Far and wide many have tried, none have done it better.

One of my classes has spent the last few weeks on a very important aspect of being a band director, that of building and sustaining a marching program. Something the school where I teach lacks.  I marched for four years in college, but both in the music department at UCD, and at CSUS where I'm taking credential classes, it's a part of my past that I admit only sheepishly, seeing as the organization that I marched with, the California Aggie Marching Band(uh) is somewhat scorned by the music faculty and the band program at CSUS (which marches corps style) for their lack of... precision.

Granted, my experiences in marching don't come close to what is expected of a high school marching band - the CAMB is a show band; loud, boisterous and full of energy. They don't play standard literature, only arrangements done by bandsmen themselves, mostly of popular music, though the level of music is far above what I've come to expect from high school students.  The shows are charted by the student drum major and I have to say in six years I've yet to see one french curve. What I'm trying to say is that I'm surrounded now by people who march in drum corps and percussion ensembles and stress the importance of discipline and precision and the corps style of marching, and everything I'm learning contradicts my image of what a Marching Band should be. I talked to my instructor after class one day, and in mentioning my marching history, he laughed and joked that he would make sure to provide me with extra resources to help me "undo" my previous predispositions of band.

However, as I'm slowly being conditioned, I spent this weekend at Picnic Day, the one day of the year that the Aggie Band  lives for. The day they get to stand up and say, "Guess what, we're for real." Their parade show this year was tight and precise, surprisingly so, considering their fanfare was in 10/8 (3-2-2-3) followed by arrangements of Styx, Rush, and Boston. Normally I'm shamed into acknowledging that words like "phrasing," "blend," "balance" or "dynamics" have no place in the band - and it's true for the most part (when I want my students to pull out all the stops with dynamics, I say "Band-uh Loud" and they know what I mean) - but on Saturday, I felt pride for the first time in a long time, being an alumnus of the organization.

Audition Season

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

With 7 weeks 'til our next concert, I'm spending my time this week away from the podium. Mostly I've been prepping packets of audition material for next year's Symphonic and Jazz bands. 

March is a long a trying month for the music department at DHS - a school where seemingly everyone who tries makes the football team, but tryouts for the auditioned ensembles require two, sometimes three callbacks - no matter the program. Whether Choir, Orchestra or Band, it's pretty crazy if you think about it. 

There's only one high school in a town of 63,000 - one standard Jazz "Stage Band," one 32 voice Madrigal Choir, only 4 clarinet spots in the DHS Symphony, and only 12 available in the Symphonic band (we have to fight for French Horns, however). The whole school's schedule is planned around making sure the kids who get into those programs can take their other classes, and therefore the administration needs to know who they'll be well in advance. The process is intense, even students in the ensembles have to re-audition and by their senior year, a lot of kids are used to disappointment and the effort required to maintain the standard of excellence.

However, this year I'm finding I have to deal with the students facing a level of disappointment for which they're not prepared: UC admissions, or rather lack thereof. I was lucky enough to work with this same band last year as a Paraeducator, and it seems like half of the Band's seniors went to UC Berkeley, and the other half to UCLA, with a few stragglers to Columbia, NYU or Puget Sound. This year, with cutbacks in admissions and hikes in fees, one person out of about 70 got into UCLA. Berkeley is sitting on their admissions still, but that outlook is grim. This fact was brought to light when their teacher excitedly mentioned that we were going to stop by the UCLA campus on our trip to San Diego in May and asked how many got in. One student tentatively raised his hand to nervous laughter from the rest of the group. I've even had kids come up to me bummed about not getting into UCD, their hometown "backup school." 

These kids are bred overachievers, 5 or 6 AP classes on their plates, SAT scores above 2000 (they're out of 2400 now?). They're special, or at least have been told so all their lives by parents who all have Bachelor's degrees, many from UCs themselves. Now it's crashing down around them and the kids don't really know what to do, and I have no idea what to say to them. 

To counteract the anxiety we're digging through new music to play on our trip. I'm learning that finding literature that's perfectly fit for a particular ensemble is one of the most important parts of being a music educator. However, the Symphonic Band my teacher has spoils him, and me by proxy. We're scheduled to play on the deck of the U.S.S. Midway in San Diego and my teacher is pulling out all the stops. Although it would be a little too blatant to dig out Midway March again (we played it last year on our trip to Victoria BC.), the director is grabbing all the "shiny" he can and dropping his own cash on scores to the Hal Leonard "John Williams Signature Series" - basically arrangements for professionals, not rearranged for younger bands. They're really just transcriptions of Williams' symphonic music to wind band parts, signed off by the composer, and the premiered by the U.S. Marine Band. 

The music we choose is not just a festival set, but also enough to put on hour long "Pops concerts" around town while we're there and then come back and perform in the park in downtown Davis during the farmer's market to thank the community for their support.

The students have locked in Raider's March - the main title to Indiana Jones but the big problem we're facing is having to decide between the 1984 and 1996 Olympic Fanfares to kick off the set. This year we have an incredibly strong trumpet section. 10 kids - 7 of which are powerhouses and 3 are, well, third trumpets by definition. But selecting music like this requires a director to play towards the ensembles' strengths, and this year it's brass.

I don't know how he manages to pull it off time and time again, but their teacher has the ability to trick his students - baiting them with amazing music, and then saying something like "You know, I just don't know if you guys are up to this... " enlisting jeers and pleading from his kids to give it a shot, challenging them and forcing them to push themselves. This time though, I think he really means to cut "Summon the Heroes" the 1996 theme. Some worry or another about not being able to handle the articulation required of the piece. This kind of tears at me inside because it's absolutely gorgeous and our 1st chair trumpet player nailed the solo today. Music is supposed to evoke emotion and this piece does just that - not just fanfare, excitement and flourish, but something much more. 

One Month Later

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

It's done. 

It's done, and both my students and I came out the other side feeling a sense of accomplishment. I was able to rehearse a grade four piece (I Am, by Andrew Boysen Jr.) to festival readiness with a non-auditioned high school ensemble in four weeks. 

Performing arts programs are really a special learning experience. There's an immediate sense of accomplishment gained from performances. In high school, my parents never once cared about my english assignments or my history papers, much less my Trigonometry homework, but they made it to every orchestra concert. MENC sanctioned competitions are even better, with groups earning rankings and a sense of prestige amongst their peers; improving themselves with each performance and clinic. What's more, this builds a sense of group cohesion I found lacking in my other classes, due to the individual responsibility of each student to the ensemble.

Tonight was our "Adjudication Concert" which is a tradition that has arisen out of a compromise between budget concerns and the need for validation of the band program. DJUSD doesn't have school busses. They rely on the City and the University bus system to get kids to and from school. There are special lines just for the kids, the district pays the city, the city pays the university, and everyone's happy. Except when it comes to field trips. 

Chartering a couple of Unitrans busses to Sacramento costs several hundred dollars, which when added to festival fees tops $1000 - more than double the band program's annual budget. So instead of heading to the CMEA Golden Empire Festival, we invite one of their judges to come to us. Instead of 15 minutes in front of three judges, some scribbled notes and barely decipherable taped recordings, we have one esteemed director come work with all three bands for the entire day, and return to see the concert that evening, giving comments in front of parents on everything that we worked on and improved.

It's an awesome arrangement, and it's really helpful. It's also a tad nerve-wracking - especially when on Tuesday during my last rehearsal with my students, my bari soloist was having problems subdividing and missing his entrances, and all the brass couldn't figure out phrasing and breath. Even though we'd worked these problem sections four weeks running. 

I've watched my role as a conductor change over the past month. This piece wasn't difficult by the standards that the kids were used to, but it required a lot of difficult entrances and some serious counting issues (rhythms in four against my beat pattern of three for example) and I realized as much as I strive to bring intensity and artistry to the music, what's increasingly important is that I don't just give abrupt gestures to cue my students, but provide them with confidence, welcoming them in to their entrances. They can count, they know they're right, but still, I look up from my score and see eyes pleading me to confirm that they're right. Most of the time all I have to do is smile at them and they play beautiful music, but I have to cue them.

However, to cue them, I have to be absolutely certain that we're all on the same page. 

This afternoon I couldn't have asked for a better performance from my students, we did a mock concert for our adjudicator (my teacher never once called him a "judge") and he had comments a-plenty but what stuck most were those about air stream and intonation. My trombones were trying too hard to play softly and were a wee bit flat. 

This evening, they did just as well, but I almost fell apart. We were well into the piece and approaching an important juncture in the music. There's a canonic fast section that gives way to a series of metrical changes punctuated with a syncopated bass line. That probably doesn't mean a whole lot, but it's at 2:45 on an 8 minute recording, so about a third of the way on this recording. 

My score is like a security blanket, it makes me feel safe. As long as I have the music in front of me, I don't need it. I went to turn the page, and I knew what was supposed to be on the next one, except it wasn't there - I had turned too many pages. I felt the bottom of my stomach fall away and part of my brain started screaming a stream of expletives. 

Another part of my brain however, just counted: [...&4&] [12-12-123] [1.2.] [1.2.3.] My hands cuing half the band to come in on the "and of 3" beating a bar of 7/8 followed by 2/4 and then 3/4. It was like something out of an exercise from a conducting class but the rest of me was frozen in terror. My parents noticed it, my teacher noticed it, my conducting lost all expression for about a minute but the kids somehow didn't notice, or rather, care. It was their confidence in my ability to lead them that kept me in the game. I was a little shaken for the rest of the piece, I missed some cues, but they all got their entrances, even the Bari Sax soloist that had trouble earlier this week. 

I've mentioned before my terrible performance anxiety, and the thought of choking as a conductor - with all my students counting on me - is terrifying. At that moment I was paralyzed with fear, but I had cultivated enough trust with the band that they assumed I knew exactly what I was doing  - the same expectation I have of them when they head onto the stage. It's that interdependency on each other, and on me - that sort of trust that really brings the ensemble together and makes it more than another class. 

Just another experience confirming that the one place I know where I belong is at the podium in front of my students.

What do you mean lesson plan? I just direct a band.

This post is part of a blog project on student teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

My director is going to be out tomorrow - this is when all the effort put into obtaining that pesky sub credential pays off. He's left a list of songs for the jazz bad to run, but it's a practice, and not a rehearsal. With their rhythm section, they're pretty much autonomous, and I couldn't really have much constructive input since most of the kids know more about Jazz than I do about Irish trad - or anything else for that matter.

However, everything about the other two periods was left to me. What to rehearse, and how. And more importantly, he wants me to rehearse the kids, even his audition ensemble, not just run them through their music. We only have a few weeks and he just dropped new music on them this Wednesday. This is the difference between being a conductor and being a teacher.

One small problem: I've never even seen a lesson plan for an ensemble course. I've put plenty together for the Music Theory course I interned in last year, but here I'm doing everything backwards. I've none of the credential programs under my belt, but have over a year's worth of observation and teaching experience in this same classroom. I fretted about this for a while until I realized, I put a lesson plan together before I step up to the podium every day. 

In preparing my score, I go through it, listen to a recording endlessly, or more often, sing it (much to my brother's annoyance). Anywhere I trip in singing it, I drop a sticky note. Anywhere I think a problem will occur, sticky note - usually covered with barely decipherable scribbles. These aren't notes to myself about conducting, they're to use to help direct a rehearsal. Anytime I come up with something to say about the piece that would help the kids in artistically shaping the piece - like "With Quiet Courage" being about a mother, who was later diagnosed with cancer, exhibiting the courage to face down anything and everything life has to offer without flinching, instead of the brash heroic deeds with which we generally associate courage - that's a sticky note.

Anytime we stumble in rehearsal, and I mention something to correct it, I go back through rehearsal after class and write down everything, and stick it in my score. After a while, if things are no longer an issue and the kids routinely get it right, the sticky note gets tossed.

Right now, my score for Chorale and Toccata by Jack Stamp is covered to the point where I almost can't read the music. Almost. They just got it on Wednesday, and hopefully in three weeks, the score will be clean and ready for the Festivity of Bands. Tomorrow I'm going to come in and pull down a few of his books on "Teaching Music through Performance in Band" and find the pieces we're playing to get another point of view on what's important in the piece, and a few more sticky notes will go into it.

The only other aspect is organization and pacing of the rehearsal, something I'm still working on perfecting. The pieces will be on the board before the class gets in, something my director doesn't often do and we'll tear through them with a lingering promise of giving the kids "the rest of the period off" if we accomplish everything I want. Which means maybe five minutes out of 50, but they won't know that. It's Friday, their teacher isn't there, they'll expect a bit of a break, which means they'll work for it. I just need to keep their instruments on their lips as long as possible. I say on their lips because I have ten trumpets and  seven trombones in my back row in one period. If you work with a school band, that actually means something.

My lesson plan needs to be modular and flexible, it's not seventh grade science or 9th grade english. Sometimes I wish it were, other times I'm glad it isn't. I have to adapt what I'm teaching to what they need to work on, what they're giving me and how it measures up to what I expect. Now, that sounds just like any other class, but I'm doing it beat by beat, second by second, and not chapter by chapter or test by test.

I have great respect for the music teachers I work with, after trying to emulate what they do for just two periods. Different music for each class. I work with a teacher whose mutters a litany with pride: "I teach 7 sections of 6 classes in 5 classrooms. I have 4 bosses at 3 schools, and I commute 2 hours a day for 1 job." After years of doing this, they just fall on their feet, as if they were airdropped onto the podium ready to go and can rehearse without too much preparation. But I need my sticky notes and an overarching plan, so here we go:

6th period: Symphonic Band. Theme for the day: LISTEN!

Warm up, tune.

Masada, the first fast part. I don't have the score with me.

Really tune.

Run the Times Square 1944 section towards the end where it pits 4 against 3, take them through it slowly, which will hamper their ability to match up, force them through it and speed up. Spend no more than 6 minutes doing so.

NEW MUSIC. Chorale and Toccata. Not technically new, they've read it once, and I'm sure my bass section has been going nuts. Skip the showery entrance straight to the beautiful bassoon/english horn solo. Normally, I wouldn't make the kids sit through a solo section, but it's important that the trumpets listen to the soloists. Make sure the soloists understand that they have a give and take dynamic in this duet. One pushes and the other gives, then pushes back. The trumpets come in right after and need to match not just the dynamics, but color of the solo. Something hard to do pitting 10 trumpets against two double reeds. together they need to bring out the warmth of their lower register, while sounding like one trumpet, over a hill somewhere for a measure or two then growing. The rest of the band needs to notice the dynamic (not volume, but dynamic) between the soloists and reiterate that when accompanying

the trumpets. 

So those four bars were a mouthful, that's why I generally speak in music instead of english at the podium. Tragically, I can't sing for you here. I know my timpanist was practicing this piece at lunch today, and I'm sure my bass clarinets are rocking the toccata and are ready for tomorrow.

7th Period.

Longford Legend I.

Tune

Longford III.

New Music. (Mostly New) With Quiet Courage. The piece is thickly scored, so the lack of horns and oboe in my concert band is not going to be a problem (though always disheartening). The problem is going to be that without varying instrumentation, the piece starts to sound cyclical and isn't interesting. I'm going to try and combat that by focusing on the countermelodies and bringing them out more, even to the point of absurdity if it will bring about contrast in the piece. It's likely too easy for them, and we won't play it past tomorrow, but it's a really pretty piece, and they need to focus on intonation. They have enough technically difficult stuff on their plate and sometimes they're so focused on their fingers, they don't listen to what they sound like. This piece will force that. 

Then come the shape note pieces, Geneva Variations and Rhapsody on American Shape Note Melodies. The first in my opinion is too hard for the kids, the latter, too easy. We'll run them and see what they like and don't like about each piece and what they can accomplish. 

My brother just popped in to ask me a favor: if I'm going to be listening to the music I make my kids play all night, force them to play something awesome like the theme to Jurassic Park. As cheesy as it sounds, it's not a bad idea, especially for our band trip to San Diego this May. I at least started playing the soundtrack for his benefit. 

I've got a bit of system down, but I really don't know how anyone else does it. My lesson plan for tomorrow? Attempt to topple my biggest challenge: shut up long enough that the kids are listening to themselves instead of me. I hope I can pull it off.

Mr. Obama's Package.

It's time I briefly revert back to my original intention of this blog; to provide completely unsolicited and relatively uninformed commentary on what's going on and how it affects me. I mean, isn't that the standard definition of the purpose of a blog? Evidence certainly seems to point that way.

Anyways, HR 1 for this congress is coming to vote today, otherwise known as "THE STIMULUS PACKAGE" (that was a big, booming baritone announcer voice.) All week we've heard how the house minority leadership has griped about this and that; not enough tax cuts, ridiculous amounts of spending and the magic word: Pork.

Though the bill has been meticulously searched and there are no congressional earmarks, Mr. Boehner has gotten a lot of airtime denouncing projects democrats have thrown into the bill to further stimulate the economy. Condoms and replanting the lawn on the national mall have gotten the most attention, and though it's hard to defend the programs with a straight face, some have done so.

What bothered me most, was tuning in to All Things Considered yesterday on my way home from Davis and hearing that somewhere around 50 million in support for the National Endowment for the Arts was being labeled as Pork.

Ms. Blair made an argument that stuck with me, the Endowment has means to get the money into peoples hands, and fast. There is a system in place that's governed by a peer reviewed grant making process.

Think of it this way: An artist in San Francisco gets his grant for a couple thousand dollars. He might leave his job at Starbucks that he's had to hold down to support himself to work on his project. He's not going to cash his check, take all the money home with him in small bills and make a giant paper maché penis. He's going to be living off of that money and supporting himself and his work with it, it's going straight into the economy and the government is supporting a part of our society that is shrinking under the shadow of the cult of prosperity and profit.

I think everyone should listen to more Bernstein, they may not like his music, but that's not necessary, his words will work for now:

"I think it is time we learned the lesson of our century: that the progress of the human spirit must keep pace with technological and scientific progress, or that spirit will die. It is incumbent on our educators to remember this; and music is at the top of the spiritual must list. When the study of the arts leads to the adoration of the formula (heaven forbid), we shall be lost. But as long as we insist on maintaining artistic vitality, we are able to hope in man’s future."

Then there's the issue of education and HR 1. The Grey Lady brought up a much missed point in the stimulus package yesterday. Granted, who would want to talk about schools when you could talk about condoms - but the stimulus package offers up huge aid for schools, federal aid, which has a lot of people worried. 

Opponents of the aid are afraid huge federal investment in schools at the state level will fundamentally change our system. Though our education is paid for in part by, we are not schooled by the federal government, something that's very important. But the question is, who's going to fund the public schools in California right now? California can't even pay its payroll of state employees, let alone fund programs. All state budgets are thinly stretched, trying to cut spending instead of raising taxes in this time of economic decline. States don't have the financial clout to borrow money, and they can't just print more like the federal government is doing. We need this support. Besides, money set aside for school construction will go far to shore up many jobs that have been lost since the the housing market crashed.

The federal government has already done enough damage to education at the state level with NCLB. They're involved in controlling what schools and teachers do with the ability to deny them funding, why don't we let them help instead? 

Csus4

This post is part of a blog project on Student Teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach.

Scrawled across the blackboard are some bar lines, a few ticks indicating rhythm and a chord symbol: C-sus4.

"How would you go about teaching a 13 year old pianist in your 7th grade jazz band how to read that? He's pretty good, has some Bach - a few 2 part inventions under his belt." 

Cmaj7 (sus2)

"How about that one? It's just gibberish to him. 'Where are the notes?' He asks."

The blackboard slowly starts to turn into a jazz chart and my hands get a little clammy.

School's back in session, and my "Instrumental Literature" course starts off by dropping me into the deepest end of the pool as far as my experience goes. We're looking at building a strong rhythm section in a junior high jazz band. At this level, the horns already know what they're doing, but how do you get the kid on the drum set to set them up properly when he barely reads music? Or the guitar player who maybe has Stairway to Heaven memorized but doesn't know that the term "comp" is actually short for accompaniment and not another word for "solo." How do you teach kids to swing eighths? Most of all, how can I lead them if I don't have a grasp of the jazz charts myself.

I'm out of my league, and I'm excited. If I was back taking structural geology classes or linear algebra, I'd be panicking, but those days are behind me. I paid my dues, got my degrees, and now every class I take has a direct stake in my future. And tackling an issue I've worried about constantly over the last few years, and doing it head on is kind of refreshing.

I come into work every day during fifth period and get to sort, file and copy to an awesome soundtrack of a full big band. I get all the administrative crap my director needs out of the way so I can work with the "real" bands during the following two periods, but I've never been put in a position to work with the jazz students.

Nor should I though. I play the tenor sax, but couldn't solo to save my life. Being self taught on your instrument in a department of performance majors is really intimidating and I never took the chance to stand up and take an improv class in front of them, something I almost regret. I suffer from a bit of performance anxiety - it used to take monumental courage to step up to the podium at a concert, and I still have trouble leaving the score behind and directing the ensemble even in rehearsal. As far as performance goes, as long as there is music in front of me, I had the confidence to keep up and even take a solo in the wind ensemble, but give me a lead sheet with chords and I'll fall apart.

Now however, that's all I have. I get to draw up parts for a rhythm section based off the lead sheet to Autumn Leaves and decide on which instrument I'd rather make a fool of myself  - trombone or saxophone - when I solo in two weeks. We'll see how long my excitement holds out.

I'm now wrestling with a more pressing question: what else about a jazz program might be an even bigger hurdle for me when trying to build one.

This post is really about rehearsal techniques... I think.

This post is part of a blog project on Student Teaching hosted at So You Want to Teach

DHS didn't have school today, and even if it did, I probably would have called in sick.  I put in enough hours over the weekend to take a week off if my contract allowed for comp time - but of course, it was all volunteered.

Instead of working, I drove down to Stockton to sort out the rest of my life.

After interviewing with the faculty, (who are awesome) I was told that as long as I filled out the paperwork I was guaranteed tuition remission for 9 units of study per semester for two years. 9 units, with a 20 hour assistantship AND student teaching is a full load. If I get everything in and they have the money, they'll even toss in a 3,000 stipend per semester - which, considering I won't be able to hold down a job that doesn't require me to work during normal business hours (school), or nights (rehearsals), would be pretty much necessary. I'm in a far better state of mind now than 6 months ago when I got the acceptance letter. I know my parents read this, and they can breathe a little easier now.

So, buoyed by some promise of a future, I sat in on the rehearsal of Pacific's Wind Ensemble, under the direction of Dr. Eric Hammer (under whom I'll be working as my graduate advisor next year).

This is an auditioned ensemble of conservatory musicians, all of whom are miles beyond me in any aspect of performance (Shh! don't tell anyone). But, what impressed me the most was the balance and instrumentation of the group. Used to a high school or general college wind ensemble, this group surprised me by having each part in the score covered by one or two musicians. Instead of fifteen flutes or clarinets, there were six each - balanced by three oboes, three bassoons, a bass clarinetist, four horns and a sax quartet, 5 trumpets, 3 bones, euphonium  and a tuba. 

This was professional instrumentation, and they were sailing through pieces like John Barnes Chance's Blue Lake Overture (Track 6), and Copland's Lincoln Portrait (9:40 in the interview)- a piece that I've loved since I had to rip it apart for a ten page paper for an American Studies class on semiotics and images in society. 

However great the ensemble was, it was due to its director, and I want to bring to light some observations of rehearsal techniques he used that I want to adopt for my own.

1. Ear training. - This is something I'm sure high school teachers wrestle with: how much time to spend rehearsing the music, and how much time to spend on things like theory when the class is designed to be little more than a performance opportunity. If I have the chance as a high school teacher, I'm going to remove all work required by a marching program during rehearsal in the students first year to focus on theory. 
   
   Dr. Hammer started rehearsal off by getting everyone to hum America the Beautiful off of the B flat they tuned from (casting it in the key of E flat), then play it, then sing it in Solfege and play it again, which fixed all the problems. It was impressive watching the student's theory brains kick as they figured it out. He does this with a new song every rehearsal.
   
   
2. "Sizzling" - Air control. I know how important it is, but it's something that I practice on my own, usually with buzzing, and definitely not in rehearsal. Dr. Hammer had the students "sssss-ing" their parts for part of the Blue Lake Overture, and while he conducted it, I could hear the phrasing and dynamics with just their air. I could focus on the melody bouncing around the room and afterwards, something clicked with the students and the entire piece had more substance behind it - it wasn't heavier, just more massive - if that makes sense.
   
   
3. Metronomic Abandonment - They are planning on including the Washington Post March in their concert just in time for President's day, and what surprised me was after all their work, they started falling apart on Sousa. They were stretching the time at the trio, and people weren't watching the director, it started to bounce along like an accordion, stretching out to compensate for speeding up, etc. In a response to this, Dr. Hammer placed his right hand behind his back after a preparatory beat and only gave artistic gestures and cues with his right and, leaving the band to fend for itself, and forcing them to listen to each other. This might end up in a trainwreck with younger groups, but the awareness sudden awareness of a lack of visual cues caused many to focus more on listening.
   
   It cleaned up well.
   
   
4.  Itinerary - Dr. Hammer conducted all business at the end of the rehearsal. At the top, he had a sheet with everything on it, and students picked it up as they walked in. It had a breakdown of every piece to be played during the 1.5 hour rehearsal, and a meticulously structured schedule on how much time was to be spent on each piece. This allowed the rehearsal to move swiftly and orderly, and end with reminders and motivation on the part of the director. Also included on the itinerary, which the students took home with them was everything for Wednesday's rehearsal, and what they needed to practice to be prepared. A little much, but the smoothness with which the rehearsal ran was testament to the order and discipline of the group.

To sum it up, I'm really excited and am chomping at the bit to work with someone whose conducting is as controlled and powerful as it is fluid and  graceful, and am looking to get some real feedback on my own. 

Is it August yet?