Summer drawing to an end...

Whoever said that teachers only work nine months out of the year don't actually know much about the teaching profession. For the average classroom teacher, school lets out at the end of May and pre-school inservice starts in the second week (or third week now) of August. So, that's about two and a half months off. Not bad.

But, being a band director changes your time frame. For me, my contract ends a day or two after the end of the school year and starts near the end of July. That's about a month and a half of vacation. Yep, you're saying, "not bad." But I'm a glutton for punishment.

In June, I get up early in the morning to do my treadmill time (although you can't freaking tell -- another post for another day), then I get right to work on drumline arranging. Somedays I spend between 6 and 10 hours a day working on these arrangements. Now, I'll be the first to admit that working at home in your home office is distinctly different from wearing khakis, a polo shirt and standing in front of a band, but the "work" switch is still flipped to the 'on' position in your head.

Disclaimer: I LOVE arranging music for drumline. I LOVE it and I actively advertise my services. No one is sticking a gun to my head and making me arrange this music. There is something, however, that makes it seem like work some days and not a passion. I'm guessing that that's the case with most things.

June flashes by with the drumline arranging, BUT, I am my own boss during that time and I can decide that I don't want to work a particular day, so I will. We try to use the freedom of June to do fun things or even just things that are out of the usual. Kayla worked VBS at the church. I went to lunch with our pastor and a few of the guys my age a few times and we both would drop in on our grandparents here and there. We even spent a week in Elkhart (Kansas) in a psuedo-family reunion (more on that on Kayla's Family Blog -- link above). The freedom of summer is a blessing.

Now, let's talk about July. Until a friend of mine said this a few years ago, I had never had this thought: "When band camp starts, it's like the signaling of the end of summer." Of course, she is referring to the daddy of all band camps, the WT Band Camp. (wtamu.edu)

It's an honor to be asked to teach there each summer. It's a ton of fun, with lots of time to catch up with friends from college and colleagues from across the state. But, yes, it does signal the end of summer. Again, no one has the proverbial gun to my head. And if I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it!

Bittersweet? Definitely. But again, all of this is my choice and I can't complain too much...

Percussion Ensemble & Jazz Band Concert, feat. Henry Brun

On March 8th, we had our annual Percussion Ensemble Concert. This year, because of the timing of things, we decided to add our Jazz Band onto the same program and "kill" the proverbial "two birds." I wasn't sure how I'd like it (you know me... always questioning efficiency), but it turned out great and I'm pretty sure we'll be planning on using this format again next year.

So, knowing that we were going to run both groups that night, I started looking for a guest artist we could bring in that would play with both groups. I was given Henry Brun's name from Staci Stokes at Promark and proceeded to book the date with him. From the outset, he was very cool to talk to -- down to earth and real. The last thing I need or any of the students need is someone who thinks far too much of themselves and has all sorts of high maintanance requests and needs!

When Henry got to town, it was very apparent that he was going to fall into the category of "easy-going." Thank the Lord! I put enough stress on myself with the concert, that I don't need a Prima Dona to take care of on top of that!

The students really warmed up to Henry and he was very good with them. He got to meet with all of the percussion students from grades 6-12 at least a little and I think it was good for them to meet someone who has made a living being a percussionist.

On the concert, there were three sections: Percussion Ensemble by themselves, Perc Ens with Henry (INTERMISSION), then Jazz Band with Henry.

Thanks to Frances, here are some pictures from the evening. There are way too many to post here, so I'll try to pick out only the very best ones!



Mushroom Soup, I think.

Cameron lays down a fat groove on marimba (yes, it's possible!).

Tyler imparts words of wisdom on Corey. Ah! Who are we kidding? I know they're just reciting lines from Talladega Nights...


Doomsday Machine!


Jasmine and Amanda finish up playing their bass drums on Oye Como Va! Hey, Amanda: "New bass drums!"


How does Corey keep ending up in these pictures?


Gratuitous picture of myself... Frances really captured my essence: glowing eyes and all.


Nick Scales lays down a fat groove on bass (EVERYONE, knows that's possible!).

The rhythm section trifecta: Nick, Henry and Tyler, while Aaron looks on (or counts rest).


Carissa improvises!


Group shot!
Yeah, saxes!


Are those super-bones? Who let those baritone players in here?!? (Janie, pictured closest, is legit).


Tyler drives the band.


seven. Seven. SEVEN Glorious Trumpet! Which one will take it up an octave?Group shot! Hey, is that Corey again?!?




Henry and Nick discuss the new Stagg up-right electric bass. Right out of the box!

Alumni Percussion Ensemble

In January, Dr. Susan Martin Tariq hosted an Alumni Percussion Ensemble for all former West Texas A&M (WTSU) students to participate in. Not only did I get to catch up with a number of guys I went to school with, but I also got to meet a lot of the students we had only heard stories of. And even though there were some pretty wide ranges of ages and experiences, we all came together in our shared love of percussion and our mutual respect for Dr. Tariq.

If only I had had the forethought to take pictures throughout the weekend, this blog would be more complete. But I didn't think about taking my camera to the rehearsals on Saturday morning and afternoon or the party Saturday night where we all took turns playing drums in a jazz trio (I waited to play until practically everyone had left... "did Joe Woolsey leave? Okay, I'll play.")

Anyhow, here are several pictures I took from before our concert on Sunday afternoon. I won't give each one a caption -- they are pretty self-explanatory.

PASIC! Part Two...

Finally! Some time to write Part Two of my PASIC blog! I've actually tried two other times, but was having trouble with blogger not accepting the photos I was trying to upload.



This first picture is from the final concert on Saturday night (I think these photos are in reverse order, but it doesn't really matter...). This is Airto Moreira's band. They were pretty stinking cool! After having taught a percussion ensemble transcription of one of his tunes, I was really looking forward to seeing his band in concert. I mentioned in the other blog post that the hotel I stayed in was pretty nice. Here's more evidence of that. This the driveway at the front of the hotel where the bellhops and valets stand. They have a continuous supply of mist for them to stay cool. Even though it was November in Austin, it was still fairly warm during the day. I would imagine that those guys really appreciate being misted during those hot summer days.

Here are a few pics from the Santa Clara Vanguard drumline clinic. I've been to a lot of these clinics, but I don't always get as much out of them educationally as I do motivationally. This was a case for both. Not only was the playing great, but the clinic portion from their instructors was very insightful.

When I was in Phantom Regiment, our percussion head and arranger was Brian Mason. Now, he's with SCV. For SCV, he's the front ensemble coordinator. Hearing his portion of the clinic reminded me of a lot of the things I learned from him when I had the mallets in my hands. This clinic was a good reinforcement for me. And of course, he's a great teacher with some really solid ideas that I'll definitely be trying to incorporate.

Here's a picture from the best clinic I saw while at PASIC. This was Bill Bachman's tenor clinic. To me, tenors is somewhat still a foreign language -- but in the way that drumset is a foreign language: I can still get the job done, but it's not my number one thing.

This wasn't just the best clinic because I need to brush up on my quad knowledge, but because Bill had a lot of very sound advice as far as developing "chops" goes. His discussion on teaching rudiments was something I really needed to hear. This has influenced my teaching quite a bit and it influenced my teaching immediately.

Picture quality's not always great. Sorry!

Now, here are some pictures from the exhibit hall.

Old school fiberglass drumset by Ludwig.

Some metal "constructions."

Gigantic practice pad for you and ALL of your friends.

A few opera gongs.

Some Taiko drums offered by Remo.

A few custom snare drums from Yamaha.

A closer look at one of them...

And finally, here's a picture of a friend of mine from drum corps, Daniel McCloud. I hadn't done a very good job of keeping up with Daniel, so it was nice to bump into him and have lunch together. He's finishing work on his Doctorate -- a secret ambition of mine, except that I don't really want to teach at the collegiate level, so not necessary otherwise. Soon to be called Dr. McCloud and deservedly so! It was interesting to hear each other's life experiences post-drum corps. And it was interesting to hear how that mutual experience has shaped our lives in very different and in ways that we could never have expected or lived without!

PASIC! Part One...

From State Marching Band Contest to PASIC, it's been a busy and very involved week. Of course, SMC was in San Antonio, so on Wednesday (the following day) Mr. Kennell dropped me off in Austin and I spent the day regrouping for PASIC. I got registered at PASIC and did some laundry as well as getting some writing done for school.

Thursday is when things really start. Now, I'm not at PASIC to take pictures, so there aren't many to narrate about, but trust me, there's been LOTS going on!






This is Todd Sucherman. I didn't know who he was from his name, but I definitely have heard his playing. He's played with Spinal Tap, Styx, Eric Marienthal, Peter Cetara, R Kelly, Billy Ocean, David Hasselhoff (!), Tommy Shaw and Jim Brickman as well as many others.

He did some playing and talking and even though he was an AMAZING player, he seemed like an even nicer and down to earth guy. What did I learn from his clinic? That I'm not a very good drum set player...


So, I'm a big dork. Not exactly headline news, but definitely the truth. And while I don't need YOU to remind me of that, things like taking a picture of your sweet hotel room and putting them on your blog do that more than adequately.

Anyhow, did I mention how sweet this room is?


















































Yep, big dork. Just a big dork with a nice hotel room...














I stayed away from the Marching Contest today so I could see some other concerts and spend time in the exhibit hall, but toward the end, I thought I should at least see what was going on. When I got there, they were in the College Standstill competition and the UNT Bass Drum Ensemble was performing. The pictures aren't great.




A blurry, but lighter shot of them playing on a cymbal rack.














Now, this is interesting. There was an attempt to break the Guiness Book of World Records record for largest drum roll. To beat the previous record of 1400+, there would need to be around 1500 drummers. Well, unfortunately there were only about 200 present, so we could not have a fighting chance of breaking the record. But the coordinator had thought of that, so he came up with a contingency plan to break (or set, I'm not sure) the record for longest mass-drumming. So, the group of us played a roll for six minutes and three seconds.


While we didn't break the record we set out to, it was still fun. It was fun to see all of the ages of people it drew in. Also, it was interesting to see all of the different drums people brought.

Here's my plain-jane drum.









And here's a custom-made, carbon-steel shell, rope-tension drum. The guy who had it, said that the top head was calfskin, the bottom goat and that the drum was made in Switzerland.



Now, who's the big dork???



(Man, I know that's mean... but I just couldn't resist.)

5A State Marching Band Contest!

Yesterday was 3A Contest, so that can mean only one thing: it was the 5A's turn!

Getting to make this trip with both a first year teacher and a person new to the state has been a lot of fun. Certainly, there are FAR more qualified people to show him "the ropes," but he isn't from around here. Therefore, I have the monopoly of being pretty much the only person he knows...

Anyhow, all of that to say this: We were discussing how many of the 3A bands played very well and marched at a very high rate of skill. But for the ones that played and marched well, there would be another that just didn't do either one particularly well. That would not be the case with the 5A's. We didn't see a poor performance all day. Now, granted, that doesn't mean that you couldn't discern between which ones were better than others, but it must be similar to judging at the Olympics. With everyone performing so well, the difference between places is minute.

I could get easily carried away with lengthy commentary on my opinion of the state of marching band, but I won't. Instead, let's just see the pictures I took today that DID turn out!

Disclaimer (again): I think I finally found a camera setting that worked well with marching band, but there are still some rough photos. I also didn't have strong enough batteries to operate my camera for the early portion of the contest. Eventually, Wurtz came up and had some kickin' duracells. Noticable photographic ommissions? Hebron, Cedar Park, Haltom, The Woodlands, Langham Creek, LD Bell, Richland, Klein, Spring. Not all because of camera problems -- some because I simply forgot that I had a camera with me.


Here's Bowie. They made finals and had a very interesting show called "A Little Night Music." We stood behind some Bowie band parents waiting to get in for Finals and they were some very nice, down to earth folks. You might think that down to earth pretty well describes all band parents, but the parents from another band who were standing next to us, were pretty obnoxious and came off arrogant. I hope that was just those parents and is in no way indicative of all parents from that particular school.



Brazoswood. "Out of the Blue." Yes, there were many blue colors integrated into the show, but these mats in green, pink and yellow (introduced at the end of the show), were very effective against what had been a mostly blue and green backdrop.







Churchill. Great guard. The show came off like a really excellent winterguard show with band in the way, but that's only from a design perspective. The band played really well and, of course, marched well.










Churchill again.














Coppell. Finalist. Good band.












I believe this is Duncanville. The best thing about Duncanville? Incredible sound and there wasn't a single microphone, amp, synth or sound system present. They did it all the orinigal way.











The next four are from Marcus - State Champions! What a super-cool show that was executed SO well. It was an underwater theme. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves (mostly).









Clams (and not the band kind... trumpets...). Reef.

Each little formation of students is actually a fish. Not the best vantage point, but hopefully you can make out the left, underside fin.









Crabs! Or are they lobsters? Anyhow, very clever and way-entertaining!














And the seahorses who were part of a horserace using the music from William Tell.














Regan HS. Finalist.












And here's the first picture of the blog one more time: Austin HS. My favorite drumline of the day! Too band they didn't make finals, I DEFINITELY would have liked to have seen that drumline again!




Well. I'm very tired -- it's been a really eventful couple of days.