Dear Fellow 5Q Members,

A little back history first:

I've been on the 5th Quarter since February 22, 1999. Member number 221 (under the old system). Kid Finesse was responsible for drawing me in here circa 1998 when the 5th was still 'The Ranks'. I joined there, posted a few comments, but never got heavily involved. My joining there was courtesy of turning on the radio one day in 1998 and hearing MSU (Morgan) playing at their homecoming. It reawakened the 'spark' in me to finish my degree at Bowie (I took 2.5 years off from Bowie as a student).

These three things (especially all the talk on here once I joined) pushed a brother back into college and out of website design, DJing and independent consulting. I realized that I did indeed love music...and not just as a DJ. I came back to Bowie in the fall of 99 as announcer and staff/arranger and 2000 as Student Director/Arranger. 27-30 songs in Bowie's 99 repertoire were from me.

Part of my arranging influence came courtesy of CJ (dahill) sending me a copy of Alabama A&M's 98 season, which heavily influenced BSU's ESPN that every CIAA band was on the unfortunate end of receiving that year

The original View From the Sidelines was my column (till I got kicked off for being stupid on the board...LOL...then Herb took over and did an excellent job ).

From MoB to SU and a few smaller bands in-between, I've been influenced. Heavily. Unlike some other folk, I'll admit it. Nothing's completely original to anyone. I'll also admit that I'm a huge fan of the genre of HBCU bands as a whole (yes, it's a genre). I've been a fan, even when to some, it was just 'something to keep my scholarship'. The sweat, the strain, the knees and ankle injuries, the out of breath feeling until you see the band room and all of a sudden get your second wind....all of it. I've loved it. I've loved it all my life since 9th grade at Walbrook HS when Jacob Saulsbury told me "band practice after school" and I very clumsily fell into the ranks (and got yelled at repeatedly...lol).

Upon graduation from Bowie in 2001, I took over as band director and choir director at Central High School in Capital Heights, MD. At Bowie, I learned how to survive with little (we all did - the running joke about one of my bandmates from Bowie is that he could make a tonal drum section out of scotch tape, rubber bands, paper towel tubes and toilet paper....and have them tuned accurately) and still do well. That served me well during my first three years, as I sought to rebuild the non-existent, comments only band that was there at the time.

Something 'new' started showing up on the radar that I had to be prepared for and that marching band season did NOT generally prepare you for - concert band.

See, I was a beast with marching band and many of us have that 'sound' well ingrained in our ears from hours of either standing in front of certain bands or hours of listening to/viewing bands on YouTube. This point will resurface in a moment.

At the end of year 3, once I went to festival and pulled another III (my second time going - didn't go during year 2 due to low numbers), a good friend and colleague pulled me to the side and said the following words:

[quote=That Guy]"Look man, XXXXXXXX didn't prepare me either. I came out with that same 'harsh' marching band sound in my ears and my first year I messed around and got a III too. The thing is, a lot of our bands are NOT preparing kids properly who end up trying to go into music education. The kids come out with that 'marching band sound' in their ears and know very little else. Crappy experiences produce crappy directors...which produce crappy kids. Unless you do something about it, you as a director will not rise above the level of experiences you've had in band.

I didn't let it stop me. I realized I had to fix the problem myself. This is what you will have to do as well. I started listening to GOOD sounds and got myself acquainted with people who had good concert band teaching underneath of them and came from good bands so I could learn correctly what I missed in college. I got with people in this field who knew things and started to learn from them. I used that to make my bands better, which is why my first year in this county, we pulled a I - something the previous director was unable to do. We play grade V and VI music now.

You have to do this. Find some recordings and start listening. You have to retrain your ear to hear good sounds. Then find out how those sounds were created (pedagogy) and then teach that. Otherwise, you're going to continue to be in the same rut that you've been in getting III's at festival.[/quote]

That's an approximation. :) That conversation happened in 2004.

A year prior to that, Voice posted some comments on here about his dad's sound concept for the 'old' A&T and how they were able to put out such good sound with a 'small band' (ha!). I absorbed those too and it helped me with developing tone quality for my kids starting in 04-05.

Something else 'clicked' in my brain from a previous 5Q conversation as well. Either Ollie (Trombone Master) or JSU Noise Talka was on here and put up some extended convos on JSU's history and how their t-bone parts were specifically written to give them that signature sound. One comment that stood out to me (and 'clicked' with the rest of everything I'd been reading on here and hearing from colleagues) was something along the lines of "Dr. Liddell (or did they mention Duplessis ? can't remember) realizes that the foundation of a good marching band is a strong concert band. So the symphonic band is his baby."

Hmm. How about that.

So I did all that stuff. I'd already 'proven' myself on the marching band front by making chicken soup out of chicken feathers when it came to the group I had. Next step was/is concert band. I had to break the "III ceiling" I'd been stuck at.

I got Boston Pops, London Symphony, Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra and a few dozen other groups in my ears. I picked up the Teaching Music Through Performance series (at least 3-4 of the books) and read through them religiously (got the recordings too). I immersed myself in what it meant to be a concert band musician.

Fast-forward to March of 05. My kids pulled the first II (and ONLY) at that school in probably at least 20-24 years (30 years now).

I got a 'reset' in my career moving downward to middle school and started to learn more about how all those bad embouchures were formed, how important things like sight-reading got screwed up, and how to teach musicianship. I went from having a 7 minute convoluted explanation on how to teach tonguing to being able to do it in (literally) 45 seconds. I went on to have a few more II's over the years and some I's in sight-reading.

So that brings me to the reason for my ramble.

Being away from marching band for this long (at least as anything more than a fan), I've grown very critical of what sounds 'good' over the years. I've watched the development of the 'baby Southern' era come to school bands, where everyone thinks that 'loud'='good'. Dynamics....what dynamics ? Everything is fff. A whole note gets three counts and a breath.

Really ?

Who are these kids learning this from ?

YOU.

- Yes, YOU reading this post. Or at least some of you.

-- You (in college) are reinforcing it when you play in a manner that makes your band sound like something raped a cat with a train horn. And when you go home to your HS to visit and people ask you about the program, you never tell them about the rest of necessary things to be a good musician and that marching band is only PART of the equation.

--YOU on the podium, after your cat-foghorn-raping experience, now show up to the middle school level and teach your children the same thing.

I'm not kidding. I heard a story about a director who put a song in front of their kids called 'MUFU'. A cheap knock-off of Middle Finger U by A&T. More on how he does at festival soon.

What does 'MUFU' teach you about musicianship ? Balance ? Intonation ? Nothing. At the middle school level where kids still have developing embouchures ? Nothing. Where they are still learning to subdivide ? Nothing. I've seen a million HS bands on YouTube imitating the school of their director.....in the most ungoodliest, worstificated and badliest way. Tone quality shot to heck by overblowing, no intonation, no balance (everybody play loud!), no sense of interpretation.....just "notes". And maybe the right rhythm. And percussion banging louder than the band.

We've got to do better. All of us. ALL of us.

We all need to step into our old schools and push musicianship as the goal - not simply PERFORMANCE. Anyone can get up, learn a basic beat on percussion and how to produce a sound on brass and blast it - but not everyone can get up and do it well.

BCU, FAMU and TnSU sound the way they do....because their directors push musicianship as the first goal, not 'crankage'.

In the DC Metro area (which includes MD right outside of DC), it's very easy to find kids, for example, who say 'I play drums'. You ask them to do a single paradiddle, flam, ruff/drag, open roll and you see all sorts of mess. There's a 'drum culture' here thanks to go-go and most directors have to work HARD to get the kids out of it or expand their minds to realize there's more than just that.

I'm running long now, so I'll finish up:

To my fellow directors - if you don't know how to do something....ask. There are some directors that hoard the knowledge they've learned over the years and won't share the secret of how they have a 30 piece band on stage and make them sound like 100 without overblowing AND how they get straight I's from the judges. Meh.

On the other hand, some are more than willing to share with you how they got to where they are now. They love the craft and they want to see more schools flourish and their programs grow. They also realize that younger directors like you are the future...and they don't want to see the future go to hell. So be open and willing to learn.

To my fellow 5Q members - even if you don't direct somewhere, that doesn't mean you can't mentor. My alma mater's mello section has made so much progress in the past decade thanks to a past member coming on staff and working with the current members. He and I talked and he told me how he pretty much came in from scratch and re-started folks from day one without making them feel 'stupid' for being in college and not knowing basic instrument care. The result was people that were built up and able to do better...and sound better.

So head back to your old HS and volunteer as you're able. Head back to your old band, and if permitted, reinforce musicianship, not 'crankage'.

A change of mindset among the elders can form the minds of the youngers in a manner that will lead all to a desired place of solid musicianship.

And my people, musicianship is the key word here. We are not 'protecting our history and preserving our craft' when we promote non-musicianship.

I appreciate SU because I've seen/heard Dr. Jackson on video at a high school up in the great lakes tell some kids that although they like what they see and hear from SU, they need to come in with fundamentals of music in order - all major scales, tone quality, etc.....And I've heard SU's symphonic group. I like FAMU and BCU's groups too.

This needs to be a universal refrain from the smallest groups to the largest. We need to promote our concert bands the same way and expand the minds of kids to think beyond the football field and the ranks. And we need to do this NOW. Because as 'relevant' as we think we make ourselves by promoting marching band because it is popular...it will one day wane from popularity. MORE will be required to keep our music programs alive....and 'go big girl go big girl' won't do it.

Thank you.

Wow

I play in the band at my church, and I had a guy come up and say he played trumpet in high school, and he wanted to join us. He said he hadn't played in awhile, but I said cool - come out anyway - I hadn't touched a horn for about 8 years when I started playing again. He said he would, but he asked me if I knew where to get a fingering chart.

I didn't want to say too much - I wanted to see where this was going, so I just told him I'd see what I could do and emailed him a link to google later. Anyway, he came to practice and I gave him some sheet music. He sat down and started writing valve numbers over every note. He didn't seem to want to play during practice so I didn't press him but after it was over I asked him to play a c major scale just to get a feel for what his tone was like. He said he didn't know what that was - he told me played in a black band and they learned a lot of stuff from listening. I'm pretty good at keeping a straight face, so I just showed him the notes on the fingering chart. He got about halfway through and couldn't go any higher. Inside, I'm thinking there's no way this will ever work, but told him he's probably just a little rusty and to work on the scale and come back when he can get through it. He says he will, and asks me to write down the notes. I tell him to just start at C and play all the notes without sharps or flats. He still doesn't get it - I tell him to play all the letters without symbols behind them. He says cool, and goes home.

BAND DIRECTORS THAT WHOLE DISASTER IS YOUR FAULT

Not to put anybody specific on blast - he graduated high school 10 or 15 years ago and his band director is long gone, but I've seen that story way to many times. I personally played the same downfield every game my first three years in high school but didn't see the sheet music for it until I got to college. In high school, we thought we were great but I've only seen one recording of us while I was in school ever - it was horrible - I think alumni have hidden or destroyed most other recordings. The year after I graduated, we got a new director who just needed 2 years to turn them into a band that would embarrass half the meac and could take a crowd ANYWHERE. I hear a lot of people talk about money and resources, but to me that's just an excuse. As long as there's a working instrument and a student to play it, it's the teachers job to make sure the education happens. Sure there may be a few kids that are just incapable or unwilling, but part of the art of being a teacher is learning to motivate the unwilling, and realizing there's a lot less of the incapable than people assume.

I'll have to read this after church in two or three parts

I think this is great to hear.

Being outside of the HBCU community I'll be completely honest and say that while I'm entertained by the arrangements, and I love the marching style, I'm not always fond of the sound and I think that in some of my posts and responses that the quality of sound have been defended by others saying that it's different, or that it comes from the dixieland band sound, or that one type of tone quality is not better than the others. Well the truth is, what sounds good sounds good, and what sounds bad sounds bad. There is no other way to put it.

However, I would also like to point out that it's not just HBCU graduates that experience lack of training or simply guidance. I went to a PWC and when I got out, I knew all the right answers, I knew what tone qualities I wanted my band and individual students to have and achieve, but executing them through my teaching was another story. In my Mississippi career I received 2 III's and 2 II's in concert band. a III and a I in marching band, and a III, a II, and a I in sight reading. This is my combined scores of a middle school band, a 2nd high school concert band, and another high school band that I taught at. When I find a job this summer, it's my goal not only to teach more fundamentals and teach them better than before, but to also build the band to the standard that I've grown up hearing all my life. That standard was to hear bands that were similar in sound to some of the bands at Midwest as well as hearing college Wind Ensembles that emulated the sounds of the University of Texas Wind Symphony, The North Texas Wind Symphony, and many other greats. My education at my undergraduate school taught me the things I needed to know, but I've realized that the last two years in working on my grad degree that I've been forced to think about the implementation, execution, and assessment of those things that I want to accomplish. Had I been able to think more about implementation of those ideals, I believe that the scores I posted above could have been much higher. In the future they will be much higher.

I certainly want to commend you as well as thank you BlackCalvinist for posting this. I think that the overall message of your post is good for any band director/music education student to hear regardless of their collegiate background.

What he said.

*20-minute standing ovation*

I completely understand, and agree, with the seriousness of this topic but THAT was hilarious!

CHURCH!

And that's funny, because I had two notes posted on my Facebook page(one from our very own Philharmonic) basically talking about these same things.....I was gung-ho marching band for a long time....UNTIL I took my first trip to Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic...all I'm gonna say more of US need to be there to soak in all of this knowledge that's out there....we are few and far between at Midwest and that needs to charge....Dec. 19-22, 2012....use your professional development time that your school administration is supposed to give you....

Well said Kerry, well said.... I'm printing this out for my group because no matter how old you are, the words still apply....

As always BC, very insightful.


The problem isn't "them"...it's us. It lies in our responses to so called "crankage" with respect to dynamics. I don't claim to be a part of the best program, that's always gonna be debatable but I will say that there is a CLEAR difference in the schools that CHOOSE to put an emphasis on tone quality and dynamics and the ones that dont. I just don't see how you cant at this level. You're doing a discredit to the students watching and listening.

See, the difference is in Collegiate bands, we know better...or at least we SHOULD. But in high school and middle school where musically they are as impressionable as 4 and 5 years olds, you really have to be cognizant of what they are exposed and more important what YOU get giddy over. If they see you running cross the field shoutin for Jesus because the baritones hit a Bb 3 octaves up then you're setting expectation that will do more harm than good. Next thing you know they're in practice, and instead of focusing on the fundamentals they're now trying to see how loud and how high they can play. But i'll bet a dollar the whole "entertainment value" point will come knockin here soon so...

Preach man! Preach!

I didn't go to Midwest until I left Mississippi and it was like "Wow" I was like a kid in the candy shop. Needless to say, I will make sure wherever I am that it's in my contract to go. It's like the mecca for band directors (and orchestra and jazz too)

Wow..these same comments apply to percussionists. The basics(especially rreading and rudiments) are so fundamental. 10 years ago or maybe not that long..a lot of drumlines focused more on quantity than quality. They want to learn 10 stand cadences 20 marching cadences,12 groove cadences.a 6 challenge cadences...AND FOR WHAT? FOR ALL OF THEM TO SOUND JUST ALIKE,DIRTY AND REPETITIOUS!!! Give me a line that knows 5 or 6 strong cadences that are on paper(but not before learning the warmups) and you will clean the clock of a section that knows a lot of nothing..TO BE CONTINUED....

Ya know, not to pick on Cold Steel, but looking at that recent performance (Wifebeatergate) is almost of symptom of whats been going on with the collegiate bands. We're more concerned with the entertainment factor, completely ignoring that these kids should see what we're about FIRST before they can see "how cool" we can be. I mean sure you want kids to look and say wow I wanna be a part of that but not at the expense of taste and CERTAINLY not at the expense of fundamentals.


I remember back when I was at Jones High School we did this thing annually called "Step-Up Day" That's was when the marching bands and symphonic bands from Jones traveled to local area middle schools and did a mini indoor exhibition type thing for the 8th graders getting ready to enter high school. It featured musical performance from both Concert and Marching ensembles. It was a way to showcase our program and giving 8th graders a taste of whats to come. They stopped doing it like right after I graduated to my knowledge. Not sure why but it was a great program that again, "set the expectation" for what we do. It was all tasteful. The drumline got a play a cadence or two, the marching band did a few numbers and the same for concert band. I think this is the type of thing that should be emphasized more.

Copied, Printed and Stapled to my Wall

I'm going to post the two notes that I saw last week that are very relevant to what we're talking about here...he's a student at UAPB....

This one is by Philharmonic:

I'm just waiting for someone to get on here and say that blowing out of tune, playing with bad tone, and with poor articulation is a "style"

You know they in this thread....lurking like a mug




Man some of these cats will find away to justify ANYTHING for the sake of saving their bands face.



"Style." Rrrrrright...

I guess I will be the one to change the dynamics of this trend because some of the stuff ya'll are saying is cool but I just can't take ya'll serious. Then some of the stuff I just don't agree with at all.

We talk about the importance of "musiicanship" and concert band, but in regards to must of you I could easily find in discussion about marching band but when the concert band clips come around it is silence in the trend:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13733
How can we truly say concert band is most important when we debate marching band performances religiously, but for the past three years we could not get a single critique about concert band performances? Also, when are we going to start flooding the net with concert band performances? If you want these kids to understand "musiciansip" and not "blasting," get your cameras and post those concert clips. To be honest some of "our" kids just need the exposure and trust me it is hard and the best way to get them to recieve it is for them to see a group playing that music who looks like them (if you don't think that's important you are fooling yourself). And it will take a while for it to sink in but we have to get posting those clips and exposing them.

However, I don't agree with the HBCU bashing. The HBCU's are educating but some of our graduates just don't want to perform concert band music so it is not an HBCU thing but a few individuals thing. Now our SWAC bands are touring with their concert bands and I posted pleanty of our bands performing. "Our" bands are doing some really great things but it is hard to tell because ya'll spend more time blasting "our" programs with little time promoting our good programs (for example how many of the people in this topic commented in the trend i highlighted above or the BCU trend?). Why would high schoolers want to go to an HBCU when they can come on this site and hear how much they suck? Also, I teach at a school that is mixed and all the schools in the county are white and all I am going to say is the lack of serious musicianship boils down to the exposure. Trust I am having just as hard a time getting my white kids to understand the point of learning the Bb scale as my black kids.

I agree that band directors need to fight the good fight but it really is hard. But if you don't understand my comments please get this "expose these kids to concert band music by flooding youtube with our concert bands and let's critique more of "our" concert band clips and praise our programs a bit more"

well.....

first off, BlackCalvinist, this thread is on point. It needed to be said. This was the mission statement that Jerry McGuire wrote at the beginning of the movie.

I do have reservations on being dismissive of some cats from certain programs claiming that the way they play as a style. I mean, it is all an art form and a photo-realistic painting is no more "right" than cubism....

That said, giving pre-schoolers paper and a paintbrush and letting them go to town isn't "teaching" them how to paint ... and I think that is where you can start draw the line between having a style and being loud and sloppy.

Ok, as a director, a middle school jazz band director at that, just want to play devil's advocate and pose this question:

What is the purpose of music, if it is not to entertain? You can feed the "educatainment" speech all you want, but if no one is bobbing their head, if the kids are bored with it, and the sponsors are sending the checks down the street to the more entertaining band, again I ask, what is the purpose of music in the schools? You want the kids to learn, but at the end of the day, there HAS TO BE some sort of fun element in it for them.


To even compare it to the real world, look at how many artist that can't sing, but are hitting gold platinum...such as R. Kelly, Janet Jackson,Ashanti, T-Pain, Drake...why...because they are "entertaining".

In school besides, some life lessons, and an activity to keep the kids occupied so they won't be breaking into my house and have a shot gun in their face, we are teaching these kids how to become musicians, and again, being a musician means you do what: ENTERTAIN!

I guess in my older age I am becoming more radical and open to other ideas besided "traditional music education" as we were taught. I use to have that same mind frame like most are saying on here, until this year working at this school with another director that has, I feel as though, a solid and unique approach on running a program. My eyes and mind have really been opened. As a matter of fact, my district, Memphis City Schools, has adopted the "Azera Method" where you start kids off by ear on their instrument, then introduce music. Where I work, these kids are very advance for their age because of this. I have actually modeled the jazz program around this, and my kids are playing songs such as Night in Tunisia, Chameleon, Rise, and even composing their own tunes.

You certainly have great points. Exposure is the key and seeing more black bands playing concert literature would help, but seeing it on youtube is not good enough. The problem with youtube is that a kid that's not convinced he should be watching a black concert band will treat it like TV and go to the next channel. What the kids need to do is to see these concert bands live. When I lived in Mississippi I got to see Jackson State's Symphonic Wind Ensemble. Sure enough they were great. In fact I was very impressed. However, I attended a special performance that was for the Biennial Conference of the National Association for the Study and Performance of African American Music. The program featured African American Composers from Mississippi which included the following:

Of Honor and Valor Eternal-----------------Ayatey Shabazz
Folk Suit For Band (2nd Mvt Deep River)----William Grant Still
In Pursuit of Troy--------------------------A. Shabazz
A Quiet Journey Home----------------------A. Shabazz
Requiem-----------------------------------Quincy Hilliard (originally from Starkville)
Adagio Cantabile-------------------------- L.V. Beethoven/arr by Lewis Liddell Sr.
From the Eye of the Storm-----------------A Shabazz

The first thing I wondered about was why are we doing black Mississippi Composers when it was obvious that we didn't have that many black composers from Mississippi. Hilliard has written many more pieces than that one, William Grant Still wrote a good bit of orchestral music (which in my opinion should have been transcribed for this event) and Shabazz (which by the way I have nothing against, I know him personally) writes music (kind of like Hilliard) that leans more towards the educational crowd. At that time I didn't know that William Owens was black and was not familiar with his music and honestly I cant think of very many black windband composers besides Hale Smith, Valerie Coleman (of the Imani Winds who recently wrote a piece or two for a collegiate wind band consortium) and David Eastmond an African Canadian. (this could simply be because I cant look up composers by race besides AfriClassical.com, that there is no one exposing me to current black windband composers or it could be because there aren't that many black composers.)

My actual point that I'm trying to get to was that here was an event celebrating our composers and the auditorium at F.D.Hall barely had 50 people. This was just in 2007. The problem there in lies in the fact that blacks are not supporting the concert bands and at some PWI's neither are the whites. So if we expect our kids to go to a concert or even to watch great black bands that are online like FAMU's Symphonic Band, Howard's concert Band, Stephenson High School, Southwest Dekalb (who had a great performance of Angels in the Architecture) and others then we need to think again.

I think we all (myself included once I start teaching again in the fall) need to push to re-invent the culture. We need to take our bands to concerts of HBCU concert bands playing not good but great literature. I also believe that some of the school of music sites for HBCU's need to be updated and the first thing that should be flashing across the screen is the dates for the Wind Band concerts. When I discovered the Biennial Performance I didn't see it on the website, I had to call the main office to find out. (Luckily JSU updated their site since then and performances are easier to find, but doesn't have a Symphonic Band concert posted for this semester. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8HMozt0_Z9MODk5MWFlMzctODFiZS00ZDU3LWE1YjctMmM1OGEwYjNjODM0/edit?pli=1)

We must take our students to the concerts or find ways to require them to go. Once they see this overtime it can and will become more of the culture.

I spoke to someone (not sure who anymore) that mentioned something about the HBCU-NBDC getting an all-star group to audition for Midwest. I'm not sure if this is in the works or not, but this would be great. Also why not start an all black professional Wind Ensemble. There's already the Soul Symphony Orchestra so why not have an all black or black/Hispanic/minority windband.


We all have to make efforts to show the kids that windband is serious and that marching band is a byproduct and not the main hub of the wheel. Even if the concert band is 19 kids, we need to break out some chamber music and get to transcribing. If we don't music for our marching bands we write it. Why not do it for the small groups that some schools have? There's no reason not to.

And if you don't have an HBCU to take the kids to watch a concert band performance, then either bring black artists to perform solos with your band (and do masterclasses) or take your kids to the nearest university to watch a group. They need to see these type of performances live and they also need to learn concert etiquette because that is important as well and some of our black kids don't learn it.

Sorry that this turned into a rant!

Sounds like the Gordon Method...do you have a website I can check out for that. I'm always curious to research new methods.

Honestly, topics about concert band/symphonic band or intelligent discussions like this one continue to get pushed down so normally I haven't responded, or if I do, they usually end up in the abyss....but again I say, if you want to make a difference, join the HBCU National Band Directors' Consortium (HS and MS directors can join as well) or the Minority Band Directors National Association and let your voice be heard....