Latest / The Unconducted Curriculum / Episode 3: Rehearsal Structure for the Win!

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Episode 3: Rehearsal Structure for the Win! · The Unconducted Curriculum

• Chris: This program is sponsored by Parker County Music Company of Parker County, Texas, your local source for private music lessons, original sheet music, and support for musicians of all ages. They offer scholarship opportunities for local high school seniors and can connect you with local references for your instrument needs and private lesson teachers. Learn more today at www.parkercounty musicco.com and be sure to like and follow them on Facebook. Parker County Music Company is veteran-owned. locally operated and proud to serve Parker County, Texas. So Tina, what did your rehearsals look like early in your career? Tina: Not very organized. I knew that there was a warm-up. But you know, what we do when we first start teaching is almost what we did in college. And that's not really what you should be doing, especially at the middle school. So it, wasn't very structured except we would hold a few notes out, do a little bit of Remington here and there, and then get straight into music. So it just wasn't enough of fundamentals. And I just learn from so many different people and of by observing and working with them on what to do to have a really proficient plan. You Chris: Yeah. Tina: what did it look like for you? Chris: Well, for me it's it's pretty much the same thing. I mean you kind of come into it knowing that we need to warm up, we need to rehearse our music. Mm-hmm. But there's a whole lot more to structuring that that you find out as you get into this this career. and working with student teachers, talking to them, a lot of the times it's kind of that same idea and see just repetitive things. You know, they come in and let's play concert F, let's try to match concert F, let's play a B flat scale. Okay, let's get into our music. And and that's a start, but that's definitely not all we need to need to be doing. So how how did you I mean, what changed in your rehearsals as you gained more experience? How did you end up changing that process and what did you find helpful for you? Tina: Well, it was very helpful to have something on the board, whatever board that I was using at the time, to have it planned out and that I could see it too that was more specific, that could get me going on what I was doing. So that was the first thing that I had to really learn to do is to make sure every day there was something visual up there for the students and me. Chris: Okay. Good. Yeah. And I think that's important. I think it's important for when the students walk in that they see up on the screen, up on the board, whatever it is, what the plan is for the day. And it can be just bullet points for them. They don't need all the specific details. But I think as a as a director, and especially as a young director, you need details. You may even want to time time things out, put a time limit to what you're doing. Right. Not that That time limit is the end all, beat all, you have to stop. But just kind of as as a guide to keep you on track. Cause I know I'm one of those people that as a high school director, I could spend a whole period doing fundamentals. And that the reality of it is is we just don't have that much time. And so structuring my rehearsals to be the most productive, you know, I learned how to go through a warm-up process, but focus on certain elements of that process. that were most important for that rehearsal. And so for me, you know, if we're working on a lyrical piece, I may spend a little bit more time in my warmup working on our tone production, our phrasing, our breathing, incorporating a chorale, things like that into my warm up that day versus working on a lot of technique that day. Tina: Thing that I learned kind of late in my career, but one thing that really helped with middle school, especially was like we would have Monday was tone day. So you still did all your warmups that you normally do, but the focus because our brains, especially young brains, can't do all of it at once. You know, but if you tell today is Monday, tone day. So we are gonna really focus on are you in tune? Are you calm, constant, steady, and smooth with what you're doing? How's your tone? Play with your best tone. Don't play too soft. Don't play too loud. Just play with your best tone. And everything in the rehearsal would go back to tongue. And and then like Tuesday could be articulation day. And it's not that we didn't do our articulation exercise on Monday, but then Tuesday was articulation day. So it's articulation day today. So are you using the tip of the tongue on the tip of the reader behind your teeth? Are you using one taste butt? So all those little reminders all throughout the rehearsal was about articulation. And when I started doing that something for each day, it made a huge difference on just the maturity of everything that we were doing and that they were being very picky as individuals on what they were doing. Chris: Right, right. I mean and and same thing at the high school level. It may it may not be like a daily Monday is tone, Tuesday is technique, whatever. But it is definitely the focus in warm up is gonna relate to what we're doing in the in our repertoire that day. And so if I'm working on a technical passage, then I'm gonna work on maybe a little bit of technical a technical warm up that is in the same key. You know, that that will relate a little bit more to that. same thing with with articulation. If I'm focusing on maybe my march today, then maybe I want to really focus, even in my articulation exercises, on that detached style and things like that. And just just relating things to what we're playing. Right. And I did this too at the beginning of my career, and I see it all the time where we go into a rehearsal and It's the same exact warm-up every day. It's the same process every day. And a lot of times it's even just they just run through them. There's there's not a real emphasis on what they're doing, but they're just kind of running through that. And so avoid the warm up just because we always warm up approach. Right. Or or the mindset of the warm-up is just to get their instruments warmed up because that's really not what it is. And the warm up process is fundamentals. It's getting them focused. It's getting them listening. It's doing all the things that you want them to do once you get into your repertoire. And if you find that you're having problems with kids focusing fifteen, twenty minutes into the class once you start working on music, that's because you didn't get them focused during the warm up time. You didn't get them focused from the first second. Tina: Right. And I think it's okay to have basically the same warm-up, but constantly reminding them of something to think about. Because you're right. Cause they just sit there, if you turn the Met on and you just go, they don't even need you, which is sometimes a good thing. But then it's like they don't concentrate to get better. They don't concentrate on just really picky things to help us all be better musicians. But it just has to give them something that they are focused on. Bottom line with that. And it keeps Chris: I Tina: them engaged. It really does. It keeps them engaged and They enjoy it more. And it also covers every like style of learner because they're they're not like zoning out, as people would say, that that they are focused and they're watching. And you could still turn the metronome on and walk around the room as you're doing it and count things off off the podium, you know, like we've talked about in the last one last podcast. But it's, you know, remind them tongue, what's your tongue doing, or what's your articulation, or you know, all of Chris: Yeah, and at you know, especially at the middle school level, having a a a repetitive structured warm up is normal. I mean, that's what we see. That's but it's how you approach that warm up and are you actually making improvements during that warm up? Do you have a focus element that day, like you're talking about? And for me at the high school level, I had a pattern, a warm up pattern that we did. We started off with long tones, we went into some lip slurs, we did some articulation. a little bit of technique and scales and then we would always end up with the corral. But again, the f the focus would be different. But then also the technical exercises that we did and the scales that we did would be different each day. You know, so and if I'm using Tina: Correct. End on that scale. Chris: Yeah. Like you know, just what am I focusing on? and then also just kind of using that like early in the year when we're working through things and kids are getting ready for their all region tryouts and things like that. And of course with ATSSB that involves some scales and things like that. But having them play different scales and and technique exercises in those different scales each day kind of kills two birds with one stone. So that we're not going, Okay, now let's go work on these scales for your audition, blah, blah, blah. But just kind of Tina: Middle school, all region, TMEA or whatever, it it we have scales also and they have to be memorized. So really incorporating that in there, even if you're doing two a day and adding to it to go to three to four to five, all of that and keeping that consistent. Mm-hmm. Also like with your more advanced middle school groups, like bumping the tempo. If you start at eighty, go to eighty five. Trying to get that goal. And also it's really fun during warm up to have kids like volunteer that that they can already go one hundred or whatever. And they volunteer to do it. And then we all shuffle for them and then get another person to volunteer. But even if you get like three kids to volunteer to play scale or chromatic as part of the warm up, it's it's just great and it's encouraging and just keeps it going where it's fun. Chris: Right. And that's the thing. That's the key is keeping keeping it engaging. You know, and that's why you want some of that variation from day to day, just to kind of keep it engaging but also applicable to what you're gonna actually focus on in the music. Yeah. All right, so let let's just kind of talk get into the structure of the full rehearsal. I for me it's it's always important to start with the end in mind. Mm-hmm. What do I want students to accomplish today? You know, having that goal not only on the board. Right. This these are our goals for the day. This is what we need to be able to do by the end of this period, but also briefly discussing it with them as as you start rehearsal, because you may not be able to put all that on a slide or whatever on the board. But briefly discuss with them. This is what I want you to be able to do by the end of this period. What musical concepts need to be addressed? What section of the music needs the most attention? Those things start with that that idea, start with that in mind. And then kind of going into the big three. Choose three primary objectives. And that needs to be a musical objective, a technical objective, and an ensemble objective. So for example, that could be for the musical objective, we want to improve intonation in the opening 16 measures of our lyrical piece or whatever. For technical, it could be clean up the 16th note passages in in our faster piece. And and be specific, like from rehearsal. letter A to rehearsal letter B because you don't have all the time to rehearse all of them, but find a a couple that you can work on. And then our ensemble objective, improve transitions between sections. when we have something to maybe go from slow to fast, or there's a tempo change, there's an accelerando or something like that. Work on transitions. So that's kind of an example of what the big three are that musical, technical, and ensemble objective. But have those in mind. Those are the things that you really want to focus on each day. Right. And so don't plan a rehearsal around how much music you want to play. Right. Plan it around what you need the students to learn and improve that day. Tina: Right. And for middle school. Yeah. And for middle school, it's the same thing. You're just not verbalizing it as much, I think, especially at the beginning of school. More when it gets into like UIL music and things like that. But all of that to have that plan in mind. And also like with the pieces of music, even if it's a pep tune or whatever, don't always start at the beginning. Find out where that technical part is that you really want them to be able to count and clap or touch the page as they're counting. whatever your method is, have a method of counting that it's aligned with high school also, but also just having them do that and then go through it. Mm-hmm. But because that's a technical thing. And that's keeping counting going every single day. But and then going to the next piece. And like I said, pick a spot that's technical again for that day. Or just like you're saying, but you don't have to verbalize it as much in in middle school in that aspect, but just having them do it. Every single day. Chris: Right, right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so we've kind of talked a lot about just so far warming up, what that looks like, what that should look like, and then planning, starting with the end in mind and kind of working your way back from there. And I know a lot of folks we we get into maybe student teaching and things like that and we have to do all these elaborate lesson plans and do all this stuff. And that is not what we need. as band directors to run a f an effective rehearsal. We need to have things kind of bulleted out, sketched out. I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to spend this much time on this. I need to hit this section of the music and work on this, blah, blah, blah. So if that's something that you n struggle with or you need help with, then you can find it on social media, on Facebook, Instagram, at the unconducted curriculum page. I've I've posted a what I call a a practical lesson plan. something that just kind of starts with different warm-up things, how much time maybe you want to spend on them and goes into your pieces that you're going to be working on, how much time. And it gives you it gives you space in there to jot down exactly what you want to work on on those pieces. And so you can go to my website, McClellanBand Consulting dot com and go to the unconducted curriculum page and find that free download. Or you can find those links on our social media. on Facebook and Instagram for the Unconducted Curriculum social media pages. So I encourage you to check those out, download those, they're free. Use them if you can, if you want to, if it helps. Tina: It's really good. And you can like change the times to be able to get fit for what your schedule is. And, you know, also like to have helpful timers that you have set up on your phone or if you use Launchpad, you can use that. Launchpad is incredible if you can use that because it can have a timer for each one of these. So if you haven't looked into Launchpad, it's amazing. But you know, you Google Slides work great, Canva works great, but anything that you can use up there, but have yourself, you know, timed. You know, try to try to get into that rhythm of planning out just like this rehearsal plan. It's it's amazing. Chris: And and Tina's bringing up Launchpad. Mm-hmm. Wessonlaunchpad.com. It is a fantastic resource Tina: Yes. Chris: for posting what you need to at the front of the room. It has timers. You can put music in it. You can add videos in it. It has a scrolling banner where you can do happy birthday to so and so or you can say, Don't forget we have trumpet sectional after school today. I mean, it is so interactive. And the great thing about it is it's based on a calendar. And so you can sit there and and plan out the whole week, put in your times for each class, start it in the morning and it'll just run all day and you don't have to do anything. It is so useful. I I mean, I I love it. And it's not expensive. I think it costs like five dollars a month for the subscription. Tina: Well worth it. Also, it saves. So you can go back after you do a whole year, go back and just adjust each each week. Chris: Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's and you can I think you can even like copy and paste from this day to this day. So Tina: That's what I always did with my newsletter too. My weekly newsletter. It was just you just had the whole year, you went back, changed a little thing, and it just yeah, and updated it, put different pictures in there, whatever. It was fabulous to do that. Just have it, save it, reuse it. It w it really saves you a lot of time. Chris: Okay, so going on then, just structure of your rehearsal. We're gonna kinda talk through this just a little bit. One of the things and we'll kind of hit this again as a reminder at the end, but I've just kind of got a sample 50 minute rehearsal structure. Most classes that I'm in these days, 45, 50 minutes is about the length of the class. so having a specific entry routine, what you expect from your students as they enter the band hall, when do you expect them to be ready for the downbeat or of your warmups? Whatever that is. Have a a timer that starts two minutes before that. So that kids can see that timer up on the screen and they know when class is actually going to start. For me, my class started one minute after the tardy bell, just because I had kids coming from the opposite end of campus that may not get into the room until right at that five minute bell. And so one minute after the tardy bell was when class started. That's when I would step up on the podium and here we go. So whatever that is for you, you can program that timer to start two minutes before you're gonna start class. And that helps the kids know exactly what time they have to get ready and be ready to go. Tina: Yeah, I I always usually had like a two minute timer because of how far transitioning was on the campus to get get there and ready and all of that. And also have a plan. Like if you want them to start playing or you have a concert F drone going, you want them to tune, have a plan for that. And it's different for beginners to a non varsity to a varsity group on their maturity levels of what they can do with that. But just have a plan in place. It really works well. Also ask the students, tell them like, that before class is not the time to come up and ask me things or ask for instrument repair, any of those things. It's not the time that, you know, come after and I can figure out something because you want to start on time. And if they're up there telling you have to go to the bathroom or whatever, have plans in place of Chris: Yeah. And you may have an assistant in the room. That's the person that they need to go to. Yes. If you don't have somebody else in the room, then Tina: Plan. Chris: the plan is be ready for class and then we'll handle things once class once I can get class started if we if we need to. Tina: And be be at the front of the room. If you're the only person, be in between in the middle from the door from there. But if there's another person that can be at the door, being welcoming and having them come in and like you said, they can answer some of the questions or whatever they need. But you be at that front of the room ready to step on that podium. And don't be on the podium until that timer goes off. Right. So you can step on that podium when that timer goes off, turn the timer off and they all go to ready position, sitting up nice and tall, ready for instruction. It makes a huge difference, and everyone stops talking, stops all of Chris: And so after that entry routine is established, you know, the next thing you're you're gonna go into is possibly starting off with breathing, tone production, concert F, drone work, whatever that's gonna be. Maybe the next five minutes you're working on scales, techniques, things like that, articulation, rhythm after that. You know, whatever your warm up process is gonna look like. I always structured my classes to where I had a minimum of thirty minutes of literature work. So whatever we were playing, we needed it thirty minutes out of that forty five. I think I had a forty seven minute class. So that first fifteen minutes ish for me was warm up technique, that kind of stuff. But that's at the high school level. That's probably gonna be scaled down some at the middle school level. Tina: It just depends on the time of the year too. Sure. You know, and how much they are concentrating and getting through the warmups. Because if you skip through that and they don't have great characteristic t tones, they're not in tune. They're not using the tip of their tongue with one light taste bud doing articulations exercises every day and tuning exercises and calm, constant, steady air the whole time and balancing as they're going through the warm-ups, then it's It's going to make everything else if you rush right into the music it's not gonna sound Chris: Yeah, you're fighting that in the music. Tina: Yes. The reason why it's a longer warm up, especially the beginning of the year, is they're not having to process making a good sound as much. They're not having to think as much. You know what I'm saying? That it's just it's natural to get a good sound. It's an it's natural to look down at the tuner to double check things. another thing with tuners, man, if you can get a class set or the kids each get one in their beginner packet, the tuner with the mic clip is a game changer. It really is. And you know, there's different opinions, but If you can train from day one with your beginners, even with mouthpieces, click clip it on the mouthpiece, whatever instrument it is. If they can see that they're in tune. And after a few weeks of of playing on mouthpieces, they can still see what's in tune. And we're training their ear. You know, some people may say, you're just going by rope, not making them listen. No, we're listening. We still have drones going. That's why the clip's there. We still do all of that, but it's training them. What does it sound like? What does it feel like inside your mouth? What are the vowels you're using? All of that is huge. And so they have it on their stand every day. And we're like, you can even get off the podium going through long tones and walking around. And I can go, get it green, you know, whatever you're using. It's tremendous. One of my favorite warm-ups is what I call is 591317, or some people call it 481216. I like the five nine thirteen seventeen, especially for middle school. Because you want their release on count one. So basically you're holding a concert F for a whole note. Four counts plus one is the release. You hear no sound when the foot hits the ground on one because they stop the air on one. And then two, three, breathe in three, four. And then they do two whole notes, stopping on nine, then three whole notes, and then four. Usually start the tempo at about eighty and trying to get them to keep everything consistent. And even with beginners, once they get going on this, they can do a four plus one. And then end up as they're playing on mouthpieces. Go eight plus one. Do the not. Yeah. I mean and that also like with pass offs with beginners, that's what I have them do. Chris: Yeah, for me, like your beginners need to be able to do that, hold that fundamental pitch on their mouthpiece for to me it's at least the eight count, the eight plus one, before they ever go to the whore. You know, if they Tina: Yes, I agree. That's one of the pass offs to be able to put completely together. Right. Chris: Right, exactly. Yeah. And so that's that's important too. Tina: and the other thing is if you can have tuners that go home with them that are in their beginner pack or if you have a an act that you want them to use at home. But like with brass players, when they're buzzing at home, they don't know what pitch they're on. And and so it does help. It helps to go home and like train them and show them that this is the pitch you're gonna be on, this tuner. This is your goal. So Chris: Yep. Tina: then when they're practicing at home, the pitch is correct. Because I mean before this started I started doing that, they'd come back and they were lower, you know, and they're supposed to be a little bit higher or vi you know, or a little higher and they're supposed be lower. And man, did we get results quicker, so much quicker when they visually could see and learn what that felt like and sounded like. Chris: I mean, absolutely. If what you're doing in class can't be replicated at home because they don't have a metronome and a tuner, then that practice isn't as effective as it needs to be. And so that's another issue that we can spend a lot of time on. And there's different situations and financial, you know, all the things that go along with that. Right. But at the same time, there's also some very inexpensive apps. So if they student can't afford to have the tuner metronome combo at home, but you have a classroom set, that's fine. But can they go home and download a three dollar app? There's Tina: there's some free ones out there too. Chris: some free ones out there too, you know, and and have that on their phone so that at least they have a metronome and a tuner that way at home. That's what I did with my kids. Tina: Yeah. Well, you know, when Chromebooks were being passed out or whatever like the students have that's issued by the school, you they can get the free apps on those devices, whatever they're been issued very easily. And also like you can go to whoever the tech person is on your campus to make that available in case it's blocked. But yeah, that's what I I did that once we started getting all the the Chromebooks and things like that where I was at and had those pushed through so they could get them and it just was like one day we just said, Okay, everybody open up your Chromebooks. We're doing Chromebooks today. And we just everyone got it, just in case. But having them in their beginner beginner packs when they get their instruments include it. And then in your binder, you make sure that there's a zipper pouch, pencil pouch in there. That's where they just kept it every we used it. Chris: And and you've gotta make sure that if you're doing that, that you're really diligent about teaching the students how to use it. And making sure that, you know, it's set on four forty and it's not got Tina: it's that's a reminder that always is made. Four forty, check the Chris: Four forty. Check it. Tina: check it. Chris: Check it. And that and that they understand how to use it. Because I also see schools that have them on their stands. Tina: They're not. Chris: Yeah. Either the kids don't have them turned on or they may be I may be standing behind them and they may be twenty cents flat and they're not doing anything about it because they're not taking time to adjust. In a couple of cases, they didn't really know what they were looking for. So don't take for granted that they know. how to use one. Really be specific about how how to use it and have them refer to it. Tina: That's another thing about walking around the room during warm up or whatever. It's like if you're not you also can go, Hey Johnny, there's a classroom set. Yeah. Or you or yeah, or there's a classroom set, remember? Go get it. It's okay. You can use that for today. Chris: Absolutely. And and I saw something this morning on social media. It was kind of funny. It was a school who they they have a classroom set of tuners, but they had been losing those tuners periodically, you know, so then now they're starting the you gotta leave a shoe to check out a tuner. That type of thing. Tina: We used to do that with pencils. I remember doing that with pencils. Chris: I mean, whatever it takes. You know, I mean that's that's Tina: Funny. Chris: that's it's funny. I mean, I don't know that I want a whole bunch of shoeless kids around in my room, but Tina: You have to take a silver or a black Sharpie and you have to put your school name on the front and back and on the clip. Put your school initials on the clip. It's just and number them. And use a shoe rack, the hanging shoe rack from like Dollar Tree. Yeah. And just yeah. Yeah. That's the best way to do it. And yeah. put a card in each one of them that says the number or write it on the outside, however you want to do it, it works really well. And I have a s a school I work with that they have that and the kids, every kid gets one. It's high school groups and they are assigned a number. So we know if one is miss number one is missing, then somebody we know who has it. Right. But every class period a different person is assigned to that number. It really worked well. It worked well because we knew who was who didn't or whatever. And like the next class came in and one was missing, we knew that that last class kiddo had it. And obvious and also they would go in their locker and go get it sometimes. But they would also like help remind the student, you gotta put it back. But it w that system worked. You just have to have a system. Chris: Yeah, absolutely. So getting back into just the the flow of the rehearsal. Mm-hmm. After you've kind of timed out and worked on your specific warm ups, some days I didn't work on all three pieces. Some days I worked on two pieces or three separate sections of maybe one long piece. Yes. You know, because I don't want to work on just one section of a piece or one piece for 30 minutes straight. But I had targeted things. So I may spend ten minutes on the first piece that we're working on. Maybe that's our March or whatever, but I had a targeted section. We're gonna work from measures twenty four through thirty six today. And we're gonna we're gonna improve our overall articulation and style. We're gonna work dynamics. We're gonna work on those specific things for that ten minutes. You know, and then go into the next piece and have a targeted section with specific goals. And then the same thing with the third piece or the third section you're working on. Because that also provides a variety for the kids so that they don't just start tuning out and getting bored and you're not spending so much time, maybe you're just working with the woodwinds or maybe just the clarinets while the brass is just sitting there for ten minutes. Right. Because you're spending all this time on one piece. Have those things figured out targeted. Because ultimately you want kids playing as much as possible. Yes. You don't want them sitting there. Tina: Yeah. And also with middle school music, a lot of times the big the intro and the end are very similar. So like one day with one piece, it may be we're gonna work on the introduction and then we're gonna work on the ending. You know, because sometimes if you don't do that, the ending doesn't get as played as much as the beginning. But like doing that, the kids see the tie and in relation to the beginning and the end and the changes and it moves way quicker by doing that. But like See what forum is, if it's ABA, whatever it is, of the piece and try that. It really works. Chris: yeah. Find those sections that are are direct repeats or extremely similar, you know, and reference that. But do you have to work on both those sections that day? No. Just apply the knowledge. Tina: Other thing is with middle school music, it could be at nine, the clarinets and flutes have it, have the melody. And then at the next section it's the trumpets that have it. Then the next section is slow brass. If it's in the same key Yeah. All together. Even if there's slight variation, all together. And then you could also have, okay, trumpets you're gonna play. The other groups I need you to do air in position or whatever it is. And then you have what that group play. Then you can have competitions. What group plays it the best in tune or the style or whatever you're working on. They love that 'cause they sit up taller and they're like, ooh, I'm gonna win, you know, 'cause they wanna win. Chris: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, that that is a great rehearsal technique and I use that a lot because typically in even in high school music, level four, level five music that that we typically played at contests, there's repetitive melody lines that go from section to section. You don't have to rehearse those all separately. You can rehearse those at the same time. That they do play the same style. They do match. those types of things. Tina: I love that when it's phrasing time, when you're, you know, 'cause you can add phrasing that's not written on the page and you can teach it all together with those groups to see and then also that you can find the the group that can play the softest and gradually getting louder and back down with that phrasing the best. Because hearing a group do it really helps make students understand what it's supposed to sound like and find the best people, even an individual doing that phrase and copying that. That's a great time to do that too. Chris: Absolutely. I think the biggest thing to avoid and unfortunately this is kind of how my rehearsals were when I first started teaching. And I see this very commonly still today with young teachers. We start our piece at measure one. We play until something goes wrong. We stop and talk about what went wrong and then we start over. And and we may get all the way to measure forty eight and measure forty seven was was not what we need to be. Okay, let's start over. You know, it's like Yeah. No And to me. That is a l that's just a lack of preparation on your part. You didn't really figure out, you haven't assessed what's going on prior day and writing down. You know, we talked about this last time. I I did that after every rehearsal. Okay, so tomorrow we really need to target measures 63 through 69. We really need to make sure that we're doing this. We need to work on this articulation. We need to work on tuning in this phrase. We need to work on the dynamics. Whatever it is, those were the things that I wrote down after each rehearsal. So that when I went to my you know, simple lesson plan for the next day, I could just write those things in and know exactly what I what we needed to target. So starting at the beginning of the piece, if that's what you do on a daily basis, that's not an effective rehearsal because maybe your your introduction's going to be fantastic. But what about the end of your piece? How much time do you spend on that compared to the front of the piece? So just kind of keeping that in mind. So, you know, just to kind of ask these questions, at the end of your rehearsal. What is the problem? Where does it occur? Why is it happening? Identify those things first and then isolate small section, specific instrument groups, specific rhythms, specific articulation. Work on those things and then solve the problem. Slow the tempo down. Simplify what you're doing. Break into smaller pieces and then repeat correctly. Yeah. And that's another thing that I feel like I I don't see a lot of is we're trying to we're trying to learn things and rehearse things always at performance tempo when it needs to be slowed down. That technical passage may need to be broken down to just the first four notes and then at the next four notes and then add those eight notes together. You know, those types of things. And we just need to kind of keep all of those things in mind. And then once you've kind of done all that, put it back into context, reconnect it. So That rehearsal formula just simplified is identify, isolate, fix, reconnect. And remember that progress is more important than perfection. Tina: That is true. It's not going to be perfect. Even when we go to UIL, it's not going to be perfect. We all are reaching for that. Chris: Something. Tina: Yeah. Yes, there's always something. Even like state recordings, if you know you make the state level for honor band, you're sitting in there, and I know someone that was saying like the recordings were so good, but that one little thing that happened, you know. And it and it's okay. We're human. That's part of being human. But the resources out there now of being able to listen to To college bands playing the music for you to listen and be prepared that you really know the piece you're playing and the details of that will help with all of this too. If you've done that, like back then we used to have cassettes and then it went to DVDs. Can you remember all that? But that's how you would listen to things. And now it's like so accessible to be able to break down the music and you listen before you get into it with the band to be able to do everything we're suggesting. and one thing I want to suggest is that like I really, really love like this is another podcast to to refer to for middle schools, the band BFFs by Laura and Katie. They do an awesome job breaking down middle school music, like individually, that piece is Chris: They do. Tina: so helpful. It's so helpful and it's so great. But there's, you know, listen to the piece. You break it down. Also, you know the strength and weaknesses with your your students. Your trumpets might not be as strong as they were the year before. And then there's this part, you just gotta make sure that. The piece of music fits your core. Right. And we could go into a lot with all of that. Chris: Yeah. Well, and I d I wanna say one thing. You know, you talked about cassettes and then CDs and all that stuff. Yes. You and I are old enough to remember when you would buy a piece of music and inside the cover of that piece of music was a little paper like vinyl record that you could play. Like I have some of that in some of my percussion solo music that I bought in college, you know. So that's kind of dating us a little bit. Tina: Dating again is you're in the all region band in high school and you get a record. You can buy a record. Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what my all region stuff was on is records when I was in high school. Yes. Yep. I know. So it's just yeah, it's so much easier now. And the other thing about that is, you know, if you struggle and and young directors I did I was this way. I struggled in rehearsal to always hear what was causing the problem. You know, like sometimes it's just dirty and you can't figure out where that dirt's coming from necessarily. And so record. your rehearsal. yes. And then go back and listen to it. Yes. And and and then use the that time to identify what's going on, what the problems are, so that you can come up with your plan. But that's something that I also think is not utilized nearly as much as it needs to be right now. And it's so easy because you can even I mean, even if you have to do it on your phone, that's better than nothing. But you can get really good recorders out there now, put on a on a boom stand in front of your rehearsal that are Very inexpensive, all in one kind of things. And that's you know, we had a couple Tina: On a tall music stand. Yeah. We just put it behind me and on a tall music stand on your phone doing that. It's wonderful. Also, the the newer updated harmony directors have a record button. I've seen some people, and I really like this, they'll record like one little section and then play it right back for the students and have the students comment on it because it's so quick. Cause sometimes your phone is not hooked up to the whole sound system in your room, but the harmony director is. And that's very effective because it's instant. They're like I hear what you're saying now, you know, all of that. Chris: And that's that's why yeah. You do that and you ask them, What do you hear? What what what do you think? What what do we need to work on? Tina: It's just small little sections too. It's not the whole piece. Doesn't take long at all. Chris: Yeah. You're just recording small sections and playing it back. But for you as a director, record your rehearsal. Especially as a young director. yes. Record your rehearsal and evaluate your rehearsal. If if you do nothing else, record it and and add up how much time you're talking and they're not playing. Tina: that's true too. Chris: I did that with a with a young director last year because they were just wanting to talk a lot when they felt like they had knowledge to impart on their students, which is great. But this is middle school and these kiddos were just kind of like zoning out. And so I recorded while I was there observing him, I recorded his rehearsal for him and I said, Go back tonight and watch your rehearsal. And I want you to tell me tomorrow how much time you spent talking, which means how much time they weren't playing. And he texted me the next morning, he said, I feel so stupid. I said, why? He said, Because out out of our forty five minute rehearsal, I talked for twenty one minutes. I said, Yep, yeah. You did. Tina: That's half. Almost half. Yeah. Chris: Like you need to really s be more succinct. Find something, fix it. Don't just talk about why it's wrong. Don't talk about all these things, but get them back to playing Tina: And that's what they want to do. The kids wanna play. Yeah, they want to play. They do they do want to b get better, but they wanna play. Chris: They do. But you have to keep your comments short. Find one thing that you need to work on in that right from that that run you just did or that section you just rehearsed and give them that information and then play. You know. It it doesn't matter. Tina: goes back to having them freeze and you freeze with your your hands up. You know, I kinda do the one thousand one, one thousand two where they don't move they Chris: Ooh. Tina: don't silence. And so then you can put your hands down, they go horns down and you give instructions very quickly and back up hands back Chris: Yep. Yep. Yep. That's even Tina: has to be like if you can really make yourself do that, it just makes you not talk as much. They will not talk as much. Chris: Well, and I I even do a thing with my student teachers or directors who maybe are are dealing with some classroom management challenges where every time they put their hands down, the kids immediately start talking. Don't put your hands down. Don't cut off. Keep your hands up, keep their horns on their face, say a short correction, count them right back off. Yes. Because the problem is you're letting them put their horns down. And that's their signal that they can talk. And we can go in all all kinds of reasons why that's the case, but we don't have time for that on this pod. But that will help fix it. Yes. Mm-hmm. And so and then we're talking about fixing and isolating after we've identified those problems. Right. Use repetition strategically. Not all repetition is productive. So bad reputation, you know, we just say, let's try it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. On the band director joke, I mean my kids were very is one more time. One more time. Especially in marching bands. I would say one more time. But I told my kids too. I always told them why it was one other time, what we're why we need to go back and do it again, what we're focusing on. So I didn't just say one more time, but it was also we're gonna one more time is it's infinite. We could say one more time forever. Yes. If I say last time, then that then that's the last time. Tina: Better be the last time. Chris: Yeah. And then you respond with best time. But but that's kind of the the thing is Instead of saying, let's try it again or one more time, say, let's play measures thirty-two through forty three times. First time, let's focus on the rhythm. Second time, let's focus on the articulation. And third time, let's put it all together. You know, be specific in why you're repeating and what you need them to focus on during that during that repetition. Tina: I've even heard people that say, like, if you say last time and they say best time, it's like, why were the other times before that your best time in your concentration? So that's kind of going out of our vocabulary, I think. The more I kind of see some of that. You know, it's like it like you're saying is have them have a goal instead of saying this is the last time or this is the whatever because like you said, like we're gonna do it three more times. You have three more reps on this. Yep. And then even like for marching band, three more reps, what a break. Chris: Right. Yeah, absolutely. And when I was working with students individually on on their solos or region music or whatever, for then for me it was five more times. When you can do it five times in a row without making a mistake, then we can go on. Because we're just trying to build that build that into their system where they're not making that mistake. They're being consistent with how they're playing it. So muscle memory. That's how you use that rip. Strategically. Don't just repeat things just because it wasn't good and expecting that it's going to get better just because you give them another chance. Sometimes that happens because it was a freak. Because it was a freak thing. But 99% of the time it it's not going to correct itself on its own. So you've got to be very specific in that. Keeping students engaged, actively engaged throughout the rehearsal. We've talked about structure, spend this much time on targeted things. Don't let the kids sit there for a long time. But I think other ways to do this and and this is what I did a lot with my classes is ask the students to identify problems. yeah. Ask them what Yeah, they do and ask them what did you what did you hear? If you're working with just, you know, have the trumpets play a a phrase, then ask the clarinets, clarinets, what did you hear? You know, and and teach them that Oreo cookie cookie method, you know, say something nice, say something that they can improve, you know, and then say something, you know, positive at the end again. But I think having students teaching them to listen and teaching them that you're going to ask them questions. And sometimes for me in that process it was asking an individual student. I may s I may have the the trombone section play a something and then I would say, Joe, what did you hear? Yes. And at first they're going to be like, but once you s do that regularly and you're you're just calling on individuals and holding them accountable for listening. They'll start to listen more because they may Tina: Starts in beginner band. It starts in beginner band. You once you're playing and getting going or even on mouthpieces holding for nine counts, you can go down the row, say something that you thought that was awesome. You know, and sometimes at the beginning they'll say this, some of them will repeat the same thing of what is said. And that's okay. And then like then you say, okay, say something maybe they could improve on and you have like call on like three people, but you have to like kind of train them, like what are some phrases you can use and all that. And that we're all helping each other. And that it it's not a joke. Cause you know, sometimes there'll be some that will think it's like, no, it's not a joke. We're that was funny, but we're positively reaching out and having correction and and things that you can improve on. But sixth graders, once you start doing it, they're raising their hand, they're wanting to do all that. Chris: They are. They are. And it's just it's just a culture thing and you're Tina: It really is that they're comfortable of to make a mistake. Reed players are comfortable to make a squeak, but you don't want it to be what they do all the time. But that they keep going and they have confidence in what they're doing. Right. or not hitting the right pitch or partial or whatever. And, you know, that they could just keep going. And we all can shuffle for mistakes that people keep going to do the correct thing to finish. But feedback is very important. Chris: goes back to last week's podcast on positive reinforcement. Yes. And so all these things you're wanting to do in a positive manner. But having students listen, asking students question, use student leaders, section leaders to model, have students count silently when they're not actively playing. Ask students what they heard. Rotate section responsibilities. So you know in warm up. Today flutes are going to be our model. Tomorrow clarinets are going to be our model. Yeah. Just different things to kind of keep them more engaged. But that peer evaluation is is good because it forces them to listen and remain engaged. Tina: And the whole modeling thing, modeling thing is it just it it makes things move faster. What I mean by that, if you're using any Remington, it's that the two measures of Remington, you have like all the woodwinds do it and the brass echo them and model it. Then you go to the second one and same thing. And one way I've really found that it really works in middle school band settings is brass starts because they're bigger and fuller and you really encourage them to be big and full because sometimes the woodwinds aren't playing as big and full and yes. Chris: Do you want them to match that energy? Tina: And you're not going to make them sound like brass players. You're trying to have them match the intensity of the big, full, confident sound. And it really makes them go, I'm not doing what they're doing. And that's that's a great way of doing or I have a section of the week. Okay. It's the trombones, trombones. You're going to be the model today. And they're like, yay, go trombones. And then they're that model. It really helps with things moving quicker. Chris: Absolutely. And on that same thing with the peer evaluation, questions that you can model so that students kind of understand what to listen for. What did you hear? What changed that time? What section has the melody? Where did the ensemble lose the pulse? What should we fix before playing it again? That's the kinds of things that they need to be listening for. Of course, you know, wrong notes that can go into what should we fix? All Tina: Yeah, all of it. Chris: of that stuff. But you you want something that they can grab onto. Sure. Tina: picture. Yeah. Chris: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so kind of going through this, we've talked about kind of the whole sample fifty minute rehearsal about how much time to spend maybe on warm ups, varying your warm ups, all that kind of stuff. What you want to do when you get into your literature, target specific sections, give yourselves a time a goal. I mean again, that's a goal, that's not a a strict cut off, you know, because music is fluid, we're not gonna know exactly how things are gonna go all the time. And we wanna hear progress. That's that's the main thing. Did we make progress today? Right. And so as we get into the end of rehearsal, we have to end with a purpose. The last few minutes are just as important as the first few. And so if you end rehearsal and you play all the way up to the bell, that bell rings and then kids start putting up their their instrument, okay. But what did we leave them with? Did we leave them with something to work on? Did we leave them with an understanding of how rehearsal went. So ask some questions. Give yourself one minute at the end of rehearsal. Set yourself a timer. Ask them, what did we accomplish today? Did we reach our goals that we discussed at the beginning of class? If not, why? What still needs work? Tell them what they need to go home and work on tonight. So that tomorrow that section is better. Tina: Also, if you have difficulty ending rehearsal on time, because I could have a class go on for two, three hours, honestly. I could just keep teaching. Yes, Chris: We all could. Yeah. Tina: but I would always have two vibrating on my wrist timers that would go off. It was three minutes before every class ended. And that three first one was for me to close, like you're saying. And then the next one was one minute later, and that was their dismissal. So they had two minutes. It also, if you're very consistent with that, the kids feel more comfortable. They're not looking at, you know, trying to find where the time is, the clock, or anything of if they're going to have enough time to put up. So it really made the environment confident in we're going to be done when we're done and I'm going to have enough time to put everything up, clean my instrument, gather my stuff and go to the next class. Very important. Chris: And that's part of the planning process. Mm-hmm. If your class is fifty minutes long and you start like I did a minute after the bell, but that's the downbeat. And you stop yourself three minutes before the bell to do your closure and and give them time to put away. Well, your class isn't fifty minutes long. No. It's forty six minutes long. It's true. And you've got to plan for that and be consistent with that. because you're right, the consistency part of it helps with classroom management. Right. yeah. It just does. It just really does. But after you've kind of asked those questions at the end of rehearsal, give students one clear takeaway. Such as tomorrow we're gonna start with measures forty eight through sixty four. Your goal tonight is to be able to play that section at one hundred beats per minute without stopping. Just something something something specific. Tina: Yeah. Chris: They can take away and they can go and go and they can go do. All right. So just kind of closing some things out here. We've got some common rehearsal mistakes. These are common pitfalls. And some of this is just a review of what we've talked about today. but trying not to trying to not accomplish too or trying to accomplish too much. That's a pitfall. Know what you have time for, know what you need to work on, be specific and targeted. Another one is you ha you don't have a clear objective. You haven't thought through what you want to do. You're just Starting at the beginning and playing the music until you find a mistake and trying to fix it. Talking too much. We've talked about that. Don't talk too much. Give something short correction and go on. Playing pieces from the beginning to end repeatedly. Mm-hmm. All you're teaching them to do is to make the same mistakes over and over again. And that's what they're practicing. Tina: Yeah, that's what fun Friday is. I always have Friday, you know, we'd do some stuff and whatever, but we would also make sure percussions, all percussions all in the room. We have fun Friday. Let's run through ever like five pep tunes. Woohoo, you know, get that. Awes yeah, that's good continuity. Chris: And Fridays for me were recording Fridays. Tina: Two. But yeah, when when it's like closer to UI L. Chris: Yeah, we're getting into a a performance, whether it's UI L or a concert or whatever. Friday was recording Friday. And so we would we would work some things that we needed to work briefly, but then we would record our program where we were at that moment so that I could listen to it over the weekend and have a plan for the next week. So that was something that we did. Allow allowing transitions to take too long, that's another pitfall. If you step off the podium while kids do a transition to the next piece, they're getting up music, percussions moving maybe to their next spot. That shouldn't take forever. And don't start getting yourself involved in a long conversation with a student or something at that time. Step off, give them thirty seconds, forty five seconds to transition because you're waiting a percussion. Step back on up on the post. Tina: even do like a five, four, three, y you know, doing a countdown. You know, and also it depends on the piece with percussion, what you can do with that. But if percussion is not moving, you can step down and and like seriously count back from five and step on the podium and they're ready. That Chris: Yeah. Tina: also stops you from having those conversations with the kiddos or you getting distracted. Because I could do that a lot. Chris: Yeah, and I've done that too. I've ste I've stepped off and talked to my first chair clarinet player who's sitting right there asking her about something, you know, how'd how'd your game go last night or whatever? And then all of a sudden I'm engaged in this conversation. I'm like, crap, I gotta go Tina: Yes. The countdown worked for me. It was more for me than them. They just didn't know it. Chris: Well that's true. That's true. Yeah, it is. Another pitfall is stopping without a specific purpose. Like you're stopping because you think you heard something that was wrong but you don't really know what it was. Don't stop at that point. Finish out the phrase, finish out the section, then go back to that part where you thought you heard something and isolate that part and then f figure that out at that point. But if you don't know exactly what you're gonna tell them when you stop, don't stop. Failing to listen to the ensemble. I mean, sometimes we're listening to the music in our head. We're listening to that recording that we've loved forever and we're not really listening to what's in front of us. Ignoring student engagement. That's something that that is is easy to do too. Read facial expressions, read body language. If they're bored, shake it up a little bit. Do something different. Another pitfall is you don't adjust the plan when something isn't working. yeah. You know, I you can pivot. You can pivot. And I tell my student teachers all the time and and my young directors, Yeah. You've spent You've spent three minutes of class time working on this section with the flute and it's not getting any better. Let's go on, let's do something different, and you can figure out how you want to approach that differently tomorrow. Right. But don't Tina: Wrong with that. Chris: Yeah. Don't just keep beating that horse because it's not gonna change. Mm-mm. And then the other one is just ending rehearsal without reviewing the day's accomplishments and providing them with something a takeaway. You gotta do that. So I'm gonna leave you with an action item. before we sign off this podcast, the action item is to go to my website, which is McClellanBand Consulting dot com and go to the unconducted curriculum page. And at the bottom of the page there's a free download for our planning template and use it. Try it out next week. Try it. See if Tina: Try some things. Chris: it seems to more today. Mm-hmm. And let us know how it works. Yeah. The that that planning sheet is also on social media. So follow the unconducted curriculum on Facebook. or Instagram or TikTok. And you can find links to those those items there as well. And we're going to kind of have start putting together a folder of items that are going to be free resources for you based on our podcasts. So we hope that you will use those. And if they're helpful to you, please let us know. this podcast is about being of service to directors out there now. And we want that to be something that is useful to you. Yeah. All right. Tina: Sounds good.