The Art of Music Making

Tonight I am reminded about the true reason I am a musician.  It is not because I love to sing kid songs and teach children the art of how music can sound if you practice hard enough.  It's about the commitment that that you make to the art of music making.  Tonight I sat in the Lyric Theater awaiting my turn to go on stage and I heard the sweet, rich sounds of true music.  Music that has been practiced on instruments that have been perfected by committed musicians who make this their way of life.  I forget that music can evolve and change each time you listen with enthusiastic ears.  This is the music that can bring tears to your eyes simply because the cymbal player played a tremolo that led to a crash while the strings play a chromatic scale with a splendid crescendo and the trumpets are double tonguing in the upper register so majestically.  This is what I forget about.  This is what singing "Kookaburra," and "Jingle Bells," and "I've Been Working on the Railroad," oftentimes replaces.  This heartfelt music that I heard tonight is why I became a musician.  Music is more than singing those silly songs and teach children to sing on pitch "So, Mi, So-So, Mi"!

This is out there, folks.  Music beyond the music room that I live in.  It makes me want to experience this again the way it is meant to be appreciated.  If you sit in a theater with your loved ones, and close your eyes, you will be taken to a place where there nothing can go wrong.  It is a place that everyone wants to be, and you can be there-- you just have to find it.

Happy Music Making to all my friends today.  I hope you find your inner song and sing like today is the last day to make beautiful music.  

Reflections on my 3rd Grade Program

Yippee!  Another program done!  This time, it was 3rd grade.  No problems with the teachers.  Nearly all of the kids showed up-- and on time!

The program itself was fine.  All the kids knew their speaking lines.  We had a little problems with staying with the music, but I think it's because they couldn't hear the music. (When are those sound guys going to come in and fix my auditorium!?!?!?!)  The canned food drive went over well.

It was great!  I didn't feel too hot, but it looks like it didn't matter much, because they pulled it off without my super cheesy smiles and big-mouth mouthing the words extraordinarily huge.  Good job, kids... good job.

Almost April

April's "Be a Better Me" is all about teaching. It's appropriate because it's almost the end of the year. About this time of the year, I begin to keep my eye on the prize-- summertime. But that's really not the prize. The real prize is the amount of growth each student has made since the beginning of the year. In music class, it's about instilling the love and appreciation for the art and understanding how it relates to their lives. The prize is about the students-- not about me. So April is dedicated to becoming a better teacher.

Here is a list of things I need to do in order to improve my teaching (of course, this list is predominantly endless, every teacher can improve on their teaching-- this is just a simple "rough draft"):
1. organize better (CLEAN THAT DESK!)
2. plan (find a better lesson plan layout and implement next year!)
3. communication skills (including parents.... scary!!)
4. hold students accountable
5. use active learning (well, duh! This is quite easy in music class)
6. get kids motivated (band and choir could use some attention in this area-- the little kiddos, not so much!)
7. take courses to better my understanding (planning on taking Orff Level II this summer at Baker for graduate credit!)

I was going to try and make a list of ten, but I can't think of more. I'll list more as I think of them.

My first number to tackle is of course, number 1! I need to clean! I took mom's little handheld vacuum cleaner to school so I can clean out all the instruments. They are so dusty! They should call my room the Dust Bowl! I already took them all off the top of the shelf and windex'ed that nice and clean. I'm just working on the insides of the shelves. I want to get it nice and organized while I'm cleaning. The Sopranos on the top, altos in the middles shelves and of course, the basses on the bottom. This will make it easier to teach different sizes. I also need to COMPLETELY strip aways EVERYTHING on my desk, and basically start new. There are so many dust bunnies on my desk, it's making me sneeze! Piles and piles of papers and things that DON'T BELONG there! Becoming more organized and clean is one of the first steps!

I will try and take before and after pictures so you can see the progress (and by you, I mean cyber world... since I have no idea who actually reads this blog!).

Planning-- it takes time, and I feel like I'm out of the loop since I missed October, November and December. I have already done better with lesson plans and actually following them. Sometimes I mess up and decide I don't want to do a certain activity with a grade level, but for the most part I will plan better.

I have the best job in the world! I work with teachers who care, students who are respectable and accountable and a building that has technology that is out of this world. I will improve!





****These are pictures that I took at the beginning of the school year. They should not be considered when looking at before and after photos.****

Back at Work

Every one keeps asking me if I cried when I dropped McCoy off at daycare this morning. Am I a bad mother because I didn't cry? I am so happy to go back to work-- a place where I am wanted as a teacher, my knowledge, experience and background are acknowledged and appreciated, where I can dance, sing and have a great time (and, and, and...). I am so in love with McCoy, but I also love my job. I'm very happy that I can say that I love my job. Most people these days either don't have a job or they hate their current one. But I don't want to be one of those moms who drop off their kids at daycare to "get rid of them". That's not it at all. I'm very lucky that I also get to see McCoy half way through the work day-- I'm going to nurse him at lunchtime. So, even though he is at daycare all day, I still get to see him half way through.



After saying all that, today was actually not that exciting. We were working on curriculum mapping and technology stuff. I was excited to see my collegues and friends. I got to talk to some teachers who last saw me 45 pounds heavier! It was nice to converse with the other teachers and ask how their vacations were. Let me just say how wonderful it is to have people care about you. It is so nice.

I love McCoy. I missed him, but I didn't cry. Does that make me an awful mother?

One Down, Five To Go

At the end of last year, I emailed my prinicpal and "demanded" more opportunities for programs. Last year, the programs were divided into two grade chunks-- K, 1, 2 in one program and 3, 4, 5 in another. I absoultely hated that! Too many kids, not enough speaking opportunities and not enough room on the risers. So, I came up with a solution-- divide the kids up more. I proposed several different program ideas, the first one was granted to me. It was divided into K (by themselves), 1-2, 3-4, and 5 (by themselves). So far, I am loving that idea! It is making my life easier, less teachers to worry about, and less kids. Less props, less costumes... etc. Every program performs twice in one day. One at 10:00 a.m. for the students and staff, and again at 1:00 p.m. for parents and family. So, if you count up all that I have left, I have five more. I thought I was almost done!

My Program Schedule:
Feb. 18-- one more at 1:00 p.m.
Mar. 11-- 3-4 Program "I Need a Vacation"
10:00 a.m.
1:00 p.m.
Apr. 22-- 5th Grade Program "Drummin' with Orff"
10:00 a.m.
1:00 p.m.

Oh and then there is the Elementary Music Festival on May 4 and 5th.... but that's not as big of a deal for me. This doesn't even include piano recitals or piano competitions or Rezound concerts.... there are many more where that came from!

And amongst all this busy-ness.... I want to make my life more complicated by taking piano lessons, and starting a family. I can handle it though, because what stays at work, stays at work. I usually don't stress over work when I'm at home. I just walk through the building and then I'm like, "OH MY GOSH, I HAVE A PROGRAM TODAY, ARG!!!" But when I'm at home, I just enjoying spending time with Whit and teaching piano lessons and watching TV and playing on the computer and the like.

So, one program down, five to go!

Valentine's Day

My lovely husband just surprised me with a dozen pink roses on the counter! How wonderful! I know it's Valentine's Day and what better day to give flowers than today, but I haven't gotten flowers in a really long time. I think Whit saves his surprises for when I think I'm not going to get anything. Plus he is really good at saying he won't do something to make me think otherwsie.

It will be a Happy Valentine's Day for sure. We are going to play poker tonight with Jay and Priscilla (not what I would like to do, but it's alright, I guess.) I think they are having a BBQ also.

We actually went out to Olive Garden last night for a "pre-Valentine's Day" dinner. I think a lot of couples were doing that last night. Mom Martin gave us a gift card for Valentine's Day so we used that! How sweet of her!

Today I have to go "work" at the Multi-Piano function and then I have to play like six duets with my former teacher, Mickey and several students. It is a lot of fun, I just thought it came by too fast. I was supposed to practice! What happened!?

Running errands

Today I spent the majority of my lunch hour running errands for my upcoming programs. The first is on Thursday-- the K kiddos at Whittier. Then I have another one at Caruthers-- the K kiddos next Wednesday. Putting on a program takes so much time and energy. And basically I thought I would love it, but I'm beginning to see why so many music teachers don't really care for them. I'm not as stressed out with these programs, just because they are Kindergarteners and well, they are just too cute! So, I've done all I can and they are as ready as they'll ever be!

I went to IARC to get the sound equipment, and then went over to Caruthers to drop it all off. Whittier has their own set of equipment, so it's not needed there. I just grabbed two 5th graders to help load it out of the car. Thank goodness for a few good kids.

I'm 2 for 2 so far! Good job, Tenessa!