Recent content by musicteach

& Happy Holidays, Happy New Years, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanza, and every other holiday you may be celebrating this season. From my family to yours, Merry Christmas!

I wanted to rant about something. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my job to a T. However, it is incredibly frustrated some days! One of those days was today. We had a scheduled practice for today, and I had booked the field so we could have it all day. I showed up (my customary ten...

Our first day of classes was today, and while the band was warming up, I was taking the opportunity to play a few runs. In case you don't know my teaching style, I conduct as little as possible during marching band season as on the field during a show, I won't be conducting them. I happened to...

So our final concert of the year (as well as mine at my school!) is fast approaching! (Actually, it is Friday night, seven sharp!) Anyways, I thought you might would like to see our concert lineup (in performance order). Concert Band Tempered Steel by Charles Young Southern Hymn by Samuel...

So I wanted some opinions on something that happened today. My youngest, Jake, plays little league and this is his first season. He plays with a couple of boys from school who are his friends. Anyways, they ha d a scrimmage game today, which is all fine and well...except for minour thing. So...

So this week is Spring Break for my school, and with such the music department will be traveling to Atlanta, Georgia for a music competition/festival. We'll be leaving Wednesday, and getting back sometime Sunday in the afternoon (hopefully not too late!). I don't think I'm going to take my...

I wanted to talk about "habits" that we all have. We ALL have them, some maybe good, some maybe bad. Since it's getting on to spring time--although you'd never know it as it was snowing here earlier--I thought maybe we could talk about spring cleaning some of those nasty habits! But before...

Because of special circumstances, the ensemble I play with decided to practice tonight, and not our usual Tuesday night session tomorrow night. We have a very diverse group, about 22 of us (it tends to fluxuate practice to practice because of scheduling issues). But out of the twenty or so...

Let's talk about the "rules" of music. Music is the child of art and mathematics. We of course have the artistic qualities from mother art, in that the same 7 notes (and their variations) can be written into millions of combinations, each. But, father math has provided us a ridgid structure...

As the title says, Happy New Years everyone! May 2013 be filled with wishes of success, good signs of friendship, and most importantly: lots and lots of music! Does anyone have any New Years traditions they'd like to share with us? I'll share one. In my family when we get together for New...

I offer this to my students, so I guess it can't hurt to offer here, so here goes! If you have any questions about theory, let me know via a post here etc and I'll try to explain in way that makes sense. Okay?

As the title says, I wanted to share this with everyone. I've noticed that even with with musicians that have been playing for decades upon decades that a lot of musicians seem to have issues with weird time signatures, such as 12/16 time: So what I wish to explain will hopefully help you in...

I learned this many many many many years ago with my absolute favourite professor in college. All parts that make up the piece of music, are essential to that piece of music. What I mean is, when a piece of music is written, it is written to fit together just as a puzzle is cut into multiple...

Hi all! So you may of (but probably didn't) notice that I've been kinda MIA the past couple of weeks. Well that would be because November is one of the busiest times of the year for me! Marching band is normally coming to a close, and concert band is getting into full swing. Always have...

In Eduction, we have this theory. If we can connect one subject's curriculum to that of another subject, our students will learn better, will retract more information, and will ultimately be more successful in life. This isn't a new theory, it's been around for a while. If you go your local...