The Evolution of Marching – 1988-1993 [VIDEO] Music Education by Joel Wagner - May 26, 2010June 30, 20100 As we close out the school year and begin looking toward the summer, band directors turn their minds toward marching arts. This year, I'm going through some history and exploring The Evolution of Marching via YouTube. I'm taking you along for the journey as well. Last time we saw how the Garfield Cadets transformed the marching by speeding things up and adding pass-thrus and of course the famous "Z Pull." If 1983-1987 was about revolutionizing marching style, 1988-1993 was about bucking the traditional musical elements. One of the key innovators in this area was The Star of Indiana, who left DCI following the 1993 season. 1988 - Madison Scouts 1989 - Santa Clara Vanguard 1990 - The
The Evolution of Marching – 1983-1987 [VIDEO] Music Education by Joel Wagner - May 25, 2010June 30, 20100 As we close out the school year and begin looking toward the summer, band directors turn their minds toward marching arts. This year, I’m going through some history and exploring The Evolution of Marching via YouTube. I’m taking you along for the journey as well. So far, we've seen the first 11 years of DCI. In 1983, the Garfield Cadets began their three-year of DCI dominance with some of the most innovative marching drill ever seen. The Blue Devils won in 1986, and the Cadets were back on top in 1987. 1983 - Garfield Cadets 1984 - Garfield Cadets 1985 - Garfield Cadets 1986 - Blue Devils Embedding disabled, click here for the video. However, since every other year was dominated by the Garfield Cadets, here is
The Evolution of Marching – 1977-1982 [VIDEO] Music Education by Joel Wagner - May 24, 2010June 30, 20100 As we close out the school year and begin looking toward the summer, band directors turn their minds toward marching arts. This year, I’m going through some history and exploring The Evolution of Marching via YouTube. I’m taking you along for the journey as well. Yesterday, we saw some classic footage from the first five years of DCI. Today, we'll look at the next six years. 1977 - Blue Devils I can't find a video! I did find one of the Kilties from 1977 (11th Place) though. 1978 - Santa Clara Vanguard Embedding disabled. Click here to watch the excerpt. Here's the 1978 Phantom Regiment (2nd place) finale. 1979 - Blue Devils Video unavailable. Here is the 1979 Guardsmen (7th Place). Notice by this point the "pit" section has
The Evolution of Marching – 1972-1976 [VIDEO] Music Education by Joel Wagner - May 23, 2010June 30, 20100 As we close out the school year and begin looking toward the summer, band directors turn their minds toward marching arts. This year, I'm going through some history and exploring The Evolution of Marching via YouTube. I'm taking you along for the journey as well. Today, we'll look at the first five DCI finals. Since video footage is rare from these days, I am really surprised to be able to find recordings from each of these years. 1972 - Anaheim Kingsmen YouTube Embedding disabled, watch the excerpt here 1973 - Santa Clara Vanguard 1974 - Santa Clara Vanguard 1975 - Madison Scouts Another video is available here but the embedding is disabled. I link to this one because the first is a standstill performance, and this one
The Evolution of Marching – 38 Years of DCI World Champions [VIDEO] Music Education by Joel Wagner - May 22, 2010June 30, 20100 As the school year winds down, band directors invariably begin turning their minds towards the upcoming marching season. This year, I have a 7th grade percussionist who knows a ton of trivia about Drum Corps International. His father used to march and has taught across the country, so he comes to middle school with a much better background of the history of drumming than most students. Over the last few weeks, I've been having some conversations with him and I began to realize that he doesn't know a lot about the old history of marching, and I don't know a lot about recent marching history. So I thought I'd go look through the YouTube archives and watch parts of as
137 Tech Resources For Teachers and Students General by Joel Wagner - May 21, 2010June 30, 20100 Back in March of 2009, I received my first guest post submission from Karen Schweitzer entitled 50 Online Reference Sites for Teachers. At the time, she was barely building her online portfolio by sending out guest posts to edublog across the web. As best as I can tell, So You Want To Teach? was one of the first blogs she submitted articles for. As soon as the article went live, it quickly became one of the most popular pages on the entire blog. In fact, that article alone received some 275 views the first three weeks it was up. At the time, that was huge. For comparison, 14 months later, I posted a guest article 8 Teachers Who Changed History
I Did It! I Completed C25K Personal by Joel Wagner - May 20, 2010June 30, 20100 For the third time this week, I ran 30 minutes nonstop this evening. I walked in a 5K a couple of weeks ago. I am learning a whole lot about myself through the process of running. I will continue posting more updates over at Can Wii Do It? over the next few weeks, if you're interested. To read my latest post, go read Joel: I did it.
Do What You Can General by Joel Wagner - April 15, 2010June 30, 20103 This year has been one of learning for me. Physical activity has been a struggle for me for years, and so in January when I decided I would set out to run a 5K this spring, it was a shock to pretty much everyone who knows me. The thing that has most intrigued me has been how much I have learned about life just from this one decision. I intend to spend the summer writing about these topics quite a bit. I also plan to dig into some of the other series that I began on the blog and for whatever reason never completed. Needless to say, I have a good bit of reading and writing that I will be
The Art of Slow Slow Slow Running Inspiration by Joel Wagner - April 13, 2010June 30, 20103 I ran 1 mile last night and it took me 18:45. I saw a post on the Couch To 5K's Facebook profile the other day that questioned whether someone made a typo when they said they ran a mile in 33 minutes. They couldn't imagine someone only running one mile in 33 minutes. My contribution to that discussion was pretty good, so I posted it on the Can Wii Do It? blog this evening. Enjoy The Art of Slow Slow Slow Running...
He Is Risen: Our Greatest Hope General by Joel Wagner - April 4, 2010June 30, 20100 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised
No Kidding… General by Joel Wagner - April 1, 2010June 30, 20101 Sorry, no April Fools Day jokes from me this year. But I am actually posting a little bit. Last night, I took my band to the UIL Concert and Sight-Reading contest and we got a Sweepstakes trophy. This means that at least two of the three judges for our concert program and two of the three judges for our sight-reading agreed that our band played superior and earned a first division. I'm so proud of them! Contact me via email and ask me for the link to the recordings. I have done a ton of thinking about this blog lately and I am determined that I will once again enable comments soon. I have the old ones, but I am
Cut the Cord Personal by Joel Wagner - February 27, 2010June 30, 20100 For the first time since started my blog three years ago, I am going to be taking a break for at least a month. No writing, no checking stats, no emails, no nothing. In fact, I'm pulling the plug on my cable modem as soon as I finish writing this. This is not just a blog issue, but I am going to be away from Facebook almost entirely for a month. In fact, I deleted Facebook from my phone a couple of weeks ago and noticed a substantial improvement to my productivity at work. My free time isn't spent checking to see who else is slacking off at work, but rather in avoiding the temptation to slack myself. I've
Trials Turn To Gold Inspiration by Joel Wagner - February 18, 2010June 30, 20100 Are you at the bottom of a pit? Maybe you're in a place you never thought you would be. Or you never thought you'd be there again. I can't count the number of times I've fallen into a bad habit in teaching. I allow myself to get bogged down with paperwork instead of taking care of it right away. Students ask me questions at the beginning of class and I forget the six magic words that liberate me: "I'm not answering questions right now." Oh, you've done it too... Positive changes come and go like the wind most of the time. How do we stick it out and truly persevere? If you know the answer to this question, write a
Seven Deadly Sins of Veteran Teachers General by Joel Wagner - February 10, 2010June 30, 20100 So here's the situation: You've been teaching for quite a while. You've pretty much gotten a handle on classroom management, paperwork, classroom rules, and any number of the other day-to-day tasks we encounter. But how many of these teaching vices do you struggle with? I know I'm not guiltless in these areas. In fact, I've had run-ins with most of these. Not all of them, of course. Luxuria (extravagance or lust) While most people think of lust in a sexual kind of way, in the original context, it essentially meant excessive love of others. Even so, some teachers take this one quite literally and end up losing their jobs over abusive relationships with their students. Gula (gluttony)Gluttony is typically
Three Years of So You Want To Teach? Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - February 9, 2010June 30, 20100 I am leaving tomorrow after school to go to the annual Texas Music Educators Association clinic/convention in San Antonio. I'm not taking my laptop with me and won't be accessing a computer besides my iPhone, so I will be away from blogging for the rest of the week. I don't want to spend a long time here, but I thought I would note that Thursday marks the third anniversary of So You Want To Teach? This has been a fun project. I've learned a whole lot about web development, myself, teaching, and the art of blogging through the building and maintaining of this site. It has become more of a burden than I ever imagined, but I do enjoy the