Last day for clarinet sectionals. Gotta show up these wonderful kids! They have faithfully come to work every Friday morning, and they are awesome players. Half of them can cross the break and are part of the "High C" club! Bravo, kids!

Busy time at Storm Lake Middle School! Our jazz band went to NWIBA district competition on Wednesday. We got second place!!! Our high school band also took second, and will be going on to the Iowa Jazz Championships. Woot woot!!!

Our fifth grade band will begin full band rehearsals on two days of the week. I look forward to Monday and Wednesday mornings with my beginners! We have used our sectional time well, and we appreciate all the help our mentors gave us. We are almost ready for our March 7th concert-we hope to see many of you there.

Enjoy some of our jazz band pics!

Another week

Another week has flown by. The snow day we had made things interesting as we tried to continue with our lessons and rehearsals. Just a note so that we are all on the same page....
If we have a snow day on a 5th grade band day, we miss our band rehearsal.
If we have a snow day on a 6th or 7/8 band day, that band rehearsal moves to the next school day. Since we are on an even/odd day rotation, the day # we miss continues on the next school day. So, our rehearsals move with that.

It is a challenge to get lessons in when we miss a day of school, but we always try to see the students we miss. Just remember to bring instruments to school- even if you think you don't have a lesson. We might surprise you...because we like to hear you make progress!

We will be starting cookie dough sales for our 6th-8th grade students. There will hopefully be a music trip when our 6th graders are freshman. We will have many fund raisers between now and the trip so that the students can easily cover the cost of the trip. Watch for envelopes with cookie dough information, and encourage your friends to help our music department out! The cookies are excellent---I would like one right now!

Have a good weekend! Use the time to practice!

Karl King Honor Band

Spent Saturday in Fort Dodge at the Karl King Honor Band. I had a great day with my students! We had wonderful conversation on the drive down. (I loved the jokes and riddles!) The students auditioned well...we had all first chairs and a third chair out of twenty flutes. That is impressive, Storm Lake Middle School! I could see how much my students enjoyed music making----and the pursuit of excellence. What a fun day!

Happy New Year!

Welcome back to the second semester of our school year! We have had a rough start getting everyone in for lessons because of our snow days. but I have heard some wonderful playing from the students that have been able to come! I am really excited about all of the students that are working hard on scales....those 5th grade chromatic scales are stupendous! What an accomplishment!

Next weekend, we have Storm Lake Middle School students who will be participating in the Karl King Honor Band in Fort Dodge. These students were nominated by their teachers and were selected by a committee of judges. We are looking forward to a wonderful day of music making with our guest directors, and we hope to make some new friends.

5th graders...are you getting to band on time on Wednesday mornings? Remember to come to band, even if the school bus is late! I miss some of you so much! You are all important and need to be in our full group rehearsal!

Log some practice time this week- how much progress can we see from all of you?

 

What happens after our first concert?

Now that the excitement and success of our first concert is behind us, we are ready to move on to bigger and better things! Both the 5th and 6th grade bands have started working on new music, and we are excited to share what we are learning.

The Fifth Grade Band has REAL music! Yes! We have 3 pieces to learn that are a full page long. Besides learning new notes and rhythms, we have learned how to read rehearsal marks, many measure rests, and....we all have our own parts for our instruments! It is a challenge, but we have a good start on " Popcorn Prelude". You'll have to watch us in our next concert to see what is special about this piece.

The Sixth Grade Band is playing WAY COOL music! Can you say....Prehistoric??? We have a piece about dinosaurs that is challenging our technical skills. We love playing this because....every piece describes the behavior of a species of dinosaur. We also moved on to a new rock piece- "Stone Age Stomp" and we do rock! Even with the short time we have had to practice since the concert, we are catching on.

Congratulations to Logan Musel, Eve Thomas and Juawan Thomas who were selected to the Karl King Honor Band. These three students will travel to Ft. Dodge in January to participate in this Festival. Fifth Graders, keep practicing so that you have a chance to try this!

We say goodbye to Mr. Anders, our student teacher. We all enjoyed having him with us. We will have another student teacher next semester.

Keep the music going! And, have a wonderful winter break. I look forward to the rewards of working with you in 2011!