Last Minute UIL Concert & Sight Reading Preparations: 10 Things I Am Doing To Try To Get Sweepstakes Music Education by Joel Wagner - March 29, 2009June 30, 20108 This Thursday, I will be taking my Middle School band to our UIL Concert & Sight Reading contest. For those who don't understand how the band world works (and even for those who don't understand Texas UIL), here's sort of how it works. How UIL works I will be taking them to perform a concert program of three pieces that we've been working on since February. Following the concert, we go to the sight reading contest. In that, each band is allotted a certain amount of time to look at a brand new piece of music. As a director, I can spend the first part (four minutes for my band) talking them through it and pointing out key changes, accidentals,
TGIF, That Means It’s Almost Monday! Music Education by Joel Wagner - January 22, 2009June 30, 20108 Please don't tell me this picture represents your views! As a teacher, and specifically as a band director, I am not a big fan of Mondays. As a worker, I really love Monday. Why? Great question. Why I don't like Mondays Kids generally don't practice over the weekend. This means that part of Monday is spent recovering and getting the band to sound the way I want it to sound again. Anecdotally, I find that the students are less focused on Mondays than they are on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Those days seem to be the best teaching days of the week. Often, I will plan my schedule with that assumption. More on that later. This week we didn't have school on