Something to consider

Something to consider. I like how he calls music a foreign language and said "the kids just interpreted it for you."

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of you out there who are celebrating today and tomorrow!

Please enjoy this arrangement of Joy to the World by my clarinet quartet from college! We start performing about 30 sec. in.

Just play like you used to

In my opinion...advice to all band teachers: If you have time, just play your instrument like you used to before you started teaching. Practice a little bit for the heck of it. :)

I'm currently in a community orchestra in a town nearby where I teach. We aren't professional or super amazing at what we do, but it is really fun to get together with other folks who love music and just play my clarinet. To just be the one sitting and making music directly instead of being in charge for once. It also helps me keep in mind what it feels like to be IN the band so I can relate with my students better in that way.

Just a thought ....as Nick, Glenn, Mary, Emma, and I all prepare to head back to our alma mater this weekend to play in the alumni band for our school's 100th homecoming!



flashback to freshman year with the Chief.....
they must've joined a bunch of different gamedays together in this video because sometimes the alumni band is there and sometimes it's not.....

Beginning band reminder

A reminder about teaching beginning band:

Attitude is Everything

Today, at a meeting that didn't really apply to me, the band teacher, (what else is new?), I was able to pick out a couple of good points. The speaker was speaking about special education and that their theme for this year is "Attitude is Everything." This immediately reminded me of this new motivational speaker I found that I really enjoy listening to: Nick Vujicic. He was born without arms and without legs. Wow. He is an incredible, incredible human being. And he is also very faithful and grateful. Here is a video about him that I have been thinking a lot about in the past couple of days:



At the end, his little slogan "No arms. No legs. No worries." also kind of ties back to the meeting today. The speaker, in promoting "Attitude is Everything," she urged us to remember to "wait to worry." She asked us, "How many of you have spent a lot of time worrying over something that never even happened?" Good point. Let us trust that as long as we always do our very best, that is good enough (which is what we tell our students, too!).

Ok, that's the last cheesy inspirational video post, I promise. Keep all the teachers in your thoughts and prayers this week, folks; starting the new year is rough on a lot of teachers, especially on newbies like us!

Gonna be a great year

Ok, yes, it's hectic with the meetings and the preparations. But I must say, the Superintendent's welcome speech at the beginning of today's institute & general district meeting was GREAT! He showed us these two awesome videos to get us pumped up! I love the first one. (Momma T at 3:30!)



The superintendent's main point was that we need to forget about the bad press from the media or the lack of budget and just remember that we, as teachers, are just ordinary people doing extraordinary things! And so are our kids!
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The more I think about making a difference in my students' lives and helping them believe in themselves, the more PUMPED UP I am getting! Let's just see how that pans out in a couple of weeks after class gets started. haha

-EDIT-

So, after reading this again, I realized how terribly corny it sounds. Haha. But I think that to a certain extent, we have to keep all of that corny and seemingly idealistic stuff in our minds and at the forefront of what we're doing as teachers to help keep the bigger picture in mind. Does anyone agree? Or am I being sucked up into a silly world of idealism?

Pentatonic scale

Neat video! Would love to try this with my students sometime, maybe.