Now that our concert's over, I've had some time to majorly de-stress. It went so well, I was so excited! I have received lots of really great feedback from parents and teachers alike. The kids really did a great job and for the most part their behavior improved significantly. I know that once they're up in front of their families it's different from rehearsals and things like that but I still need to find a way to help them realize it's not okay to talk and goof around in rehearsals and dress rehearsals. On Wednesday in band I decided to not try to fight the noise anymore; I told them right off the bat that I wouldn't talk any louder than the volume that I was speaking with at that moment, and if they are talking and miss directions then I won't repeat them, they need to figure it out on their own. This was a fairly successful strategy, though we were missing about a third of the band so we'll see if it's still as effective when we have more students.
Now that the last minute preparations in lessons for the concert are over I've had some time with my students to start learning some new musical concepts in our new (full band arrangements!) music. We've had many successful lessons where we learn about articulations like accents and staccato, dynamics, and eighth notes (some had already learned them but most hadn't up to this point). I even have some students who know multiple scales now, one of them can play three scales on her flute, one of which is two octaves.
Today I get to go on a field trip with the fourth and fifth graders, they're going to see a local symphony group that is coming to our town (they did demos at the schools on Wednesday and Thursday) and today they are putting on a full performance for the students at our main building. Should be fun, I've been asked to go help out and make sure transportation things run smoothly, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm excited about the new music for the concert, though I've found that most of the students much prefer one of the ones that I chose over the other, and I have to admit I don't blame them, it's our first piece in minor and it sounds pretty awesome. I'm just bummed because it has some neat percussion parts, and at the moment if our concert doesn't change I'll be missing three of my four percussionists, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can change the date, but it depends on the middle and high schools, as well.
On another note, I am stunned that it is February already. I feel like I just moved here still and it sometimes still surprises me when I'm driving around that I actually don't need my gps anymore (for the most part).
