle about it because I had not considered using it with such a young group. I will probably give it a try now if I have the software in my classroom. The orchestra at Irving had about 13 cellos who meet the music room at the same time that 5th grade bands meets. Because of this, Mrs. Murphy has fifth grade band on the third floor in a regular classroom. I thought that this could hinder the learning process, because of space issues. The band seemed pretty good for being fifth graders. The music that they played was for their fifth grade band festival. One of the pieces that they worked on was Reglaial March from the Standard of Excellence Book. I had worked on this piece with students who participated in Arts without Boundaries; it is challenging for fifth graders because it features 1st and 2nd endings. However, the band handled the endings very well. The last 5 minutes of class were spent making announcements about the upcoming festival.

Jazz

On March 29th I observed the second jazz band at Bozeman High School with Steve Merriman. It was a weird day because they were missing most of the brass section due to a band tour. Most of the rehearsal was spent on doing repetitions on the harder spots in their music. I found it interesting that this jazz band had two trumpets and they were louder than the three in Studio Jazz. I had my jazz band class later that day and we talked about it . As a result we played louder. Mr Merriman played his horn with the students in order to help keep them together. The band sounded pretty good despite their missing players. One thing that I really liked was how Mr. Merriman used analogies; most of them were about weightlifting with repetitions.

Orchestra

On March 22, I observed the 12:55 Orchestra with Michael Certalic. The first task for the class was to play through and work on an etude. Mr. Certalic had the ensemble play through the etude while he was getting his violin out. The second time though the etude, he had the students work one section at a time doing different styles of bowing. He would demonstrate and then have the students imitate. Next they played Barber of Seville. It was an easier arrangement that they used for sight reading practice. The students did really well on it. They ended the class by playing an easy arrangement of Scheherazade which sounded similar to the original.

Band Ob.

On February 27, I observed the Advanced Band at Bozeman High Band with Kelly Berdahl. This rehearsal was on a Monday and he took about 7 minutes to ask the students what they did on the weekend; he also took this time to make announcements. The band then started with their warm ups. It was based upon the concert Bb scale. The first time though everyone played in unison. The second time though, they played in a round. In the round they started in whole notes, the second time through the round they used four quarter notes instead of whole notes. /For the last portion of the warm up period, they played a warm up called “POP”. During the warm up I really liked the fact that all the percussionist played the scales on the keyboard instruments. The repertoire that they played was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The main goal of that part of the rehearsal was to figure out what parts of the music to cut for time.

Blog TE 1

Becky Frank
Teaching Episode Reflection
2-19-12


8th Grade Trumpets

On Monday February 13th I was privileged to work with five eighth grade trumpets students. I worked on my rhythm with them for about three minutes; the rest of the class period was spent practicing their band piece, Go West. Before I worked with the trumpets, I had talked to Ms. Nelson about what I should have the students work on in their concert music and she suggested the key signatures in Go West.
My learning goals were to have the trumpet players be able to say at any moment, what notes were sharped in the key of E major and that each student would be able to understand the syncopation of the second measure of the rhythm that I had created. The outcome for learning the sharps in E Major were, by the end of the class each student would have successfully told me the notes that were sharped. The students would also able to understand and successfully perform the syncopated rhythm that occurred in the second measure of the rhythm that I had created.
Ms. Nelson sent Karen and myself, with five trumpet players from the bottom of the section to the Wold Music Room while she kept the other two trumpets to play trumpet part in the large rehearsal. We went to the World Music Room where Karen taught her name game. After she went though the names, I did my quick rhythm exercise.It went pretty well. I did not want to hammer this rhythm to death, because it was not used in their concert music. It was just a fairly easy rhythm that had a little syncopation in it. That task took only took 3 minutes. Next, I moved the students into Trumpet 1 and Trumpet 2 sections and leaviing no open seats between the two section My goal was to help the trumpet players with their fingerings and most importantly to make sure that they knew what notes should be sharped in Go West. I would ask the trumpets what the order of the sharps was though out the rehearsal in order to see if the information was being retained. As we were working our way though the piece, the key signatures would change and I would ask what notes are still sharped and which ones were not. The only piece that we rehearsed was Go West. The final test was to find out if Karen was able to get all the students names correct; they would only have to say the four sharped notes once, however, if she did not get them correct they would have to say them twice though. Karen got all the sames correct and the students were able name all athe sharped notes correctly.
My assessment of the rhythm was that all the students had a 3 or 2. All of them did the rhythm correctly within 3 tries so I passed them all. My assessment of knowing the sharps went even better. At first the only sharp the students could tell me was was F#. I told them what the other notes that were sharped when the key signature had 4 sharps were and then showed them the fingerings for those notes. Though out the piece I would hold up my fingers and ask what the sharps were. It was a fun way to accomplish this goal.
I felt that overall my teaching strategies were effective. However, I did make one mistake. The students did not have pencils and I did not sent them to get one. Ms. Nelson told me I should have sent one student back, or searched the room to find one. Lesson learned, I will always keep a pack of pencils with me at all times. I do think that the students did learn from working with me. They learned what notes get sharped when there are four sharps in the key signature, and they learned the fingerings for those notes that they did not previously know. I also learned that I can show fingerings in both hands at the same time. This experience showed me that I am not the type of person that can observe for more than 15 minutes; I like to actively participate with the students. I also found that I can get the students to listen to me without yelling. If the teacher remains calm and in control, the students will listen usually. I also discovered that I really like working with students.

Blog TE 2

This was day 2 of the teaching episodes. Karen was working with the seventh grade saxophones. My job was to learn the names of all the students. To help me remember I asked their names and what sport they liked or played. The only thing that I wished that I had done differently was not have said my first by accident, lesson learned. Karen overall was affective, one thing that I noticed was that the three boys out of the group and the one girl were seated separately. This was not good because Karen spent much of her time working with the boys and not the girl. I learned something about myself that day, I am not the kind of person to just sit and watch the whole time, I want to participate as well. I figured this out when I stood up and moved over to the girl and worked with her.

Blog Observations Orchestra

I did my second day of observations was with the orchestra. The students had a playing test. Each student went into a room,l hit the record button on a recorder,played though their test, and then hit stop button. It took about twenty minutes for the entire orchestra to complete their tests. While individual students were testing,the remaining ensemble members were still rehearsing. They played an Irish Dance piece, and a piece called Hop. In between these pieces, they worked on an etude out of their method book. Ms. Van Zee had a very controlled classroom environment. Ms. Van Zee had a “teachable moment” that occurred when she was conducting; her baton flew out of her hands and she caught it with her left hand. When she arrived at stopping place, she asked the students if anyone had seen her awesome move? None of them raised their hands. She then said “Well if you all would have been watching, you would have seen it.” I thought that was a great way to say “Watch Me”.

Blog 5 Essentials

1. Qualified and knowledgeable director
2. School/community desire for a program
3. Instruments and equipment
4. Music( quality repertoire)
5. Yearly budget from the school for maintaining and even advancing the program
6.A clear path for the program
7.Policies and procedures supported by parents, teachers and administrators and at- home practice
8. Student leaders and helpers
9. Opportunities for continued education of the director
10. Other support( access to financial officer, school counselor, district facility personnel)

Blog 4 Instrumental Music

During students first year in instrumental music they should experience and learn the benefits of playing in an instrumental ensemble. When a student is able to play in an instrumental ensemble they learn the benefits of teamwork. Once a ensemble is ready for Grade 1 repertoire that does not have each instrument playing the melody at the same time, the students learn the importance of balance in an ensemble and when to play out and when to hold back. Students will also learn the basic notes and articulations of music.
Being involved in instrumental music is a great way for students to meet new friends, have opportunity to learn a language that people all around the world can understand, and learn a discipline that can help them in everyday life. Instrumental music can help students meet new friends, because music is something that is enjoyed and played with many people. Making music can build a child's confidence. There can be opportunities for travel when students are in high school or possibly late middle school. These opportunities can allow students to share their music with others. Music is a subject that takes discipline, it requires that students find a way to practice their instrument outside of the classroom in order to become a better player,and make the ensemble that they play in a stronger group.

Observation Pep Band

On February 4th 2012 I went to observe the Willow Creek/Harrison Band Pep Band in performance at a basketball game held at Willow Creek High School. Willow Creek and Harrison have a co-op band program directed by two teachers Mr. Bill Frank from Willow Creek and Ms. Sandy Mabbit from Harrison. The students from Willow Creek school traveled by a bus driven by Mr. Frank to the Harrison school. There were about six to eight students that rode the bus to the games. Once the Willow Creek students, arrived they unloaded all of their instruments and then set up the Harrison drum set. The basketball game was a double game with both the boys’ and the girls’ teams playing. There are members of the basketball teams, that when they are not playing basketball, come and play in the band. This helped to improve the sound and instrumentation of the band. The instrumentation for the game was as follows: two clarinets, two alto saxes, five trumpets (I played trumpet with them), one soprano sax that doubled the first trumpet, two trombones, one baritone, one bass guitar, one keyboard player and five drummers. Not all the students played in the band at the same time. During the girls game that was composed of mainly Willow Creek band students. This was because the games were running fast and the Harrison director and players had not arrived yet. There was a clarinet player and a drummer from the boys basketball team who came to play in the band after the first two songs. The Pep Band is only required to play during pregame. The songs that they performed for the girls game were: The Final Countdown, Impact Zone, Low Rider, Kick Start, On the Line, both schools’ fight songs, The Star Spangled Banner, and Iron Man for the girls’ starting line up. I conducted the Star Spangled Banner; marching band style. I did not really like that style because I like to cue the “BOOM CRASH” with the drummers as one of them was mouthed “Boom Crash”. The students from Willow Creek were required to stay in gym or in the concessions area, not outside or in the hall way. During the boys game the band played the following songs: Play that Funky Music, Animal, Dynamite, Louie Louie, Smoke on the Water, the fight songs, and Iron Man for the boys’ starting line up. The band sounded really good for such a small group.

Observation 8th Grade Day 1 Band

On Monday January 30th 2012, I went to observe the eighth grade band at Chief Joseph Middle School. Monday was an unusual day because it was right after their concert, and some of the band members were missing because they were at a rehearsal for a choir concert. Ms. Nelson was very nice; she was in the process of handing out music to all the students who were in class. Karen and I offered to help handout the new music. Ms. Nelson was happy with this idea because there was not enough parts for all the students; Karen and I ended up making copies for her. The three pieces that the students were going to play were: Pietro’s Return, a piece in 6/8, Go West, a piece that would be combined with the orchestra, and Encanto, a march which could be difficult side for eighth graders. There were posters in the classroom, that pertained to music. The students were pretty well behaved for not having very much to do. Near the end of the period, Ms. Nelson put on the recording of the concert and allowed the students to eat some donuts. This was an adjustment to the class because this activity was originally planned for Wednesday when all the students would be back in class. The last two minutes of the class period, the band played though the first eight bars of Encanto. The students then put their instruments away,stood at the door and waited for the bell to ring.

Resource Notebook

Hello Becky, I know that you did not always have fun making resource notebooks. However, it will help you in the future. The purpose of these notebooks is to provide you with information about music education tricks that can help refresh your memory about how to teach certain music topics. For example if your job requires that you teach strings, you can pull out your resource notebook and look up an answer to your questions. It also has handouts, ideas for teaching any ensemble as well as a hard copies of handouts for students, parents, and administers. The resource notebook contains information about ideas that I liked and disliked. Keep your notebook as up to date as possible; just make a folder on your computer and have another copy of it saved in “the cloud” so that you always have access to it if you have to move to another school.

Core Vaules

Teaching students music is vital part of their education because it can be build students’ confidence, allow the to have an outlet for their emotions, and improve their grades in other subjects. Allowing student the opportunity to express themselves in a safe and healthy manner is critical and music can be this outlet for them. For some students this can be the only outlet they have to deal with their emotions. Music can teach students responsibility and accountability by holding them accountable for tasks like practicing their instruments, ensuring that they have learned their part of the piece of music, and showing up for rehearsals. This is why music is important and needs to be in the school system.

OBSERVATIONS 6th Grade Concert

The sixth grade concert held on Tuesday night, at Sacajawea Middle School was a huge success. The string orchestra did a great job. The students seemed very comfortable with their new teacher, Holly Sexton. Ms. Sexton had complete control over the students. The orchestra play extremely well for such young group of students. The choir was directors were Charlotte Colliver and Jacob Malczyk. The choir used small body movements and gestures to keep the audience engaged. One thing that I found very interesting was that there is at least one student in every group that always takes the spotlight by over doing the actions. This occurred during the concert when a boy in the front row was doing all the gestures just is little bit bigger than the other students. The band did a great job as well. They worked very well with Laurie Hickman. Mrs. Hickman did a excellent job for having shoulder surgery earlier this year. Being able to fight though the pain in order to be there for the students, is a great trait for a teacher to have. The band’s performance was very good. They followed Mrs. Hickman very well, and seemed very excited to play their pieces. The drummers were very organized, however, during the second piece I saw the timpani player get a little nervous when Mrs. Hickman did not tune the timpani for his piece. He raised his hand and Mrs. Hickman saw it and ran right over to him and tuned them. The student seemed relieved and the band then played the piece. The audience’s strong applause signaled that the concert was a huge success.

Hello Future Me

Hello Becky you have made it though step one, getting a job. Remember that you started your journey with the goal of sharing music with others. You fought your way though each class in order to achieve your goal becoming a music teacher. When times get rough just remember all the time and effort you put in, in order to earn your degree. You can do this, just stick to your core values.
These are the values that you started your journey with; do not let them slip away. You truly believe that every student deserves the right to study and learn music. You should never let this belief go. The music that you teach will help students with their other classes and allow them to be able to show their creative side.
Instrumental music belongs in the school because it can help students develop creative outlets and express themselves. Playing and instrument can strengthen fine motor skill and teach student who to work and co-operate in a group situation.
You need to prepare yourself for the next step in your journey. You can be very friendly, but remember to be firm. You are their teacher not their best friend. Show them the knowledge that you have learned and do not tell them lies; they will figure out that you are lying. Most important of all have fun doing your job and sharing your love of music.