What's so SMART about Smart Music, anyways?

I promised a blogpost about Smart Music this week and I am delivering! I'm sure you're wondering what this program is and why am I telling you about it? I'm telling you about it for two reasons. The first reason is because I know that many parents feel as if they are clueless about music and band and that they have no idea what happens in my classroom. I like to let you know so that you feel more informed and that you can feel comfortable asking your child questions about their lessons and how band is going. When you talk to you children about school and band, they know that you care and that you think it is important and that will help their motivation immensely! Second: If you can swing it, it would be a great investment to purchase a subscription of this program yourself and your child can use it at home with your own computer.

If you can imagine it, my first description of it is "Guitar Hero" for band instruments.  I use a projector and the music is projected onto my white board like this:

There are so many great tools for students who are practicing, especially the younger ones like I teach. My favorite part is the green cursor that pulses with the steady beat and goes along in the music where the students should be looking at and playing. I think one of the first challenges that students have is following the music. This helps train the students how to do this. Steady beat is also a challenge for students of all ages and levels. With this program, the student can change the tempo and make it slower and faster to fit their practice needs. As you can see from this graphic, they can make it so that they play along with just their part, an accompaniment track (like a rock band playing with them!),with just the steady beat, or any combination of all three choices! When they play, the program records them and keeps track what they played correctly (in green), and incorrectly (in red)!  They are given a score and if they are competitive, they can choose to try and beat their score, which some kids really like. They can also save their recording as an mp3 file! In fact, I've done this with a few of my groups and was able to email the file to those parents with email addresses.

Please know that I do not work for Smart Music or anything like that. I work for NSD2 and that is it. I don't work for any music store or anything else. I will never come at you about buying thing for my own personal gain. Please take some time to look around at the website www.smartmusic.com and find out more for yourself. I'd be happy to talk to you more about this!

Amanda Storer
815-678-6726
astorer@nsd2.com

Squeaking and Squawking Along!

Greeting from the Band Room! This week was a GREAT one in the SGE and RGS band rooms! All of the students are progressing quite nicely and I’m very pleased with their progress. There are still some students who do not have a lesson book. Everyone should have the book “Measures of Success” Book 1 for whichever instrument they play. Here is what it looks like:

Any music store can get this for you. HERE is the link on my website with a list of all of the local music stores in the area. If you’d rather not drive to a store or order from somewhere online (like JW Pepper or Hickeys), you can always call Quinlan & Fabish at (847) 253-5592. Then our representative, Mary will bring it with her when she visits the schools on Wednesdays.

I hope the bandlings are having a great time practicing and learning how to play the first three notes on their instruments! All of the students have learned how to read these notes on the musical staff.  I’ve really encouraged them to use the CD’s that have come with their books.  I find it is so much more fun to practice with the background tracks! We’ve also started using a program in lessons called “Smart Music.” I’ll write more about this program in next week’s blogpost with instructions on how you can purchase and use it at home if you wish. I started using this program regularly last school year and I encountered a HUGE difference in performance and motivation among my students last year as compared with my previous classes.

Another important thing to mention is the dates of the required concerts for the school year. There was a little confusion about when the SGE winter concert was going to be and now that it’s cleared up, I want to be sure that everyone knows when the concerts are:

SGE Winter 3^rd grade and 5^th grade Band Concert is Thursday, December 13 at 6:30pm in the SGE gym

RGS 5^th grade program and Band Concert is Monday, December 17 at 7:00pm in the RGS gym

RGS/SGE/NMS 5^th and 6^th grade Combined Spring Concert is Thursday, May 9 at 7:00pm in the NMS gym.

Each band member is expected to be at these two concerts (their respective December concert and the Spring concert) this year. There will be other opportunities to perform this school year that will be optional. For example, last year some bandlings signed up to play the Lion’s Club Pancake Breakfast in Mchenry in February. It was a lot of fun! The year before, some students signed up to play at a nursing home in April. I will arrange these extra performances during the school year and let you know about them, but anything above and beyond the Winter and Spring concerts will be totally optional.  

One last thing to leave you with is a link to my You Tube channel. I regularly add new videos to my channel and I already have a LOT of videos on there in playlists. (To more easily view all of the videos I’ve compiled, be sure to click on the “playlists” link.) There are a few I’ve made myself, but most are videos that are posted by professional musicians and even a couple of former students! I’d love for you to encourage your children to take a look through the play lists and watch any of the videos, with your supervision, of course! I totally understand that different houses have different rules about what can be done with or without supervision. If you have your student look at any videos, help them to leave a comment on my wall wisher (HERE) about what video they watched and what they thought of it!

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and let me know if you ever have any questions or concerns!

 

Amanda Storer

678-6726

astorer@nsd2.com

www.mrsstorersband.weebly.com

A Really BIG Band!

Did you notice the title of my first blogpost of the year? I titled this post "A Really BIG  Band" because between the two schools, I have over 105 band students!! That is a number I have not seen in a long while! Maybe even ever! It's going to be a great year!

Depending on which school your child goes to, you may have had over a week of new bandling sounds in your house, or you may have just started to have the beautiful sounds of beginning band practicing in your house! Whichever is true for your household, I hope your child(ren) have been enjoying themselves! First lessons at SGE went really well on Tuesday! Most students are supposed to be practicing page 4 in their books. You can find out what their homework is by looking at their practice record. Every week at the end of the lesson, each student marks down the date and what their homework is on their practice record. They are then required to keep track of how many minutes they practice each night and get that row signed each week before their next lesson. Most RGS students had their practice records signed and ready to go during their second lesson this week, but some did not. I do check practice records each week and record how many minutes and whether or not it was signed in my gradebook.

I'm sure you have, but please take time to talk to your child about their band lessons and how it's going. Any encouragement and positive comments you can make to your bandling about their progress is going to pay off exponentially in their attitude and motivation! I try and be as positive and encouraging as I can be, but I do only see the bandlings one time a week! I need your help to keep them going the rest of the week.

Once we start working on page 5 in the book (most the RGS students are practicing page 5 & 6 THIS week!) the students can start using the CD's that have come with the books. This usually makes practice sessions more exciting. You can even load the whole CD onto an ipod or a tablet and then they can take the device and use it with headphones and play along! Playing with the CD is great because it gives the student help with intonation (playing "in-tune") and a good sense of steady beat.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to call or email! I'm happy to talk with you. Enjoy yourselves this weekend!

Mrs. Storer
678-6726
www.mrsstorersbands.weebly.com

Re-energized and Re-charged!

Welcome back to my originally scheduled program! With starting back up for the new year, getting back into the groove of things, handing out new music and trying to get and keep my family healthy from all of the nasty germs out now, January sure FLEW by! Last week was a short week for me (and the rest of the music/band/choir departments in NSD2) as we all attended the IMEA All-State Conference in Peoria. I look forward to this conference every year. It is at the perfect time of year, for me at least. I'm always so excited to get back to school and start new music and get back to the basics with the book we'd neglected for a few weeks before the Winter concert, but then after a few weeks, I get a little down. I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's cold outside (although not really this year!) or because we don't have a concert looming right over our heads. But the IMEA conference always re-energizes my passion for teaching your children!

While the K-12 music/orchestra/band/choir teachers are busy for three days attending sessions about teaching practices, new products, repairing instruments, including technology into our teaching, etc., there are the best of the best of the high school band, orchestra and choir students from all over the state who are participating in rehearsals to get ready for a huge concert at the end of the weekend. Here's a picture of them all

It's hard to see, but they were all rehearsing a combined piece of music. I tried to estimate how many children there were. The range I got was around 500-600 students! To hear all of those children making such extraordinarily beautiful music together was completely moving and amazing. I attended a concert by a middle school jazz band on Thursday. I was struck with how competent and talented this group was, but what moved me the most was how much pride was apparent by the looks on their faces after performing such intricate music and how much fun they seemed to have making it!

I think I have high (but absolutely attainable) standards, I expect my students to do their homework and be ready for their rehearsals. Those standards are important because that's when the fun can really happen. I went to another clinic about learning how to improvise (or make up music on the spot) and how to teach my students to do that. The clinician said something along the lines of, "Practice=Preparation...Preparation=Comfort...Comfort=Confidence." It made so much sense. I think I will make a sign for my rooms that conveys this message.

I'm not trying to harp on the practice thing (ok, maybe a little!) because on the whole, my groups at RGS and SGS are doing an AMAZING job! We have been preparing music for an in-school concert in March. This concert will be during the school day (no evening performance) and it will serve as a demonstration concert for the 4th graders so they can start getting excited about band for next year. Each instrument group will play a short song to demonstrate their instruments and the full band will play 2 or 3 songs. We're close to being able to play one of those songs all the way through! SGS's in-school concert will be on Tuesday, March 20 at 2:45pm. The concert at RGS will be the next day, Wednesday, March 21 at 2:45. Feel free to attend! There will be no specific concert dress for this performance since it is during the school day.

And don't forget to mark the big combined May concert on your calendar! It's Tuesday, May 8 at 7:00pm at NMS. Have a great week! As always, feel free to call or email with any questions or concerns

Amanda Storer

astorer@nsd2.com

678-6726

www.mrsstorersbands.weebly.com