My job offers me unexpected joys, along with the regular ones. Last week, as I was finishing preparations for the Sierra Madre Middle School class, an aid who works with one of the Special Education students, J-, stopped in to look at the music room. The aid explained that J- had been having a rough day, and asked if would it be okay for him to try out some of the percussion equipment.
I invited them in and watched as the aid put a bass drum beater into J-'s hand. J- had a big smile on his face as he beat on the bass drum a few times. Next, J- sat in a chair and played with the tamborine some, making up excited songs about teachers, classmates and some of his pet peeves as he went along. The aid told me he had never seen J- so happy. Finally, class was about to start, so they left with an invitation to come back any time.
The next day, J- and his aid showed up again, and reprised some of the songs from the day before. We had had the jingle bells, a set of sturdy, jingly ones, out the day before for Orchestra class, so I encouraged J- to look inside the white box where they are kept. I showed him how to hold them by the top handle and tap the top of the handle with his other hand. Then I started singing "Jingle Bells" as he tapped in time. Suddenly, J- burst into song and sang the entire song along with me, every word clear, and his tapping in time perfectly rhythmic. J- looked right into my eyes as we sang together, and we did the song several more times with the aid joining in too. J-'s eyes sparkled and he grinned from ear to ear as we all made music together. I'm not sure which of us was having the best time!
My original idea as a college student was to specialize in Music Therapy. I have some little training in the field, but for various reasons did not follow the training all the way through. This was partly because I came to wonder if any of it was real, or just a way for musicians who couldn't cut it as performers to make a living.
Over the years as an Instrumental Music Teacher, I have had many Special Ed. students in my classes. Just like the regular population of our schools, some of these students thrive and become excellent musicians, and some struggle with the effort. But lately, and especially after encounters like the ones I had with J- last week, I wish I could do more Music Therapy-type activities. Not focussing as much on technical achievement as in sharing music and sharing in the joy of creation. This is something I don't get to do enough of- playing with music- and I truly believe that there is benefit to be had and given beyond and beside the learning/teaching of the craft. Music can reach in to places that other therapies cannot.
I hope J- and his aid will come and visit often. I know I could use the therapy!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Fierce Trouble All Day
Not really. This was something I overheard one fifth grade boy violinist tell another after he'd been shown, by the other boy, how he'd been closing his violin case incorrectly. The second boy gave a little demonstration,and then the first redid his case muttering something about "fierce trouble all day". What a line!
Thing is, for me, it was a dandy day. The upside to having only fifth graders - at least this year- is that there are very few beginners. We are making music from day one, without the usual ritual of those first painful weeks of blowing in headjoints, trying to get a buzz going in a trumpet mouthpiece, learning how to hold a bow, or how to bite the reed just right to play a clarinet (which, don't get me wrong, I love because of the lights that come on in faces when they GET IT). Most of the kids this year had that instruction last year, so here we are, picking up where they left off last year, everyone that much more focussed and able.
Having said that, there are a few beginners strewn in, and here's a funny thing: even without the benefit of last year's instruction, most of them are jumping right in, playing along, making music, seeming to have skipped that first step entirely. This phenomenon deserves further attention.
A couple weeks ago, when I finished the fifth grade class, I realized that I still had a couple hours before I had to get to my middle school class, just up the street. So I approached the principal about adding a fourth grade Beginning Band to the schedule and she was thrilled. She escorted me to the two fourth grade rooms and introduced me to the teachers who were also thrilled. Last week I visited the classes and talked to the students, whose eyes lit up when I told them who I was.
We sent permission slips home and, no surprise, almost every single fourth grader returned a slip. Yesterday I met with them- well half of them. It's always something. One of the two classes was having an art lesson in clay that had had to be postponed due to a district-wide earthquake drill the day before. So those kids couldn't come to music. But those who did filed into the room quietly and sat down and waited for me to tell them my spiel.
My first meeting with students is always about two things: Putting a face to a name on a permission slip, and finding out if the child needs a school instrument or has some other source. At this point, too, I can converse with kids about their choices, talking them out of saxophone, for instance, since that is an instrument in short supply in our inventory, and in high demand among the kids.
Finally all my talking done, it was time to pass out instruments. This group of fourth graders sat patiently as I called forth each child for his or her contract. I handed an instrument to each child along with the paper, and instructed each to sit and just hold the case, closed. Even with that, the excitement was in the air.
After all the passing out was done, I stood back and looked at them. And then came the question from a soon-to-be trumpet player: Are we a marching band? Not yet, I told him. But if you play all year, remember to bring your instrument on Friday, practice at home every day, and then keep playing next year, when you get to Middle School, there is a good chance you WILL be a marching band. Oh, the excitement then. But there's more, I told them. After Middle School is High School and then the fun really starts. You can play for football games, maybe even the Rose Parade. Sometimes High School Bands go to Disneyworld, or London. They were practically jumping out of their seats when they heard that. And then....when you are done with High School, you can go to College, and learn how to be a Musician for your job, and do music every day.
This was a great moment yesterday. We have talked a bunch in our Pasadena District about showing students career pathways, and I have always said that you can't just decide in your Junior year to be a musician, if you have never played before. This particular career pathway has to start much earlier.
So here we go, kids. We are on the road, you can decide how far you want to follow it.
Thing is, for me, it was a dandy day. The upside to having only fifth graders - at least this year- is that there are very few beginners. We are making music from day one, without the usual ritual of those first painful weeks of blowing in headjoints, trying to get a buzz going in a trumpet mouthpiece, learning how to hold a bow, or how to bite the reed just right to play a clarinet (which, don't get me wrong, I love because of the lights that come on in faces when they GET IT). Most of the kids this year had that instruction last year, so here we are, picking up where they left off last year, everyone that much more focussed and able.
Having said that, there are a few beginners strewn in, and here's a funny thing: even without the benefit of last year's instruction, most of them are jumping right in, playing along, making music, seeming to have skipped that first step entirely. This phenomenon deserves further attention.
A couple weeks ago, when I finished the fifth grade class, I realized that I still had a couple hours before I had to get to my middle school class, just up the street. So I approached the principal about adding a fourth grade Beginning Band to the schedule and she was thrilled. She escorted me to the two fourth grade rooms and introduced me to the teachers who were also thrilled. Last week I visited the classes and talked to the students, whose eyes lit up when I told them who I was.
We sent permission slips home and, no surprise, almost every single fourth grader returned a slip. Yesterday I met with them- well half of them. It's always something. One of the two classes was having an art lesson in clay that had had to be postponed due to a district-wide earthquake drill the day before. So those kids couldn't come to music. But those who did filed into the room quietly and sat down and waited for me to tell them my spiel.
My first meeting with students is always about two things: Putting a face to a name on a permission slip, and finding out if the child needs a school instrument or has some other source. At this point, too, I can converse with kids about their choices, talking them out of saxophone, for instance, since that is an instrument in short supply in our inventory, and in high demand among the kids.
Finally all my talking done, it was time to pass out instruments. This group of fourth graders sat patiently as I called forth each child for his or her contract. I handed an instrument to each child along with the paper, and instructed each to sit and just hold the case, closed. Even with that, the excitement was in the air.
After all the passing out was done, I stood back and looked at them. And then came the question from a soon-to-be trumpet player: Are we a marching band? Not yet, I told him. But if you play all year, remember to bring your instrument on Friday, practice at home every day, and then keep playing next year, when you get to Middle School, there is a good chance you WILL be a marching band. Oh, the excitement then. But there's more, I told them. After Middle School is High School and then the fun really starts. You can play for football games, maybe even the Rose Parade. Sometimes High School Bands go to Disneyworld, or London. They were practically jumping out of their seats when they heard that. And then....when you are done with High School, you can go to College, and learn how to be a Musician for your job, and do music every day.
This was a great moment yesterday. We have talked a bunch in our Pasadena District about showing students career pathways, and I have always said that you can't just decide in your Junior year to be a musician, if you have never played before. This particular career pathway has to start much earlier.
So here we go, kids. We are on the road, you can decide how far you want to follow it.
Friday, October 15, 2010
A Room With a View.
Since Sierra Madre School expanded to include grades 7 and 8 a few years ago, the middle school part of the school population has occupied the farthest east campus in the Pasadena Unified School District. Originally called Sierra Mesa School, it was, for many years home to Maranatha High School which leased the property from PUSD. The District reclaimed it to use it for the expanded Sierra Madre grades, and the Instrumental Music program found a home in one of the many aging portable "bungalows" on the site. For awhile the Music Theater class occupied the other half of this double long structure, and it became affectionately known as "The Palace".
The Palace roof leaked, the floors has spongy places that felt like they could fall through, and at least one window a year would be broken by a stray soccer ball, but over the five or so years we were in that room, the orchestra grew from a handful of kids to a rowdy, talented group numbering almost 30. We made music in that room. Little by little, note by note, squeak by squeak, the year would progress, and by spring we would sound pretty good. Kids who could barely read notes in 5th grade got it by the end of 6th, and then they were off and running.
Each year the orchestra has gotten bigger and better. To build the program, I took to accepting pretty much anyone into the class who had a mind to be there. This could be anyone, including kids who had never played anything but maybe a few weeks of violin somewhere back in third grade and wanted to learn drums, a number of obsessed guitar players, some kids who had never played any instrument ever, and some who had not played for several years.
To accomodate this rag-tag group I would do things like take band or orchestra arrangements and pull out a part for the guitars to play, or tell the budding drummers to make up a part. French Horn parts became alto sax parts, and String Bass parts sometimes were played on Electric Bass. Sometimes I just let those guitar players sit on the porch and jam while the rest of us worked on orchestra music. Some days I opened the room at lunch and let the rockers hang in there and play electric instruments and drum set. Anything to keep the music going, to keep the kids coming back, and to make them feel that the Palace, funky as it was, was theirs.
Then in 2008 a bond measure passed in Pasadena allowing for upgrades to all the schools in the district, and, miraculously, a complete new school on the Sierra Madre Middle School site. In the plans is a whole Music Suite, with ample space for both the Instrumental Music and the Choral/Theater programs. As exciting as this is, it was still with a bit of nostalgic sadness that I packed up the Palace last spring so that we could move to another, smaller, portable on the upper edge of the campus beyond the construction zone.
Jury Duty at the end of this summer prevented me from getting into the room much before school started, but when I finally set up chairs and stands I stood back and thought, if we get 25 we'll be fine. Any more and it will be tight. Well, thirty kids signed up for Instrumental Music, and for the first three weeks the Air Conditioning in the tiny room didn't work at all. Part of that time the temperatures were hitting triple digits in the afternoons, so the orchestra decamped for a few days to the 8th grade Science teacher's room where we played Rhythm Bingo and listened to orchestral music and learned some theory. Tuesday this week, I arrived to find the AC guy just finishing up, and the room COLD!
So here we are, in our new room. 31 Students now, as we have added a couple more violinists. Our windows (which overlook the construction site where the old Palace still sits awaiting removal or demolition) will not be broken by soccer balls, because they are far from the PE field. The roof does not leak. There is barely room to bow, and the trumpet players were shy about playing out at first, because they were blowing directly into the back of the flute players' heads. But note by note, and squeak by squeak, we have started to make some music. This week we have been doing playing tests, with each student playing exerpts from the one piece we have focussed our attention on this month. This testing, which sends jitters and nervousness through the whole group, results in sudden leaps of improvement in the overall sound. Whether it's due to the extra practicing that goes on in the days before the test, or just the attention I am able to give each player when his or her turn comes to fix little problems, I don't know. But the shiver that stands my arm hairs on end when I hear this group, in October mind you, is not coming from the AC.
The Palace roof leaked, the floors has spongy places that felt like they could fall through, and at least one window a year would be broken by a stray soccer ball, but over the five or so years we were in that room, the orchestra grew from a handful of kids to a rowdy, talented group numbering almost 30. We made music in that room. Little by little, note by note, squeak by squeak, the year would progress, and by spring we would sound pretty good. Kids who could barely read notes in 5th grade got it by the end of 6th, and then they were off and running.
Each year the orchestra has gotten bigger and better. To build the program, I took to accepting pretty much anyone into the class who had a mind to be there. This could be anyone, including kids who had never played anything but maybe a few weeks of violin somewhere back in third grade and wanted to learn drums, a number of obsessed guitar players, some kids who had never played any instrument ever, and some who had not played for several years.
To accomodate this rag-tag group I would do things like take band or orchestra arrangements and pull out a part for the guitars to play, or tell the budding drummers to make up a part. French Horn parts became alto sax parts, and String Bass parts sometimes were played on Electric Bass. Sometimes I just let those guitar players sit on the porch and jam while the rest of us worked on orchestra music. Some days I opened the room at lunch and let the rockers hang in there and play electric instruments and drum set. Anything to keep the music going, to keep the kids coming back, and to make them feel that the Palace, funky as it was, was theirs.
Then in 2008 a bond measure passed in Pasadena allowing for upgrades to all the schools in the district, and, miraculously, a complete new school on the Sierra Madre Middle School site. In the plans is a whole Music Suite, with ample space for both the Instrumental Music and the Choral/Theater programs. As exciting as this is, it was still with a bit of nostalgic sadness that I packed up the Palace last spring so that we could move to another, smaller, portable on the upper edge of the campus beyond the construction zone.
Jury Duty at the end of this summer prevented me from getting into the room much before school started, but when I finally set up chairs and stands I stood back and thought, if we get 25 we'll be fine. Any more and it will be tight. Well, thirty kids signed up for Instrumental Music, and for the first three weeks the Air Conditioning in the tiny room didn't work at all. Part of that time the temperatures were hitting triple digits in the afternoons, so the orchestra decamped for a few days to the 8th grade Science teacher's room where we played Rhythm Bingo and listened to orchestral music and learned some theory. Tuesday this week, I arrived to find the AC guy just finishing up, and the room COLD!
So here we are, in our new room. 31 Students now, as we have added a couple more violinists. Our windows (which overlook the construction site where the old Palace still sits awaiting removal or demolition) will not be broken by soccer balls, because they are far from the PE field. The roof does not leak. There is barely room to bow, and the trumpet players were shy about playing out at first, because they were blowing directly into the back of the flute players' heads. But note by note, and squeak by squeak, we have started to make some music. This week we have been doing playing tests, with each student playing exerpts from the one piece we have focussed our attention on this month. This testing, which sends jitters and nervousness through the whole group, results in sudden leaps of improvement in the overall sound. Whether it's due to the extra practicing that goes on in the days before the test, or just the attention I am able to give each player when his or her turn comes to fix little problems, I don't know. But the shiver that stands my arm hairs on end when I hear this group, in October mind you, is not coming from the AC.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
A day in the life.
Monday 7:00 a.m. I remember that the music books I want to use with a class today on one end of town, are in my classroom clear over on the other end of town. I could wing it. It's Monday, and I could pick the books up later in the day to use on Tuesday, but I had told myself and the kids last Tuesday that we would have these books today. Didn't EVEN think of it at close of school on Friday.
My "office", when not the trunk or front seat of my car, is at Sierra Madre Middle School, in the room where my 6-8 grade, 30 piece orchestra rehearses the last period of the day Tuesday through Friday. So I usually try to remember to pick up things I will need for the other schools when I'm there. But this time I forgot. So flying out of the house, I head to Sierra Madre and get there just before the families dropping off kids clog the street in front. I park the car, walk down the path to my room, and as I am walking I hear the unmistakable sound of cars colliding. I say, "hmmm, that wasn't a good sound" and keep walking. As I return up the path to my car after picking up the books, several kids pass me saying "Mrs. McLean, you'd better see your car..." I walk faster and discover that my car has been rear ended by a mom coming around the corner. She is still there, and in fact a third car is now in front of mine, and the impact has caused my car to rear end the third one. There are people standing around with pencils and insurance cards and I quickly assess that no one is hurt, I have rear damage, no front damage, the car in front seems miraculously unscathed, and the mom who turned that corner maybe just a little too fast is apologetic and ready to make good. But now I'm late.
So before leaving the scene I phone ahead to my first school, 10 miles across the city of Pasadena away, and tell them I will be late. I miss the first class, and pick up the next two classes at that school, and then head to the next school where I will use the books I so fatefully picked up. In between, in the parking lot of school #2, I phone my insurance agent and start the tedious process of getting the car fixed.
Back on schedule, I meet the violin class for whom I fetched the books. While waiting in line to have his violin tuned, one student drops his violin, cracking the face and the lower bout. Eeeeeek! So frazzled am I by this point, I skip over the lesson I meant to do this day, and go to the next day's lesson, and then am puzzled by the kids' not being able to do it. Later when I reflect, I realize what I've done.
Finished at school #2 I head to school #3 where I will have two classes. This is back in Sierra Madre at the elementary school. During the first class, Band, several students from Beginning Band come in to turn in instrument rental contracts, as I had told them on Thursday they could do. So every couple minutes the rehearsal is interrupted by a child excited to take his instrument home. But somehow we make music anyway. After that is the Orchestra, and even though it meets after school on this day, a good 2/3 of the kids make it, and play their hearts out. They sound really great though we have only had a couple rehearsals this year, and finally I am back in my groove, remembering what's best about this job: kids making music together. It doesn't get any better than that.
My "office", when not the trunk or front seat of my car, is at Sierra Madre Middle School, in the room where my 6-8 grade, 30 piece orchestra rehearses the last period of the day Tuesday through Friday. So I usually try to remember to pick up things I will need for the other schools when I'm there. But this time I forgot. So flying out of the house, I head to Sierra Madre and get there just before the families dropping off kids clog the street in front. I park the car, walk down the path to my room, and as I am walking I hear the unmistakable sound of cars colliding. I say, "hmmm, that wasn't a good sound" and keep walking. As I return up the path to my car after picking up the books, several kids pass me saying "Mrs. McLean, you'd better see your car..." I walk faster and discover that my car has been rear ended by a mom coming around the corner. She is still there, and in fact a third car is now in front of mine, and the impact has caused my car to rear end the third one. There are people standing around with pencils and insurance cards and I quickly assess that no one is hurt, I have rear damage, no front damage, the car in front seems miraculously unscathed, and the mom who turned that corner maybe just a little too fast is apologetic and ready to make good. But now I'm late.
So before leaving the scene I phone ahead to my first school, 10 miles across the city of Pasadena away, and tell them I will be late. I miss the first class, and pick up the next two classes at that school, and then head to the next school where I will use the books I so fatefully picked up. In between, in the parking lot of school #2, I phone my insurance agent and start the tedious process of getting the car fixed.
Back on schedule, I meet the violin class for whom I fetched the books. While waiting in line to have his violin tuned, one student drops his violin, cracking the face and the lower bout. Eeeeeek! So frazzled am I by this point, I skip over the lesson I meant to do this day, and go to the next day's lesson, and then am puzzled by the kids' not being able to do it. Later when I reflect, I realize what I've done.
Finished at school #2 I head to school #3 where I will have two classes. This is back in Sierra Madre at the elementary school. During the first class, Band, several students from Beginning Band come in to turn in instrument rental contracts, as I had told them on Thursday they could do. So every couple minutes the rehearsal is interrupted by a child excited to take his instrument home. But somehow we make music anyway. After that is the Orchestra, and even though it meets after school on this day, a good 2/3 of the kids make it, and play their hearts out. They sound really great though we have only had a couple rehearsals this year, and finally I am back in my groove, remembering what's best about this job: kids making music together. It doesn't get any better than that.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
What is this Blog about?
Did you ever hear of the book by Michael Connelly called "The Lincoln Lawyer"? The protagonist of this book is a defense attorney who has dispensed with an office, and does all his work from the back seat of a Lincoln Town Car. This year, 2010-11, I am now covering 6 school campuses, and spend almost as much time in my car as I do teaching music. Today I pulled a stuck mouthpiece from a trumpet and put a new G string on a violin, made several phone calls and updated some paperwork from my 2010 metallic blue Toyota Matrix. The title "The Matrix Music Teacher" popped into my head, and here we are. I hope to connect with fellow music teachers from where ever you are, and also to reach out to kids and families who are concerned about musc and arts programs' survival in their schools.
Good News Bad News
The good news first. We have instrumental music classes in the public schools in Pasadena California. Despite millions of dollars of cuts to everything statewide over the last two years, Pasadena Unified School District, for whom I work, has managed to hang on to what many consider to be a precious component of a child's school life. There was a time, before I started teaching here, when every student from third or 4th grade onward had the opportunity to have a group music lesson twice a week, with instruments provided by the District. The marching band at John Muir High School in 1995, the year I started, was huge. Probably a hundred kids marched down the aisle of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on the opening day of school that year to herald the thousands of teachers, support staff and administrators who gathered for what used to be an annual pep rally/state of the district event. That event has gone by the wayside, and John Muir's Marching Band is a shell of its former self, but it still exists. The bad news is that within a couple more years, even that may go the way of the opening-of-school gala.
Since 1995, several elementary schools have closed, due to decreasing enrollment. The cost of living in Pasadena is high. What used to be a suburb of Los Angeles, Pasadena was where people moved to avoid the high prices of living in a large metropolis. But now it is a trendy appendage of the city of angels, with 80 -year-old 2-bedroom, one-bath homes selling for a half million dollars. Many of the people who can afford to buy homes here have some idea that our public schools are rotten, and so send their offspring to the many fine private schools in the vicinity. Consequently, fewer children fill seats in the public schools, which means that federal and state dollars to those schools decrease, which causes this spiral of underfunded schools scaring off possible students because there aren't enough students to pull in the dollars.
Neverthless, through all these changes and all these years, PUSD put Arts in general and Music in particular as a priority in making budgeting decisions. Not a front-and-center kind of priority, but always funding was available for music teachers in numbers enough to cover all the remaining elementary schools, the middle schools and high schools. Music classes dropped to once a week, full-time teachers who had previously covered two schools now covered 5, and money for buying new music and equipment was precious. This is the environment I signed on to in 1995.
Since 1995, several elementary schools have closed, due to decreasing enrollment. The cost of living in Pasadena is high. What used to be a suburb of Los Angeles, Pasadena was where people moved to avoid the high prices of living in a large metropolis. But now it is a trendy appendage of the city of angels, with 80 -year-old 2-bedroom, one-bath homes selling for a half million dollars. Many of the people who can afford to buy homes here have some idea that our public schools are rotten, and so send their offspring to the many fine private schools in the vicinity. Consequently, fewer children fill seats in the public schools, which means that federal and state dollars to those schools decrease, which causes this spiral of underfunded schools scaring off possible students because there aren't enough students to pull in the dollars.
Neverthless, through all these changes and all these years, PUSD put Arts in general and Music in particular as a priority in making budgeting decisions. Not a front-and-center kind of priority, but always funding was available for music teachers in numbers enough to cover all the remaining elementary schools, the middle schools and high schools. Music classes dropped to once a week, full-time teachers who had previously covered two schools now covered 5, and money for buying new music and equipment was precious. This is the environment I signed on to in 1995.
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