Getting There

So the issues with the winter concert have been worked out, and I'm in the process of working out the adjustments for the spring concert. Disaster avoided.

In the meantime, lessons have been going well and rehearsals are getting better and better. We're still working on maintaining focus and less talking from the students during the rehearsals, but each time we make it longer into the rehearsal before they start going crazy, so I'll take that as a good sign. I'm doing my best to keep the pacing up and asking them lots of questions/vs. lecturing, and playing much more instead of me talking talking talking.

Some of the kids have blown my mind in lessons, too: a couple of them actually seem to want to learn more scales. I have a group of saxophones who can play their G major scale one octave and their D major two octaves, and they asked if we're going to learn more, too. After I teach the kids their first scale (no matter what instrument they're playing), I teach them the theory behind it and it seems to be helping and making it more interesting for them rather than "we're going to learn another scale, here it is...". I teach them about whole steps/half steps, enharmonics, and the whole/half pattern that makes a major scale sound like a major scale. I show them their first scale they learned on the board with the pattern underneath written out (WWHWWWH), then I write out just the letters for their next scale with the pattern (no accidentals). I then have them go through each pair of notes validating whether it is truly a whole or half step, and if not what do we need to do to change it? (I initially make it clear that we can only have one of each letter name in a scale, and cannot skip letters, so if this is the case what note do we need to change?).

I've also had kids who are playing their instruments outside of school for fun like in parks, for neighbors, and for caroling, which has been really great to hear about :). The concert's starting to come together more convincingly now that I have more definitively figured out what we're playing as a group, who will be playing what for sections/schools, and I have a rather large amount of students who actually want to do solos/duets. I have convinced many of the students to play their compositions on the concert!