My life as a band director…

Being a band director is a very glamorous life – what with the high pay, the low stress, the adulation from the adoring fans and the endless support from every patron.

At least that’s way it is here in Denison – isn’t it that way everywhere?

Just the other day, I was relaxing in my cushy office, when my secretary announced that I had a visitor.  It was someone very prominent in town, and he had just stopped by to remind me of how awesome I was.  I let him in, and let him talk for a while before pushing him out the door to make way for my next appointment, which was with my couch.  It was 1:30 in the afternoon, and I hadn’t had my afternoon nap, yet.  I was SO tired that day – you see, I had to be at school by 8:30 in the MORNING, so I had only gotten 9 hours of sleep the night before.  Plus, after my hour long lunch break, I was ready to turn off the lights and rest my eyes.

Someone once asked me how I had time in the middle of my long day for a nap – they had no idea that I only taught one class a day.  They didn’t know that I showed up at 8:30, taught until 10:00 and then used the rest of the day for score study, professional growth, and personal reflection.  Even that one class a day isn’t really a big deal – I mean, my class is an elective, so the students who take my class are the ones who really want to be there.  I just get up in front of them for 90 minutes and wave my arms and beautiful music comes out.  It’s really a shame they have to pay me to do this job.

I do have to get to school a little earlier on jazz band days – but that’s no big deal either.  My jazz bands are made up of the top players in my band, and they are all so self-motivated that I really don’t have to do much but give them a tempo and off they go!  Even the solos are completely made up, so there’s not even any prep in teaching that at all!

Life is good for band directors.  Especially this time of year.  Solo contest is coming up!  Why is it even called a contest?  They pretty much just give a I rating out to anyone who can play their solo.  How else would you explain the large number of I ratings we get a contest?  Plus, again, it’s only the top players who do solos, so I don’t have to help them or rehearse them.  I just show up, play the piano with them and it’s all good!  And small groups?  Whatever!  These kids can just throw a small group together at the drop of a hat – they do it all year for church services or community events, so throwing one together for a “contest” is really no big deal.

We do have a concert coming up – we will be performing four pieces, one of which is Prelude and Fugue in Bb.  The audience will love it, because all we basically do all year is pop music for football and basketball games, so this “classical” music will be very new for everyone.  I added a drum set part just to make it feel more like real music.

The best part of this month will be parent teacher conferences.  They will all line up to tell me how great I am and how great it is that their child has an “A” in band – after all, if you just show up, you get an “A” in band, right?  Why would I spend my precious time doing grades – I just give them all an “A.”

And the BEST part of it – everyone appreciates what music does for each and every student.  Everyone gets that music in our schools is important – more important than they even realize.  Everyone understands that music is not just another extra-curricular.  They appreciate that even though it takes time and work, it’s worth every second of it.  Everyone knows that athletics are important, but music is just as important.  Most even admit that it’s more important.  It’s so great to be in a job that everyone appreciates and understands the importance of.

Yes sir – this is the life.  So relaxing and glamorous.  So appreciated and stress free.  I don’t understand why more graduates don’t pick this career for themselves in college.  Don’t they understand what we do for a living and how easy it is?

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That’s the real question: “Do they understand what we do for a living and how easy it is?”

March is “Music in the Schools Month.”  What are you doing this month to make sure your community knows sarcasm when they see it?  Sadly, there are more people out there than we realize who would read the above and think it was completely true.  Amongst everything else that our job entails this time of year, take some time in March to educate your community and make sure your administration understands everything you do.  If you need some help, head to:

MENC Music In Our Schools Month (MIOSM)

This may not be a glamorous job, but it’s an important one – keep fighting the good fight!

It’s the holidays!  In fact, the holidays are going to be over soon… where did the time go?  I’ll tell you where it went – holiday concert, honor band auditions, jazz band, mariachi, and on and on and on.  This the most wonderful time of the year, right?  Well, maybe.

Then again, maybe not.  All-State auditions wrapped up at the end of October, only to be followed by frantic preparations for the regional honor band auditions.  Marching band finished up at the same time, only to the realization that we had our first pep band in November, and a concert in early December!   Oh yeah, and jazz band started, so good bye morning lessons – I don’t know where I’m going to put you.  I guess evenings will work.  Only when there’s not pep band or a booster meeting.

The concert comes and goes, honor band auditions were last weekend, but there’s Christmas caroling at the nursing home, jazz band clinics and a mariachi debut on a middle school vocal concert to get ready for.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year, huh?

I’m hardly ever home.  When I am, there’s Christmas shopping to take care of, and family visits to schedule, and private lessons to work around, and WHY ISN’T MY SNOW BLOWER WORKING!?!?$#%^%&%%@$#&W$^*$%(^)#!&Q$(!@

OK, breathe.

I once told my colleague at the middle school that our lives would be a lot easier if we didn’t care.  Have you ever thought about that?  If I didn’t care about my students and my job, I wouldn’t worry about the concert being good, or how many students are prepared for auditions, or whether or not we take them to the nursing home to play Chrismas tunes.  If I didn’t care about giving them a good jazz experience, I wouldn’t have to worry about hiring clinicians or registering for contests.  If I didn’t care about our school and our students, I wouldn’t be trying to start a mariachi program when nobody else in our area is doing one.  But, I do care, and a gather most of you out there care, too, and that’s why this just MIGHT be the most wonderful time of the year, after all.

You see, you get out what you put it.  All-State auditions were a LOT of work, but the concert was incredible, and those students had a pretty awesome experience.  Jazz Bands are a LOT of work, but when performance time comes around, they are so much fun and these are our best kids, and they are fun to work with, aren’t they?  Honor band auditions are a LOT of work, but as you see your school name pop up on the accepted list over and over again, you realize that the work paid off.  When your administrators LITERALLY give you a pat on the back for a good job, it’s worth it.  Pep band is a LOT of work, but when you see alumni come back to play with the band because they miss it, you realize the impact you’re making.  Putting together a 6-12 Holiday Band Concert is a LOT of work, but when you step out onto the stage, and your 750 seat auditorium is standing room only, you stand a little taller and it’s all worth it.  Starting a new program is a LOT of work, but tonight, when a few of our mariachi students make a public appearance for the first time, I KNOW it will be worth it.

It IS the most wonderful time of the year.  Really – it’s a very busy time of year, but it’s the time of year when we get to parade our students out in front of the community and administration and say,” look at what these students have accomplished.”  We say, “look at what these 14-18 year old students are capable of doing.”  We say, “be in awe of what our students can do.”  We say, “say what you want about teenagers today, but THESE students will surpass that expectation.”  We say, “this is why music education is important in our schools.”  And we say it in so many ways.

So, have a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year – and soak it up.  I know we’re all busy this time of year, but that’s why we love our job.  So, soak it up – enjoy it as it happens.  Every year keeps flying by, but let time stop a little bit at your holiday concert or when you’re playing for the community.  Let time stop for an instant so you can look at what you’re doing and say “this is worth it.”  Let the clock slow down a little between pieces in jazz band rehearsal and reflect on what you and your students are doing, and say “this is worth it.”  Before you kick off that school song this week in pep band, look at the crowd and your students and realize the message you are sending out to the community with your band program – “this is worth it.”  Soak it up – enjoy every minute of it while you can.  And remember – it’s the most wonderful time of the year.  Of course, if you’re from Denison, you won’t say that – you’ll say, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

So, I had a student run over a saxophone this week.

With a car.

As I contemplated how to handle this issue, I was flooded with the memories of the other broken instruments in my career.  Here are the highlights.

Well, first, let’s talk about that saxophone.  It was pretty simple.  He set the case down behind his car, went to talk to some friends in the parking lot, got back into his car and put it in reverse.  AND, crushed saxophone.  We’re getting it repaired, for a pretty good chunk of change.

Next, have you ever seen a contrabass clarinet broken in half?  There’s the teaser – I’ll have a photo at the end.

In one of my first year’s in Atlantic, a new student moved in and he told us he was a percussionist in a band in the neighboring district.  We gave him a snare drum for parades (pit on the field).  During the first rehearsal outdoors, he practiced his best ballerina moves, and I saw about two rotations out of the corner of my eye before the drum came flying off of the harness and skipped down the street.  He wasn’t a percussionist much longer.  He wasn’t in band much longer.

Speaking of instruments skipping across pavement — back in my Corning days, we had a band trailer, which was pulled by a truck that had no right pulling a trailer.  I’ll get to the truck later, but first, I broke a clarinet.  Luckily, it was just one clarinet.  You see, this trailer had a side door for loading/unloading uniforms.  We had a rolling cargo case that we put all of the flutes and clarinets in, and we would tuck that cargo case between the uniforms.  One day, on our way to marching contest, I apparently forgot to latch that side door.  As I pulled out of the parking lot and turned out onto the street, I watched, in the side mirror, as the door swung open, the rolling case rolled out of that door and then bounced across the pavement.  All in horror.  When you’re a first year teacher, you assume things like that will get you fired.  Luckily, we ended up with only one broken instrument.

Ready for that contrabass photo?  After these brief words from our sponsors.

So, remember that truck I mentioned?  That’s not an instrument, but I broke it good.  When I mentioned the truck, I also said that it had no right pulling that trailer.  It was a small Chevy pick-up with no power at all (I have a lot of stories about that truck).  One day when I was unloading the trailer after large group, I pulled up to a stop sign on a hill.  After my complete stop, I started pulling forward, which was followed by a really odd noise and then the sensation of going in reverse.  It was not so much a sensation, but more of actually going backwards.  In a slight panic, I hit the brakes, put the truck in park and let go of the brakes, only to start going in reverse again.  That’s when the e-brake got involved.  To make a long story short, the transmission had literally fallen out of the bottom of the truck.  There’s WAY more to that story, and if you want to know it, you’ll have to ask sometime.

OK, bring on the broken contra!

Speaking of contra clarinets, there was this one time when I was part of breaking an instrument on purpose.  My brother needed a wall decoration, so I donated a very old, unrepairable single horn to the cause.  My dad’s a farmer, and let’s just say that the sight of a french horn pretty much melting into a thin pile of brass under a combine tire is pretty amazing.

Seriously, here’s the photo of the broken contra.  Later.

I drop kicked a trumpet last year.  On accident.

In college, two weeks before my senior recital, my alto dropped out of my case on my shoulder onto a tile floor, top first.

I broke a violin string last week.

In college, I lost a bari sax neck for a week, only to find out it was jammed into the middle of the saxophone.

My second year teaching, when a student got his mouthpiece stuck, I pulled the lead pipe clean off the trumpet.

Just a couple months ago, I punched a hole in a baritone valve.

You can start to see why I don’t get too angry at students when they accidentally break an instrument.  When it’s because of blatant carelessness or malice, I get angry.  Speaking of blatant carelessness:

This is what happens when a student sets a contrabass clarinet up against a wall and walks away.  Not against a wall in a corner or next to a chair – just against an open wall.  When it hit the floor, the one-piece contra became a 7-8 piece contra.  Let’s just say the repair bill was not high enough to get a new one, but it WAS high enough to involve the insurance company…

I have more stories, some of which involve school vehicles, but I’ll save that for another time.

So, to update you on my last post – Iowa State won the big Cy-Hawk game, so I will repeat, GO STATE!

This last weekend was the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and we had a home game Friday night.  When I saw the football schedule last spring for this year, I knew we had to do a 9/11 tribute show for that home game.  We strung together some patriotic songs, played audio clips of news stories from ten years ago, spelled USA, and ended with the Star Spangled Banner instead of our school song.  I knew it would be a good show for the adults in the community, and I really had aimed this show at the parents, thinking they would appreciate it more than their students.

…and as most of you know, when you underestimate students, you’re often surprised.

I’m not going to go into the details and talk about how we all remember where we were when we first learned about the tragedies on that day ten years ago.  That’s another topic for another time.  I will tell you that I assumed, with the seniors being 7 years old when it happened, that I would have to sell this show pretty hard to the students to pull it off.  I had all of these speeches in my head ready to go about how they may not relate to this show as much as their parents, and that it may not be as “fun” as the pop show next week, but they needed to give it their full attention and still try their hardest.  They were all scripted in my head and ready to burst out at a moment’s notice when I needed them.  Surprisingly, I never needed them, and while I was ready for this show to be popular with the crowd, I wasn’t prepared for the response we would get.

During our first run-through of the show on the day before the game, we were in the stadium and I had brought in our press box announcer to go through the script.  While the audio played of the news reports from that Tuesday morning, the band played “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” as background music.  I was blown away as I saw high school students tearing up on the field.  They were 5-7 years old in 2001, yet they still completely understood the meaning of that day, and here, ten years later, the sounds of the news reports mixed in with the strains of that great, haunting chorale, moved them to tears.  Don’t get me wrong, the entire band wasn’t crying their eyes out.  I just happened to catch 2 or 3 pairs or eyes welling up, but that was enough for me.  It was a powerful moment.  A few students came up to me afterwards and admitted to crying a little while we ran that show down, and that was a truly moving moment for me as a director.

Friday night, I stood on the field and witnessed a high school group bring a football crowd to its feet.  The usual noise level of a crowd at halftime was silenced like I’ve never seen before.  At one point in time, from the sidelines I asked myself “Are they singing along?”  And they were.  At the end, the national anthem played, and we left the field to clicks instead of the school song.

I’m not bragging when I say this, but I have put together some pretty good marching band shows, and even though it sounds pretty self centered to say it, I have had plenty of pats on the back as I walked up the stands to get back to the band room after a halftime show.  The response I have gotten from that show was incredible.  Parents with tears in their eyes shook my hand, and community members who I’ve never met came to say thanks.  It was more than I had ever experienced before.

The only reason I tell you about all of that is to put into perspective what was the best part of that night.  Not the hand shakes or the pats on the back – it was the students.  They had used music to send a message to a crowd.  Sure, it was an easy message to send, and patriotic music is a surefire way to send it, but these teenagers in high school did it – they used music to say something, and that is the best part of that night.  It was all topped off this morning, when I was getting ready to show the video to the band of the halftime performance, the Dean of Students comes walking in to my room.  She wasn’t there to put anybody in line.  She wasn’t there to observe.  She simply wanted to say thank you to the band, and, choking back tears a little, tell them how proud she was of them.  Have you ever seen 130 high school band members silent?  I have.  At 8:37 am, on Monday, September 12th, 2010.

I had a student once ask me, after a particularly bad day when students were being disrespectful and things were just plain going bad, “how can you keep doing this?”  I didn’t have an answer for her, because I was starting to ask myself the same thing.  Later that week, at small group contest, her saxophone quartet performed flawlessly in a show of musicality that I had not seen in a high school ensemble before.  As they left the room ecstatic, she turned to me and I said “THAT’S how.”  She knew exactly what I was talking about, and she understood in that moment.  If she were in Denison Friday night, I would have turned to her again and said “THAT’s how.”

If you know what the ISUCF’V'MB is, then you must be a Cyclone.  Not the Harlan variety, but the true Cardinal and Gold variety.  I went to a Cyclone football game this weekend, and although we had crappy seats and it cost WAY too much to go, it was a very rewarding experience on quite a few levels.  The band-related ones I’ll get to in a moment, but let me digress about being a Cyclone, not because it’s a vital part of what I have to say about the game this weekend, but because it’s something that I can’t quite get across to the Hawkeye and Husker fans that I seem to be constantly surrounded by…

If you are a Cyclone, you know exactly what I mean when I say that it’s great being a Cyclone fan.  If you’re not a Cyclone, you’re thinking, “How can it be great – the football team is not very good?”  You just don’t get it, and you know what, you probably never will.  If you know that I’m a big Cyclone fan (after all, it is my alma mater), then it won’t surprise you to know that I’m a Cubs fan, too.  There is something special about being a fan of the “underdog.”  There’s something more complete, rewarding and sincere about being a fan of the underdog.  I have friends who are Husker fans and Hawkeye fans.  I even have friends who are Yankees of Braves fans.  There is so much on the line for those friends when “their team” plays.  When there’s a Nebraska loss, people are up in arms and the Omaha news is all about “what happened” and “who’s to blame.”  When the Cyclones lose a game, we say “nice try” or “let’s see what happens next week.”  When the Cyclones WIN, it’s a huge celebration!  Remember two years ago when ISU beat Nebraska AT Nebraska?  Remember the video that went viral on YouTube of the coach and the players ECSTATIC in the locker room?  There was a moment in that video that will stick in my mind forever.  The coach, choking back tears, tells them how proud he is to be their coach, and the team starts singing the school song.  THAT’S what being a Cyclone fan is about – pride in your school and celebrating the victories when they come around.  So the rest of you, when you start ribbing me about how “my team” is not very good, or how “your team” has won this and that, you need to know that I really don’t care, and neither does any other Cyclone fan out there.  We aren’t in it for a list of championships or trophies.  We are in it because we love Iowa State.  I didn’t pick which school I attended based on their football team, but I picked my football team based on the school I attended.  GO STATE!

OK, now I’ll get off of my soap box and return to the world of band.  I was in the ISUCF’VMB for one season.  It was my junior year, and I thought if I was going to be a band director, I’d better be in the marching band in college at least one year.  I complained a lot about the rehearsal time and the stupid marching band “lifers” who have been in the ISUCF’V'MB for 6-7 years, but to be honest, I LOVED game day.  Mind you, this was 1998, before that little run of 4-5 years when the football team was winning games and going to bowl games.  I think our record at the end of that season was 2-something.  One of those wins was at Iowa, but that’s a story for another time!  Even with a losing record, game day was awesome – the crowd cheering, the television cameras, the pomp and circumstance of a college football game.  It was a blast, win or lose.  I remember the adrenaline rush as we waited by the sidelines for pregame and the drumline marched out into the middle of the field to start the “X” cadence.  The drum majors would call attention, you’d hear “GO STATE” from the 300+ members and then the “cycloning” began.  We would double-time high step in circles until we heard the long whistle, when we’d come out into our lines across the field.  As the lines formed, you’d hear the end of the announcer’s introduction: “presenting the pride of Iowa State:  the Iowa State University, CYclone, FOOTball, VAR-SI-TY, Marching Band (in that certain cadence that you’d know if you were in the band or at Cyclone games).  Then from the drums – BAM BAM BAM BAM and the fanfare begins that starts off the whole pregame sequence.

I get goosebumps just typing that in – it was SUCH a rush.

In the ISUCF’V'MB, as in all college marching bands, there are many quirky traditions and routine things that go on for every performance.  Most of them, you wouldn’t realize unless you were in the band.  As I watched the game Saturday and followed the band back to Hilton afterwards to hear the speeches from the directors and the drum majors, it was comforting to know that 13 years later (HAS IT REALLY BEEN 13 YEARS!?) all of the customs and traditions are still there.  It was a great trip down memory lane.  It was an especially great trip this year for a couple reasons.

First off, the ISUCF’V'MB has a new director.  He happens to be someone who went to ISU while I was there.  He was a snare drummer in the band, and taught band in Lenox while I was teaching in Corning.  He is a great guy, and when I found out he got the ISU job, I was so happy for him.  This HAS to be his dream job.  He loves marching band and he loves the Cyclones.  He must be about the happiest guy in the world being the director of the ISUCF’V'MB.  I found him after the game to say hi.  He looked genuinely happy to see me, and he didn’t have a lot of time talk, but he said something that hit me like a ton of bricks.  He said, in his Mr. Smyth tone, “man, your students really love you.”

I didn’t even know how to respond to that.  This guy is the director of a marching band of 300+, and he knows who my students are.  That brings me to the second reason it was an especially rewarding night for me – there were seven of my former students playing in a marching band that night.  One in the UNI marching band, and six in the ISUCF’V'MB.  For four of them, it was their first home game as a Cyclone, and you could see how excited they were.  All of those feelings I had in the ISUCF’VMB were reflected in their eyes.  They were going through all of the quirky traditions and feeling the same rush as the game started that I felt 13 years ago, under the leadership of a guy who was a Cyclone with me in 1998.  Somehow, those six students had relayed, without knowing it, to their director, their excitement about being in the marching band, and prompted him to tell me after the game, “man, your students really love you.”  I have no idea what conversation they had with Mr. Smyth or what he witnessed to cause him to feel the need to tell me that, but that meant a lot to me, and it’s something that’s going to keep me going in this profession for quite a while.

People often ask me, when things are down: “How can you keep doing what you’re doing?”  When they see the long hours and the many hoops we have to jump through, they wonder why I still get up at 6:00 to be at school by 7:00 so I can come home again at 5:00 every day.  They wonder, with the extraordinarily high pay I get, why I give up Saturdays for jazz band or Friday nights for pep band, or my spring break to take kids to Chicago.  Those people don’t realize that this one sentence from a band director from Iowa State will fuel me for months.  It will keep me going strong, until the job starts wearing me down again, at which point something else amazing will happen to fuel me for another couple months.  It is so rewarding teaching music to young people.  How many accountants out there have the job satisfaction I have?  How many lawyers in the world touch as many lives in a positive way that we do?  How many engineers at the game Saturday who can afford the fancy seats on the 50 yard line and reserved parking spots, had one of the ISU staff come up to them after the game to tell them that people they taught loved them?

With parking and food and tickets, I paid $120 to see the Cylonces barely beat the Panthers 20-19 Saturday night.  I had crappy seats in the corner of Jack Trice and was crammed into the bleachers like sardines.  I had to walk 2 miles through rain and mud to get to and from my car.  After the game was over, I had to drive the two hours home at midnight, exhausted…

And it was all worth it.

Allow me to begin with a correction to my last entry – I incorrectly stated that we had 11 beginning percussionists in our sixth-grade band of 90.  It’s actually 97, so that makes it a little better, right?

In my long, illustrious eleven, going on twelve, year career, I can’t remember a start to the year quite like this year.  Before going on, I must provide some warnings to  the reader:

1) If you’re not careful, this might get a little serious and maybe even a little thoughtful, so if you’re not in the mood, stop reading.

2) If you are from a school south of Denison, you should stop reading now

3) If you are sensitive about racial issues, you should probably stop, also.

The moral of the story is that I have a great job, in a great community.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a CRAZY job in a sometimes crazy community, but great none the less.

Let’s go with a theme – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Step one – the good.

It all sort of gets wrapped in into last Friday night.  It was a good night to be a Monarch.  Mostly because Denison beat an unnamed team who is very good in football.  If you’re from the area, you know that hardly anybody beats that team south of us.  It’s that game in your schedule that you pretty much write off as a loss from the beginning of the season.  Now, add the fact that this very good football program is the next town south, and you’ve got a classic rivalry.  The visiting crowd was almost as big as the home crowd last Friday night, and the game started like any other game with this team would.  At some point in time during the first half, it was 21-0 in favor of the visitors.  By half-time it was 21-7.

Here’s where this comes back to band.  You see, school started Wednesday, which means that we had 4 days of camp and 1 full rehearsal after school started to get half-time and pre-game ready.  I had every intention of doing some park and bark and not moving too much for pre-game, but, as my students said, “it’s the <insert rival team here> game.”  There’s no way we could just stand and play for that first game, no matter how few practices we had.  SO, I wrote up a half-time show, complete with three selections and marching drill.  I also got the entire pre-game routine ready.  If you haven’t been to a Denison game, pre-game means playing six selections, with marching, ending in a “D S” for the school song.  It’s not just walk out, play the SSB and walk off the field.  Needless to say, I was a little nervous for this “Week Zero” game.

Back to the game – pre-game went VERY well.  Between quarters, we do our “assault band.”  Basically, a small group goes to the other side of the field and plays the visiting team school song between quarters.  I’ll get back to that experience later.  Half-time creeped up on us, and I stood at the sideline and watched 120 high school students march and play a show that they had learned in 5 rehearsals.  Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t flawless and the marching left something to be desired, but it was pretty impressive.  I was darn proud of those kids that night, especially considering the “bad and the ugly,” which I’ll get to in a minute.

The Monarchs beat the <insert rival mascot here> that night.  It was an unbelievable game.  One of the top two high school football games I have witnessed.  Denison came storming back, scoring 28 unanswered points to take the lead 28-21 in the fourth quarter.  The two teams traded a couple scores that quarter, and the clock wound down in a tie 35-35.  Overtime comes, the visitors go first and score.  The score was 42-35 when Denison got their chance at the ball.  It didn’t look good, especially when they got a penalty and it was third down.  That’s when the purple and gold scored and the coaches made the decision that the game would be finished right there.  They went for two.  They were going to win or lose on the next play.  As I’ve already mentioned, they won. 43-42.  Coach VanKley is now a legend in Denison for years to come.

I went to school Monday SO proud to be a Monarch.  Not just because of the band, but the football team, and the response that came from the “bad and the ugly….”

Now, the bad.

A student in the band passed away.  She was at camp with us Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday.  By the following Tuesday, she had passed away.  One of our family members was gone.  After all of the hard work through camp, and on the cusp of what would be a great night for Denison, a sophomore flute player’s life had ended.  It’s hard to wrap your head around when it happens to one of your students.  You hear about it every now and then, and you feel bad for the parties involved, but when you are at a student’s visitation 30 minutes before the call time for your first home game – a game she was supposed to be performing at – it’s hard to take in.  That night, the band all wore a blue and black ribbon, and they marched a hole in the drill where she had just been marching the week before at camp.  Her friends went from the visitation to the warm-ups that night.  They sat in their seats and quietly sobbed.  I would have completely excused them from that performance, but there they sat, and they went out with us that night and performed, and that made me more proud then any performance they had put together or any football victory that we could enjoy.  Proud may not seem like a good word, but there is no good word for how that felt that night – proud is the closest word I can come up with.  We’ll all miss Kiara, and the little blue and black ribbons on our left uniform chest will stay close to our heart all season for her.

Now the ugly.  Racism is ugly.  I’ve known this for some time, because I’ve been told this for some time.  When you witness it, it’s horrible.  I’m not talking about violent racism or threats against anyone’s safety.  I’m talking condescending, mean racism.  I told you I would tell you more about our assault band experience later – that’s where I’m heading.  Before that, allow me to digress along a non music-related path:

Here’s the part where if you’re sensitive about racial issues, you shouldn’t be reading, because I am going to lay it out there…

If you didn’t know, Denison has a significant Hispanic population – according to the 2010 census, of our 8300-some residents, 40% are of Hispanic origin.  Before moving to Denison, I was the same way a lot of people are about the Hispanic population.  Ignorant.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I do now.  SO ignorant.  Weren’t they the people who all came from Mexico and didn’t speak English and were all illegal?  Didn’t they wear big hats and make spicy food?  So ignorant.  After getting the job in Denison, I read the book “Denison, Iowa,” which addressed the change in demographics in this town.  It was eye-opening.  That book struck a big nerve with me, and made me feel like a complete idiot for ever falling into the ignorance of the common rural Iowan.  I remember in the interview, asking the middle school director how many Hispanic students were in the band.  She said she really didn’t know – that she never really paid attention.  I didn’t believe her, but that was the ignorance poking through again.  I would later come to realize that she is part of a wonderful Denison public school staff who truly don’t see race in any way.   They treat every student the same, no matter if they are from Mexico, El Salvador, Germany, Sudan, or even c a r r o l l …  Ask me how many of any race I have in my high school band, and I’ll tell you I don’t know.  Because, I really don’t know. I know I have 130 high school band students, and I know that my band doesn’t “look” like most of the other bands in southwest Iowa, and that’s a great thing.

That little diversion leads me back to Friday night.  I would fiercely defend any of my students – they are great people and our diversity makes us strong.  I have so many personalities and so much culture to draw from because of our diversity, and it is really wonderful.  Now, imagine my horror as we take an assault band across the field and hear the following yelled us (in the worst tone you can imagine): “Hey, do you play in Spanish, too?” along with an occasional “you suck.”

That may not seem like a big deal to many people, but it was.  My students wanted to turn around and go back to the friendly company on the other side of the field, but we stayed there and played that school song and smiled, and then turned around and went back to the home side.

When we returned to the band’s seats on the home side, those students told the others about what had happened, and most of them were shocked, but pretty soon they started joking about it and turning it around, pointing out the ignorance that the comment showed.  They decided that next time we have an assault band for this game, they should all wear sombreros and play a mariachi version of the school song.  What can I say?  I love that they have a sense of humor.

Speaking of mariachi – we started Iowa’s first school mariachi program this week, but that’s a story for another day.

Just another week teaching in Denison, Iowa!  And if you’re wondering, we still have eleven percussionists in sixth grade band…

Oh, and GO MONARCHS!

On July 5th, Patti and I started our summer band program – six weeks of teaching our students, from beginners to seniors.  The 2011-2012 school year has officially begun.

The first week was just for beginners.  The fruits of our fifth-grade recruitment season was about to pay off.   The music store had dropped off the new instruments, making our stage look like the a store room at the Jupiter factory, and we were about to get to know a bunch of new band students.

Have you ever thought about how important that is?  We were introducing new students to the world of instrumental music.  Think about all of the professional musicians in the world.  They all started with someone introducing them to instrumental music.  For these Denison sixth-graders, it’s up to Patti and I to provide that introduction.  That is such an important job.

So, back to beginning lessons.  The first day was a little overwhelming, especially since all of the percussion recruits showed up…  ALL ELEVEN OF THEM.  Are you kidding me?  After that first week, we were exhausted.  Ninety sixth-grade beginners between two teachers will do that to you.  Well, 1.75 teachers.  Compared to Patti, I’m really only three-fourths of a teacher.  In fact, even after two years of teaching here in Denison, I’m still learning as much as some of those beginners are about their instruments from Patti — but I digress.

July 12: week two rolls around, which means beginners are in the morning and we split up in the afternoon:  I take the high-schoolers, and Patti takes the 7-8 graders.  Nothing gives you perspective like starting your day teaching embouchure and how to finger G to beginner clarinets and ending it teaching musicality to a returning all-state clarinet player.  Or spending your morning buzzing “sirens” with beginner trumpet players and your afternoon teaching vibrato to a junior trumpet player.  How about going to lunch after watching flams from way too many sixth-grade percussionists, and then coming back from lunch to help a freshman play marimba for the first time?  Can I tell you how great it is to help a sixth-grade girl finger from C to D on her flute at 8:15 am one day and then talk about phrasing in the Mozart flute concerto with a senior the next day?  Those eleven percussionists are a handful in the summer of 2011, but in the summer of 2015, I’ll be assigning them drumline parts for their sophomore year in the Monarch Marching Band.  That’s incredible perspective, which makes my summer so professionally rewarding.

It’s not roses all of the time.  We have students who don’t show up for multiple days in a row.  We have students who lie about practice times. I have high school students who won’t show up until school starts.  We have attitudes we could do without.  In other words, we have the same problems all other band directors have.  Still, it’s our job to introduce them to instrumental music, whether they appreciate it now or not.  Most of them eventually do appreciate it, and sometimes we’re lucky enough to witness it while they are still our students.

You know, in our business, we often talk about “good” problems.  No matter what problem Patti and I come across during these summer weeks, any problem that comes up with a beginner band student is a good problem, because they are IN BAND.  They are getting involved with music.  Some will stick with it a year; some the rest of their life.  Either way, they are better off for being involved in music at all.

Eleven beginning percussionists in a band of ninety is problem.

But what a great problem to have.

Summer is here!

Of course, for a band director, that really doesn’t mean a whole lot…

The flurry of May is behind us – graduation ceremony, graduation parties, Memorial Day, large group contest, IBA conference, end of the year activities, recruitment, retention, calendar for the next year, senior awards, and on and on and on.  The end of the school year is a lot of work for any teacher, but especially difficult for us band-director-types.  How many other teachers spend May “cleaning up” from the previous school year while also worrying about numbers for the next year, setting up an activities calendar and parading their students out in front of the community for public ceremonies?  As if that’s not enough, most of us get to do some sort of summer band program.

How are we supposed to get excited about the end of the year?

During our month “off,” we also get to inventory instruments, attend professional development, get repairs ready, write marching band drill, and clear our room out for the obligatory summer dance recital.  Let’s not forget about community band, jazz band auditions, drumline practice, color guard routines, and making appearances at baseball and softball games to support our students.

I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about little league, piano lessons, VBS, summer camps… I think you get the idea.

So, like I said….s u m m e r   i s   h e r e …….

Why do we do this to ourselves?  Is it because of the high pay?  The honor and glory?  As I’ve mentioned to my colleague on more than one occasion, “if we didn’t care so much, our jobs would be so much easier.”  So, that begs the question, “why do we care so much?”

Two reasons:  students and music.

Someone once gave me some advice, and it’s the same advice I tell my high school students who are thinking about music as a career.  Ask yourself, “can I do anything else besides teach music and be happy?”  If the answer is “yes,” then perhaps you should think about a different line of work.  I imagine that most band directors today would answer that question with, “no.”  My answer would be no – I love music.  I don’t like it – I love it.  So how else could I be happy besides teaching my love to young people?  It was during the flurry of May that I took some time to remind myself why I do what I do.

Two reasons: students and music.

How many other professions out there allow you to take what you love, share it with others, and perpetually create that which you love with other people?  Sure, those students we share music with can sometimes push our limits.  Some of them push it more than others…  Sometimes we wish some of them would just appreciate the work we do for them, even a little.  Sometimes we wish our bands were sans a couple select students.  BUT, when you think about it, those times are few in comparison to all of the GREAT moments and memories you share with your students.  When that special musical moment happens in a rehearsal or performance, or when a student unexpectedly drops a note in your office to say thanks, it erases all of the mediocre moments and keeps you going.  It fuels the passion you have for that thing you love and love to share with others.

We are the lucky ones.  We get paid to share our love with young people.  Sure, we stress out over it and overextend ourselves too often, but we love it, and we can’t imagine doing anything else with our lives.  We love it for two reasons: students and music.  We stress out over it because we care about both of those things:  students and music.

So, now that May is behind us and June is in front of us, take a moment and reflect on how lucky you are, and how lucky your students are to have a caring teacher who loves music and loves sharing it with them.  Also, before you start that marching band drill or get the summer lesson schedule mailed out, take a couple days to introduce yourself to your family and get in a couple rounds of golf.  After all, summer is here!