Observations from the Band Room

Thoughts about music education...and other things

Save the ones you can

Clicking around the TV landscape a recent weekend, I happened upon the Kevin Costner movie "The Guardian" and a quote from the movie hit home. In case you don't know the premise, Costner is a highly decorated Coast Guard rescue swimmer: he jumps out of helicopters into emergency situations to rescue victims of sea disasters that can be reached no other way - the seas are too rough to get a ship in, or it would take too long, or whatever - the rescue swimmer has to jump in and with cable and winch and basket and horse collar and sheer brute force get that victim in the helicopter.

A young rescue swimmer trainee asks Costner what happens when you can't save them all - that you can only get some of them out safely. The reply hit home:

"I save the ones I can, and the sea takes the others"

I had just read an excellent post on Brian Wis' outstanding blog "Teaching Music in the 21st Century" - Whatever Happened to Liberal Arts? or ... Why Do We Pressure Kids to Specialize So Early? a guest article by Keith Walker, Band Director at Zeeland High School.

After reading Keith's great essay, I once again reflected on how often we all have a tendency to agonize over the students who choose, for whatever reason, to no longer continue in our programs. Do we hate to see kids quit? No way to avoid that! Do we invest time, thought and energy into keeping those kids? Sure we do! The big question for me is "how much time, thought and energy do I put into that effort?"

There was a time several years ago when I had a great band parent come to me and, in the most gentle way possible, offer a friendly rebuke, because while I was so focused on those 2-3 kids deciding to go a different way, there were another 140 or so still there that I should be giving that energy, that time.

We all know that the only way a student is going to benefit from all that our programs have to offer is by being in the program - we can do nothing for the kid that chooses to walk away. The messianic impulse that we can save them all kicks in and we forge ahead, and so often get to the point that we seem to forget that there are other students that ARE in the program. Those should be our focus, the reason we come back every day, the reason we teach music.

Because, ultimately, you have to save the ones you can.

Posted by Randy Box at 3/1/2011 11:50 PM | Add Comment

Why we teach music

Reprinted from a wide variety of sources...but worth the reading

MUSIC IS A SCIENCE.
It is exact, specific; and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor's full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.

MUSIC IS MATHEMATICAL.
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper.

MUSIC IS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.
Most of the terms are in Italian, German or French; and the notation is certainly not English but a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

MUSIC IS HISTORY.
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation, often even the country and/ or racial feeling.

MUSIC IS PHYSICAL EDUCATION.
It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lip, cheek and facial muscles, in addition to extraordinary control of diaphragmatic, back, stomach, and chest muscles, which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

MUSIC IS ALL THESE THINGS, BUT MOST OF ALL, MUSIC IS ART.
It allows a human being to take all of these dry, technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion. That is one thing science cannot duplicate; humanity, feeling, emotion, call it what you will.

WHY WE TEACH MUSIC...
Not because we expect our students to major in music
Not because we expect them to play or sing all their life
Not so they can relax
Not so they can have fun
But so they will be human
So they will recognize beauty
So they will be sensitive
So they will be closer to an infinite beyond this world
So they will have something to cling to
So they will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good
- - in short, more life.
Of what value will it be to make a prosperous living unless you know how to live?
THAT IS WHY WE TEACH MUSIC.

Posted by Randy Box at 2/28/2011 10:26 PM | Add Comment

FLASHTRAX Techniques

There are many ways the exercises on the FLASHTRAX DVD can be used to improve students ability to read rhythmically. This system is not a substitute for teaching students the basics of reading rhythms. However, as soon as they understand the concepts of whole-, half- and quarter-notes, they can start using FLASHTRAX to reinforce the patterns they have learned – just like a teacher in the primary grades uses flashcards to help students learn to recognize at sight the words they have learned. That’s exactly what music teachers can do with FLASHTRAX, but instead of ...<< MORE >>

Posted by Randy Box at 2/3/2007 11:46 PM | Add Comment

The FLASHTRAX story

I often ask my high school band students, “What’s more important – right notes or right rhythms?” The first time they hear the question, brass and woodwind students almost always choose right notes, probably because in the early stages of learning to play those instruments there is usually much more time devoted to learning how to play all those different pitches. My stock answer – “Aren’t right notes at the wrong time still wrong notes?” comes as a surprising revelation… except for the percussion students, who finally feel vindicated in their belief that they’ve had it right ...<< MORE >>

Posted by Randy Box at 2/2/2007 8:09 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment

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