Texas Bandmasters Association 2010: Miscellaneous Thoughts Day 1 Music Education by Joel Wagner - July 27, 2010July 27, 20101 This week, I am in San Antonio for the Texas Bandmasters Association convention. I attended some really good sessions and took a few notes on my iPhone. Without spending a lot of time to expand on these notes right now, I thought I would post them so maybe someone else can benefit from them. After the convention, I'll sit down later and flesh them out a bit more. Here's Day 1. Raise your level of absurdity. If something doesn't sound stupid, you won't address it.Come up with a warmup rotation. Same concepts per day of week. Lip flexibility, scales, tone production, articulations, intervals/listeningSame with journals. Music appreciation, rhythmic dictation, music/rhythm copying, free writing, theory exercisesAll bad behavior is fear-based. Fear
Positive Steps To Fix A Problematic Band Music Education by Joel Wagner - October 9, 2008June 25, 20161 My band sounds good. My band behaves very very well. My band is going to be great this year. This comes as the result of 6 years of learning from my mistakes. It wasn't always that way. When I got them in August, I didn't know how it was going to work out. They didn't listen. They didn't watch. They talked a lot. They were more interested in being social than in sounding good. They didn't sit in "Ready Position" much of the time. Their posture when they played was bad. Too many of them were on the back of their chair and not sitting up straight. Here is a realistic look at some things I have done this year to fix