Tuesday, January 5, 2010

School Resumes

Well we are back in session. I wish the new quarter would've started yesterday, but it's not for another week. Even though the kids are recharged(and kind of crazy) and the teachers rested(and slightly lethargic) we're in the last two weeks of a grading period. Odd.

On a personal note I had a great break. I don't think I said this before, but I got engaged just a few days before my last post. This means some of break was used on beginning to plan a wedding that is over a year away. I had no idea there was so much to do. We looked at venues, spent lots of time talking, got information from her parents(no word on mine yet), and had an engagement party.

The party was great we met a little Irish pub in normal with about 40 friends, mostly theater people I've met as a music director while my fiancee has been on stage. I even got to see some of my former students. It's weird to think that by the time I'm married all of my first high school band will have graduated high school. They're off doing all kinds of things and it was the highlight of my night to hear about it. One just left for Spain to study a semester abroad before coming home to be a nurse. Many of them have continued playing two as music majors, one as a minor, many in their unversity marching bands, and one is almost member of the Glassmen(good luck Kory). It just makes me so happy that they're keeping music in their lives on that level.

I did a lot of article reading over break. Your basic stuff I guess how to be a better director and more importantly how to be an educator. What can I teach my students about music through music while performing music? That's from one of my books, "Teaching Music Through Performance" and it's really great to work on that. I'm trying to get my students into reflecting on their performances, we wrote short essays after watching a tape of our concert and I'm thinking about doing that once a month with great ensembles playing the literature we're playing. I'd like to do a listening journal next year...if anyone has thoughts on that it'd be great.

I read about different methods of score study because I'm trying to find something that really works for me. I'm almost through my first score using a method I'm developing and I think it's helping me to understand the pieces with more depth. I'll outline my plan sometime on here incase it maybe benifical to someone. I wish I would've done this two years ago...but we have to keep improving or we die. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

How can I  become a better music educator, pursue my dreams of higher education, and not drive my fiancee crazy in 2010? Stay tuned.

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