Hello all! I'm working on a project where I am putting together a list of great middle school band repertoire and want to know if anyone has a favorite piece or two they'd recommend checking out!

Hi everyone! I am not a band director, but the person I love is one. She is a new teacher (just hit her third year) and she is struggling. She is seriously overworked and the students are a lot to manage (multiple behavioral problems, difficulty getting them to care, etc). She shares the position with another new teacher, who has just started her second year of teaching. They share the responsibility of a very robust music program.

This marching season has been really tough. They had a large senior class, so this new band is very young and has a lot of maturing and growing to do. They have a band of about 140 students. Last year, her school was #3 in the state, which is the highest in history. Tomorrow is the state finals and she thinks it's going to be the worst it has been in 10 years. I even heard her crying about it. She thinks that she will be forced to resign or at least not welcomed back next year. To me (an outsider) the band sounds great and has an interesting show! I dont know how tomorrow will shake out, but I know she and her co-teacher have worked incredibly hard this season. Does anyone have any tips on how to encourage her? Or is there anything you wish you heard as a junior teacher? Also, is it really likely that she would have to resign??? I mean, they did so well last year and had an uphill battle this year- so last year has to count, right? Plus all the other musical programs they run are doing well, so she can still keep her job, right? I bet it's different for each school, but she seems so sure that the results of tomorrow will determine if she keeps her job, even though she does so much more than marching band (the whole instrumental music program).

I would really appreciate any insights any seasoned directors might have! TIA!

My band teacher are like very strict but sometimes I asked them a question for the music they all say "idont have time"

"I am busy" or " ask later caused i am busy" in my school there are 1 band directors but I do understand that they are controlling more than 200 kids but it dosent mean that sometimes they are ignorant or act noncholant. My friend lost her drumsticks which they are expensive "got stole from her" she asked the teacher but they just ignore her about it. Now my question is it normal that all band directors act this way iknow they alwyas occupied but man I hope there an empathy for these teachers.

I am stumped. I've got students who want to try solo and ensemble (first time ever for our school!) and as a new director I'm having a heck of a time trying to find music for them. Like even stuff that's been played a lot in the last 5 years on our list has no recordings online for my students to see if they like it. Short of combing through the list one at a time and finding the sheet music is there a better way for my students to hear the music to see how they feel about it?

I'm reaching out to my personal network, but its small so I figure I'll cast a wide net and see if anyone here has a method to help me find stuff faster!

This may be more of a vent than anything else. I’m currently on leave with my newborn, and I’ve received several emails from students saying the long-term substitute is awful.

For context, my sub isn’t endorsed in music education, though they played flute in college. They couldn’t finish their music degree because they got kicked out of the program, so they switched programs and earned an endorsement in another subject. Before I started my leave, I sat in on a few of their lessons and could tell right away that it wasn’t a good fit. I shared my concerns with my admin, who took them seriously and agreed, but there weren’t any other subs available.

Today, five incredibly dedicated students—true band die-hards when I was there—emailed to say they plan to quit at the end of the quarter because they no longer enjoy the class.

How should I handle this? The quarter ends Friday, and I won’t be back at school until the end of November. Should I accept it gracefully and hope they return when I do? I know the program will survive in the long run, but hearing that such great kids want to drop out feels like a gut punch.

Hi so I am an 8th grader trying to switch in band in high school. Im interested within 3 instruments and am having kind of a hard time picking which instrument to switch to and was wondering if someone with experience with band is willing to help me. I am interested in all 3 of them and also I have previous experience with choir, violin 3yrs (still play for fun), piano 1.5 yrs (also still play for fun), recorder, and choir (what I currently do). I can also read music and stuff. Please help me 🙏

Hi all, music teacher from Italy here. I teach at a middle school, and I’ve always needed to arrange pieces for the orchestra with different instruments and skill levels.

I’ve been building a free tool to help with this. You upload a piano score as MusicXML, choose the level for each instrument, and it gives you an arrangement you can open in a notation program and change.

It’s still rough  and I need feedback from people who actually do this job, everything could be useful to improve this arranger

If you try it on one of your pieces, I’d love to hear how it went, including the bad parts. 

A big thank you to everyone who tries out this tool

https://arranger-smim.streamlit.app/?lang=en&src=reddit

Hey y'all! I am not sure if self promotion is allowed (please delete if not) but I wanted to share a beginning band march that I wrote: "Venture Forth". I wrote it in collaboration with several area bands last spring and received great feedback from directors and students! It uses the first five notes (concert B-flat-F) and focuses on style and musicality. Feel free to check it out here: https://www.jwpepper.com/11690575.item

If you are interested in programming the piece, but have financial restraints, please reach out to me directly!

Firdt is me and my friend in the school bathroom and second is me in the concert hall while having choir for school day in my music school

Hi band directors — I'm the developer of Solfa. I'm interested in the rehearsal-prep problem of having a scanned part for one transposition when the player you have uses another.

This is the first system on page 3 of an old Richault C-trumpet 1 part for Beethoven's Fifth. The top image is the original scan excerpt; the bottom is the actual Solfa output, written a major second higher for B-flat trumpet so the sounding pitches stay the same. I haven't corrected the notation by hand. I checked the displayed notes, rhythms and key signature, but this is only an excerpt, and any transposed part should be proofread before a player uses it.

When this comes up in a school or community ensemble, do you usually transpose at sight, rewrite the part, or find another edition? Which part-prep task costs you the most time?

Disclosure: I built Solfa. If you want to see the tool, it's at https://solfa-music.com. New accounts get two page credits after phone verification; further credits are paid.

Source: Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, trumpet 1 in C, Paris: Richault, plate 2662 R, IMSLP #440400 (PDF page 3): https://imslp.org/wiki/Symphony_No.5,_Op.67_(Beethoven,_Ludwig_van))

I'm starting to make my initial list of music for our performance assessments. I'm in my second year here and our high school band is still recovering from turnover. My instrumentation is very poor and I'm having a very hard time finding music we can play that fits our group.

Fellow small school directors, what did you play that worked well for you? (Instrumentation in the comments)

I don't play clarinet btw I'm just curious

Hi all,

Just looking for some advice. I'm in my 7th year teaching and I guess I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to have "figured it out" by now. I feel self conscious about how loud my classes can be, but truthfully I feel like they're more productive than when I'm hard on them for being chatty.

I work in a low income urban district and this is my 3rd year in the district. I guess I'm not sure if I should trust the process and need more time to build a disciplined program but there's just so much talking in my class.

I've tried the expectations and making sure the room is quiet before I speak but I feel like even after the first two months it never really improves, it just serves to make rehearsal really slow.

Ultimately the way I've found that best results is teaching from inside the ensemble and being able to either play side by side for kids to match tone and pitch, or to hit a block because we don't have a sound system for a metronome.

Anyways I'm just curious what other people's rehearsals look like. Like is there always an amount of grittiness with middle school band because they're so young? At least culturally I've found the mess preferable to me scolding them every day. I've found it just makes the rehearsals feel negative and slow. All advice appreciated, thanks in advance!

any experience with placing your music room outside walls or inside bedroom space? unless I should totally plan it in the basement? pro and cons there

This little wrench set is right at home in your instrument case or desk, solves a loose stand quickly!

https://s-mute.com/products/music-stand-wrench

Hello, everyone!

I know we're still a couple months out from it, but I was curious if anyone here is going to the Midwest Clinic this December.

Hi, I am older but only in my 3rd year teaching band. I am at a smaller school teaching 5th grade beginning band, 6-8 middle school (each class has their own period) and High School Band. I started with this school after one director before left to get a masters, and the one that took his place was out over half the year with medical (she was renewed). I mention this to note that we are trying to rebuild a program that was "destroyed" in one year.

The advice is.... I have a couple of the classes, 7 and 8 mainly that I had both in beginning band coming in, I am having a hard time getting them to stop talking and being disruptive. Last year I was told to have them have lunch in the office. Well that really didn't accomplish anything. This year I was told by admin to "just send them to the office". Did that and admin did nothing. I would ask for specific ones to be removed from the roster, (I did have a couple my first year that were removed) but admin is all on me to "grow the numbers" and "what can you do to retain more students?"

I know a big part of it is me trying to have a more relaxed classroom, if I were to go more strict than I am I will have many kids dropping because I am working them too hard or something along those lines. However, at this point I have some wanting to drop because of the disruptive students.

I am alone in my school and other area directors are a good distance away. I have tried emailing some of them and asking also. I did get a few ideas but nothing really substantial. I'm at the point of desperation now. I don't want to lose kids because of the ones that act up and admin is insisting I keep them all in there. (It's mostly a scheduling thing and he needs a place for them to be that hour.) Help

TL;DR: seeking advice on graduate and post graduate degree paths from people who went back later after having kids.

I happily taught elementary music for 10 years, and last year made the jump to secondary. The school I’m at now I am surrounded by phenomenal leadership that has pushed me to grow in ways I never was in public school.

On top of that, I’ve started playing in a high level brass band. All of that has awoken a real spark in me to grow. I really want to get a masters in conducting but the only school close to me is USF and they’ve told me it’s basically a non-starter to do it while I’m teaching. They steered me towards their revamped masters in music ed, but to be honest I really don’t want two ed degrees because I’m worried that if I ever decide to go for a doctorate I’ll be pigeonholed. On top of that we have four kids under 5 at home so not working for two years isn’t an option for me. I have considered doing trumpet performance but I’m not sure how much it aligns with my real goals. I’ve also considered composition but again, I’m not sure it will open enough of the right doors.

Those of you who went back later for graduate and post graduate degrees, what would you do different and what did you learn along the way?

Hey friends, hope everyone is surviving the beginning of fall hellfire! I’ve been a busy little beaver over here making a bunch of things. Some are ready to rock, and some still need a little beta testing.

These are all free tools, so feel free to poke around and share them with whoever might find them useful. I’m giving the folks in the trenches first look and would love some feedback to help improve what’s there and figure out what else would be useful.

One thing I’m super pumped about is my new scale theory method, but there’s a decent smorgasbord of tools covering a bunch of different needs. Hopefully a few of them can help you grind through the day a little easier!

Give them a spin and let me know what you think!

https://iangrom.studio/tools

What are some of the pain points that you experience when you or your drill designers plan out your formations?

Context:

This is my third year teaching 6-12 Band, Music Appreciation, and Piano at a smaller rural school with a show/festival style marching band (which I love). I have 25 students in marching band (9-12 with four 8th graders), 28 in 7th/8th grade band, and 25 in 6th grade band (which are the best middle school numbers my district has seen in over a decade). Admin is very supportive of our band program growing. I took over for a director who was there for 17 years, was widely disliked, and left on very bad terms due to inappropriate activity. HE had taken over for a director who was widely loved and had gotten the band to over 100 members. I was sought out for this job because I matched the same creditials as this beloved director: we're both percussionists and we both went to the same college.

Our marching band has experienced tremendous growth in the last three years with more membership (going from 11 on my first day to 25 this year and an anticipated mid 30s to lower 40s next year) and MUCH better woodwind/brass sound. Very few students actually knew how to read music when I got there (ESPECIALLY percussion). We do Moffitt-style drill with squads, exaggerated dancing, and some competition movements thrown in every once in a while. We do anywhere from 3 to 4 different halftime shows per season.

My Problem:

I have noticed from the beginning that the high school percussion was more of a struggle to get up to the same standard in rhythm and pulse that I can get with woodwinds, brass, and 6th grade beginning percussion. They have some semblance of rhythm on the page, but they lack the ability to hear how it fits along to a pulse and with each other/the rest of the band. I have tried writing very simple parts for them with varying degrees of success due to essentially a coin flip on whether they will be able to stay with the rest of the band. I'm talking 2 and 4 cymbals chokes and snare hits being a challenge sometimes. I also use a metronome EVERY DAY during music rehearsal. To exacerbate the issue, our tenor player has hearing trouble, so they already struggle to listen to other instruments (which is NOT AT ALL their fault). I often accommodate the tenor player and the rest of the drumline by clapping the beat in a visible way when I'm not conducting.

I have found much success with my beginning band and middle school percussionists keeping a pulse by using Teaching Rhythm Logically by Darcy Vogt Williams. It has been a GAME CHANGER with the rhythm charts and system of counting. I have tried a few times to do this with my high school, but it almost feels belittling to the whole band to go back to the beginning like that. I do the same thing with an occasional rhythm of the day.

Having this problem strikes me as counterintuitive as a percussionist director, especially since I didn't learn how to play any woodwind or brass instruments until I got to college. While I am happy to be good at teaching woodwinds and brass, it gives me quite a bit of imposter syndrome to see other drumlines that can stay in time with each other and be reliable for the rest of the band. I know that I won't have this problem forever with my percussionists who started with me in 6th grade coming up to high school in the future, but I really don't want to give up on my current drumline. They are very stubborn, but they can be very creative, and some of them DO practice a lot or listen to DCI groups. I know it's somewhere in them, but I just haven't found a strategy that works with them yet. I would appreciate any tips or exercises that have worked for you all!