It feels like there's not much new going on but so much going on at the same time. Most everything has been going well in general; the majority of the students are progressing nicely and doing a great job, and we're drawing nearer and nearer to our All-District band concert (elementary, middle, and high school). However, we had most of the students show up to the band rehearsal after school yesterday (which was awesome) but it made for a LOT of classroom management and behavior intervention. I still have so much to learn on that front. I do my best to make it more play less talk, but it's almost impossible when the kids aren't paying attention, I say several times where we start, and they they still have no idea where we are so then they're all asking "where are we? where are we? where are we?" Musically, the rehearsal went fairly well, and we're making improvements in areas that we should me (overall), and I've found that movement exercises really help their musicality (though not their focus or behavior typically). We have a part in a piece that should feel like and easy, but they've been playing it very heavily, so I had them stand up on their tip toes and step left, together, right, together, back and forth like they were dancing. This made them laugh and talk and make a big fuss but it improved their playing drastically, so I'll take it for now. My goal for the next rehearsal is just to not even make a big deal of the trouble makers; if they're not paying attention, they're out of luck. I am going to talk at a reasonable volume, and if I've repeated our measure number several times and get questions about where we are, then they need to ask a friend near them or try to figure out their spot. The only thing I feel bad about here is for the students around the talkers who can't hear me, so I may have to adjust slightly for situations like that since I can typically tell who's trying to pay attention and simply can't hear me because of noisy neighbors.
The other kind of surprise and bummer has been how many students have been dropping recently. I started off with about 82 at the beginning of the year, and now including the drop I had today I have about 71 left. I know that this isn't an awfully big number, and I know we're taught in school not to take it personally, but it's getting hard not to. Some of the kids who are dropping I'm not surprised at since they weren't giving off a vibe like they were really all that interested in band anymore, but some of them have caught me off guard. I'm trying to get a feel now for how many are continuing next year, keeping track of they yeses nos and maybes, trying to steer the maybes towards yes. I've also started trying to encourage my students to encourage their friends to do band next year if they were bummed they didn't do it this year; granted the students starting late would have to take private lessons, but I'm still hoping it'll get numbers up at least a bit. I may have to do some extra recruiting myself which is completely fine, I just need to find a good way to do it. I'm also trying to tell the students that are on the fence that if it's just because of the instrument they play, they can think about switching (and I try to hint at french horn, trombone, baritone, etc...). This seems to have interested some kids so I'm hoping that'll help. What's also interested is that of all the students that have dropped/don't seem interested in doing band next year, it's more of my upper range ones; it looks like I'll actually be retaining most of my lower instruments like french horn and trombone which rocks (of course I'd love for everyone to continue but I know lower winds are often more lacking later on so it would be great to get a strong grouping moving up next year).
Started planning the music for the next concert. I'm really excited about the line-up I have in mind, but unfortunately looking at the schedule and the way rehearsals have been going, I may need to cut one of the pieces. I was hoping to do Harry Potter stuff with the students, but I told them yesterday that based on the rehearsal we had I'm taking it off the table. Only if we have a great next rehearsal and dress rehearsal for this concert will I even consider putting it back in as an option. I'm afraid that
1) if I give the students Harry Potter, it's all they'd practice and would neglect the other pieces (I know this isn't true for every student but I expect it to be true for most of them based on the music for this concert) and
2) They'll get so riled up about it in rehearsal we'll never get anything done.
Keeping my fingers crossed that my new management strategy will be effective at the next rehearsal. As little talking on my part as possible and as much playing as can be.
I have such a wonderful group of students and they have so much potential as a group, I want to try to bring that out as much as possible and make it as meaningful an experience for as many of them as I can, and I need to figure out and master classroom management techniques that will reflect that.
