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So today I had a really good experience afterschool. We had a performance for regionals etudes and solo/ensemble stuff, since its on saturday. it was inf ront of friends and family in small groups to get us used to palyign in front of people.

Well, for the past month I've been working with this kid, a sophomore clarient who cant read music. Everyone in the band really has no faith in this kid. while his sound isnt that bad, he cant read music and even when you spoonfeed it to him, it takes a lot for him to get it. You have to show him note by note how to play it. he also doesn't know any scales.

Despite the lack of faith from the rest of the band, I continued working with him and doing my best to teach himw hat I could before saturday. its been a painstaking process, which makes me glad I personally found the regional etudes kind of easy to learn and mastered them pretty much the second day we had them(hours of practicing) so I could focus on him and not have to worry abotu falling behind myself.

Todays performance was the real test. We had to play a scale and an etude. n the past, i've taught him scales and he forgot the next day. I haven't worked on scales with him since last week, and he comppletely passed that part. He played it perfectly two octaves, except for a minor note flub where he caught his mistake as he was making it. We haven't gotten far into the etude, and have only been able to work on one, but the parts I have taught him sounded correct. He attempted to sightread the rest....I don't know what he was playing but it definately wasn't close to what was written.

It made me really proud. Eat that clarients and bD! I can too run a section! Not SL my butt! It felt really good to hear smeone play somethign I taught them, and really made my dream of becoming a band director a brighter future. Before, i was kinda worried because of...incidents during marching season, but now i'm really quite sure I can to it, and that I really can be a good sl or even dm. And (Cheesiness aside) even the weakest link can be strong if you put faith in it.

Anyone had similar experiences they want to share?

I've never been a section leader, but when i was younger i had been like one of the last chairs, and we had to play a quiz, and I made it all the way up to the third chair, because I had played fast since I was nervous, so yeah. that's the closest experience i got similiar to yours

I proved a bunch of people that I could teach kids with no band experience to play instruments.

Two little girls in junior high joined the band class but had no prior musical experience. One wanted to play the trumpet and the other the clarinet.
I have an independent study class of music theory in the same room and at the same time as the JH band class, so I started taking those two girls into another room and teaching them.
I'm not a trumpet player, so I couldn't teach that one notes or anything, but I showed her how to use a fingering chart and taught her types of notes and rest and time/key signatures.
She was able to jump right into band and did pretty well, but recently switched to clarinet and I've been teaching her that, too.

The other girl that wanted to play clarinet made me super proud.
At first I thought she was a lost cause.
After about two weeks of working with her though, we got down an octave of notes (C to C) and types of notes/rest and time/key signatures and now she's doing great in band!

It's such an amazing feeling knowing that you have taught someone how to do something. Especially when you see them really succeeding!

Well, the bad news is this kid got a really low score on his audition and didnt make it in. He got a whopping total of 155/1000. but I did feel slightly justified that on his audition sheet, the judge(who is one of the most amazing clari players I have ever heard of and known as the Clarinet Nazi by nearly everyone) wrote somethign I've been telling the kid all along, that scales will help a lot. So that was kinda cool that someone that good was repeating somethign I was saying ^-^

But I'm still prety proud of the kid. He could have done way worse, and he got a near perfect score on his F scale(concert Eb)

Meanwhile though, the other three people who auditioned in my section, me being the third, all made it into Regionals. We are all on different parts. I got first part 5th chair, and I'm the first one to get it from my school since i started high school. Another sophomore got 2 part 9th chair(which would be 17th total) and then the third, the other junior who i expected to do better then the sophomore, got third part 10th char, making her last chair at total 38.

That's great! My teaching story starts day one of band camp, my sophomore year. My chops were really starting to develop, and I was becoming a senior, two years early, like my director said. I got called out for being too loud (I started breathing properly, and man could I crank then), and got me a deeper mouthpiece to try and shut me up and handle all the air, and it was really a lot of fun, minus one. There was this freshman trumpet player, and he was this little cocky boy who thought he was brilliant and ran everything. Well he skipped the second day of band camp, and my director threw him out of band. Next thing we know, we have an empty dot in the drill. Just so happens a girl was struggling (a senior), with bass 3, so she got thrown into his spot, which was next to mine. She learned the drill quick, and was a very good marcher, and around the fourth day, she turned to me and said Mr. Bialkin (the band director) gave me a trumpet, how do I hold it. So I walked to the band room with her, and helped her get accustomed to how to hold the thing, and then got approached by both her and the director later in the day. She asked me if I could help her learn to play, and I got a nod of approval from my director. Well I skipped lunch, and went with her to the band room, and told her to make an M shape and say the syllable "poooo" (HA)...To her surprise, a nice Concert Bb came out of the horn, pretty nice sound too. It was a bit squished, but she did it very well. From then until the end of band camp I worked with her, and by September she was playing the third trumpet parts in our show! She struggled with rangey stuff, but was great at the parts in her range. Around November, our marching season was coming to a close, and it was time to split into two bands. Well here was the choice she had to make: be in percussion or continue trumpet. I crossed my fingers hoping my three time a week lessons with her during my lunch period would pay off, and low and behold they did! In front of the entire band she announced the instrument and section has changed her life, and she finally found her place in the band. She did the concert band, and was playing second trumpet out of 8! (Concert band is the lower band, but I was still very proud of her) Then I sat in on a lesson, and she played a concert Eb major (struggled, but played it), and the director turned to her and said your tone is incredible for a rather new player. It felt great to know that I had taught her to play from scratch, and her smile on her face will never leave my memory.


Its the most amazing feeling to see a person take to an instrument, learn it and love it, because of you, isn't it?

Sorry; but before I start, I have to say that where I live there's not a lot of us. seriously. In my band, there are only 2 trombones and next year we're getting another. our trumpet section is also very small...

I've helped and taught some band mates with peices and notes and all. but the proudest I've ever been was helping out in getting kids to become interested in playing an instrument.

Me and some other band mates went to an elementary school and taught kids about the instrument we play, then we had them ty it out themselves. I remembered these two little boys interested in the brass instruments. one of them went over to my friend to play the trumpet the other came over to me to play the trombone. after telling him about it, he was so eager to play. so I handed it to him and he played amazingly for a 7 year old. I mean he only played one note, but he was able to play it, and really loud too! I couldn't do that when I first got my trombone T.T...

The boys brother that went to play the trumpet played 2 octaves high from middle C. he was 8 i think. which was astounding for us. In the end We got both of them to choose brass instruments which made me and my friend happy 'cause now we gots little band buddies!! whee