Notes from the Cougar Band Room

"Mrs. Stan, can I write a warm-up on the board today?" I can't believe my ears. Of all the questions I am asked, that is not one I would've predicted to hear on a regular basis. But we're a month into our school year and I get asked this question almost daily now. (Seriously.) Even the quiet student in the middle of the section has come up to me, told me they had an idea for a warm up, and asked if they could write it up on the board. (My heart about exploded when they came up to ask!) I'm floored in the best way possible.       We always start with the same question: What do you think we need to get better at? Whether it's for our concerts, for our ensemble, for you personally... What is important? After a few coaching sessions to reinforce the process for creating a circuit warm-up, more and more students have started asking to create their own.      Taking ownership of fundamentals. Aural and physical awareness growing. Some groups

One of the first objective of any band director's year is clear, although sometimes can be Mission Impossible: Get instruments into hands as smoothly and quickly as you can. Fortunately by day 2, all band classes had instruments assigned and music passed out. We were ready to go! Woohoo! As I mentioned in my last post,  one of my big goals for the year is for students to own ALL of their playing, not just when rehearsing music for a concert. We also started this on day 2 with a brief discussion on why warming-up is important and how to warm-up properly. (On a side note: taking more time to talk after being ready to play was a bit challenging-- everyone is tired of talking about procedures and logistics, particularly after doing nothing but that on the first day. But the few extra minutes of discussion paid off big time.) For the why, I found it really helped my students to think of it similarly to doing a larger physical activity; like playing a sport or getting ready for a maj