Off We Go (well... soon....)

Well, for the first time ever in my life, I wasn't up packing until 3 a.m. the night before a big trip. I asked my wife if we could go see the new Transformers movie before I left, but when we got to the theater, the lines were still obnoxiously long, so we just came home and I finnished my luggage-stuffing early. It's a good thing. I needed the sleep.

On the spur of the moment, I bought a little Acer netbook to take with me. My mom just bought one, and when she showed it to me, I realized that it would lighten my load even more than the macbook would (I need a means to dowload/store photos). It's designed to be a web surfing and simple document processing machine, but I managed to load both Finale and Photoshop 7 on it, and it seems to work just fine. Did I mention that this bad boy has a battery life of 6+ hrs? Not bad for less than $400.

This morning my wife got up early for work- she's taking half a day off later to take me to the airport. When she left the apartment, I occurred to me that this will be the first time that I will be travelling abroad without her... and I realize now how much I will miss having her with me.

Il caos grandissimo

So... with one rehearsal left, it's become painfully obvious that this Summer's youth orchestra international excursion is going to be a musical disaster. Clarinet boy, annoying as he is, has become the least of my worries. The problems include:

* Richard, the head-honcho director/conductor is not going on the trip. (He's staying home tending to his girlfriend who has been plagued by health problems). In general, Richard has been slowly pulling himself out of the picture, and it's no secret that he's going to hand the administrative reigns of the group over to James. Richard's input into the Italy trip ended with the final itinerary. In one sense it's a relief: in his slightly younger days, Richard was more known for sampling the local drinking establishments than he was for looking after the kids (it's a wonder none of them got arrested). Still, he's the most experienced traveler out of all of us, and we all feel a little bit like babes in the wild without him.

* As I said before, our group consists of a volatile mix of highly experienced and not-so-experienced players. Now, our main conductor for the trip, Brian, is a formidable musical leader. He's also the newest staff member, and the least experienced when it comes to putting one of our little trips together. Richard gave Brian very little direction when it came to selecting repertoire... so he aimed for the high end. So now we have a few kids who have never shifted out of first podsition playing Copland's Rodeo. Yeah.

* Did I mention that Brian also has an out-of-town engagement that prevents him from being at over half the rehearsals? It makes it tough because James, Susan and I are trying to prepare repertoire, not knowing if Brian will like the musical decisions that we make. (At least I am competent enough a conductor to handle the Copland.)

* Too much music, not enough rehearsal time. In the repertoire planning stages, we threw a lot of possible pieces out there, then we proceeded to work on all of them (which is what happens when you have four conductors tugging at the same orchestra). Then we got word that one of the venues that we're planning on playing at prefers a pop-oriented performance, which effectively doubled our load. So here's the final list: Three movements from Rodeo, one Vaughan-Williams arrangement of Greensleeves, one complete Haydn Symphony (four movements), one complete flute concerto (three movements), one complete guitar concerto (three movements), one transcription of a Brahms choral piece, five super-watered-down middle school level pop-charts ("Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" and such), one Sousa march transcribed for strings, and a partridge in a pear tree. We have four rehearsals to put all this together.

Yeah, it's a mess... and we all know it's a mess. The only advantage we have is that everyone on board (well, staff wise) is smart, level-headed and easy-to-work-with. Somehow we'll make it work. We always have.

Il stupido grande

So about this time next week I'll be in Italy traveling with the same youth orchestra that took me to Australia, Austria and Hungary in summers past. We're going with a group of mixed ability... some of the players are seasoned college students, some of them can barely hold their instruments. The strings are staffed pretty well, but the winds are incomplete: Three flutes, one clarinet, one trombone. To counter this, we've programmed stuff with flexible voicing and have been transposing a lot of parts on Finale.

The good news is, most of the winds are pretty good. The bad news is... the sole clarinet player leaves much to be desired. This wouldn't be so bad if the kid didn't have an attitude. But it so happens that he's the best clarinetist in his school, so he thinks he doesn't have to work all that hard (or pay attention in rehearsal.) But the truth is, in the wider world of clarinetists (or musicians in general), he's a decidedly weak player. Unfortunately, there seems to be no fear of music that far exceeds his ability, nor shame from being in the presence of musicians (of the same age) who can play circles around him. It brings 'clueless' to a whole new level.

In order to moderate the damage he's capable of doing to the product, it was decided that I would sit in and play clarinet as well. I don;t mind doing this, but I'm not a great clarinetist. I'm okay in the upper range, where the fingerings are identical to saxophone, but I struggle in the chalumeaux register, and sometimes have trouble sealing the open holes.

So can I just say how frustrating it is to be sitting next to a kid who thinks he has the one-up on me simply because he knows the fingerings better? The kid doesn't even bother to count his rests correctly, and the only reason he makes his entrances is because he sees me getting ready.. but even then, he's usually a beat or two behind.

I also spend almost all of our down time explaining rhythms to him - he can't subdivide, nor handle anything with a dot on it correctly. He's starting to get a little snarky with me, which is going to lead to me giving up and teaching him the hard way - like intentionally faking him out into bad entrances. (It's not hard. You just bring your instrument up as early or as late as you like, and take a fake breath. If they aren't paying attention, they'll follow you like a lemming.) It's not the most teacherly thing, I know... but sometimes the kind mentor approach doesn't cut it.

Maybe I'll get lucky and the kid will get abducted by Gypsies while we're there.

The LAST llama of 2008-2009

The Writing on the Wall

So today I was checking all the music lockers to see if the kiddos had cleared them out (like they were supposed to) A lot of them are covered by graffiti and/or stickers that have been carbon dated back to the 80's. Written on the back panel of one of them in sharpie was this:

"Whether or not life is discovered there, I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet."

I am not going to touch it. It is worthy of being left there until archaeologists rediscover it in the year 3244.

I think it would actually make graduation worth going to....

...even if I wasn't there for kids I liked.

So today in between finals, one of my students, Smart-But-Lacks-Judgement Boy, was hanging out in my office:

"Hey Mr M."

"Hey"

"Did you hear about the new senior prank?"

"....ummmm..."

"....at graduation...."

"Okay, you do realize that I'm an employee of the district, right?"

"...they're going to hack into the sound system..."

"I'm kind of under oath to report stuff like this"

"...and Rick Roll the whole audience..."

"I can't believe you'd... I can't.... I.... You know, I'd actually pay to see that."

*** UPDATE ***

Unfortunately, no such prank occured. Although during the ceremony, I was within spitting distance of the sound board. I thought about it.

Well SOMEBODY needs to retake math!

So, I used to complain about how late our district gets out of school for summer. Then I heard about these schools. It seems that a miscalculation of the required number of minutes mandated by the state is causing these pour souls to endure an extra 34 days of school. The "extra" days are making up for 34 days that were declared null-and-void because they were five minutes too short. So rather than add up the five-minute instances (which would have come to just under three hours), they just proclaimed each short day invalid. (Apparently it has something to do with another clause somewhere in the ed code.) So, the district either keeps the kiddos in school for another 34 days -or- they get penalized something like 7 million dollars for failure to comply with the state mandate.

Yeah.

Believe it or not some of the parents are in favor of it (either they think it will keep the kids out of trouble for an extra month in the summer, or it'll somehow help prepare the kids that much more for college applications.) I haven't heard whether or not the teachers are being paid for this, or if the district is saying "Sorry guys, those short days didn't count towards your contract." If I were one of their union reps, I'd be locking-and-loading right now.

Choices

So... next year's student officers need to be chosen. I say "chosen" and not "elected" because my program's structure prevents any kind of meaningful voting: The candidates would not have equal exposure to the entire department, and the larger classes would have a definite advantage in terms of representation. So... ever since I started having student officers, I've been appointing them myself.

Next year's presidential selection is particularly problematic: In one corner I have Nepur and Lisa, who want to tag-team the presidency. In the other is Alana, a long time choir member who practically lives in the music room. It's a tough choice.

Nepur/Lisa:

Pros: They work well together. Both are productive and responsible. Both have good organizational skills.

Cons: Nepur has reliability issues, owing sometimes to his involvement in other activities, but more frequently to fact that his mother often spontaneously grounds him or forbids him from attending events (even ones that his grades depend on). This can be brought on by something like.... oh.... taking too long of a bathroom break when he's home studying. Also, there's a good chance Nepur won't even be enrolled in a music class next year.

Lisa, while less subject to parental interference - is extremely soft spoken. There has been some talk as to whether or not other students would accept her as a leader.

Alana:

Pros: It's quite obvious - Alana has really only one school committment that she takes seriously: the music program. There would be no competition with any other activities, nor is patrental interference likely.

Cons: Alana has serious follow-through issues. She had been given tasks in the past that were never completed. Some projects took so long that I started wondering if their completion was even practical by that time. Also, Alana does not have the means to transport herself (believe it or not, mobility makes a difference where student leaders are concerned.) Finally, Alana's lack of committment to any other school activity unfortunately includes her academics. It's possible that she might even be in danger of not graduating (like her boyfriend was). If and when that comes to a head, I would lose my point officer for sure. I'm also guessing that if Alana doesn't get the presidency, she'll take it pretty hard.

What I'm currently leaning towards is not having a president (or presidents) but replacing it with a senior cabinet that would consist of all three. It would mean that I would re-absrob more administrative responsibility, and delegate monitoring duties to them.

The truth about the music council is that inevitably, I reabsorb most of the responsibilities from them anyway. The kids are usually fired up in the first few months, but as the year goes on I end up doing more and more of the work. This year in particular, they ended up being more of a "Hang Out in Mr. M's Office" club. They even wanted to have a second council retreat late in the Spring, but the current president and I shot that idea down out of the realization that it wouldn't have any practical function - only social.

The council pretty good when it comes to activities that have a definite start-and-end time, like concert set-up. But when it comes to tasks that require planning and follow-through, they kind of drop the ball. It's funny, too... because the last few presidents that I have had all been level-headed industrious people who have done their best to keep the group on track.

Every year I make a declaration that some kind of change needs to happen, but that never seems to manifest into anything meaningful. (That probably translates into an issue not with the officers or the presidents, but with the advisor.) In truth, setting up and maintaining structure has never been my forte.

That's probably the first thing I need to address.

Relaaaaaax

Okay, so here's my FAVORITE post-AP Test activity for Music Theory: Minimalism Day!

We didn't cover minimalism for the AP Test, since it doesn't really involve traditional diatonic harmonies. But I always like to spend a day... well not really talking about it, but exposing the kids to it.

For those of you not up on minimalism (which I expect would be a lot of you... it's not like people are playing Phillip Glass CDs to their newborn babies or anything.) it's a quirky modern style that involves short melodic of rhythmic phrases repeated over and over, introducing small changes over a long period of time. If you can dedicate an hour or so to listening to a minimalist pieces, it has a funky hypnotic effect that approaches what a sensory deprivation experiment must be like.

So I had them out some chairs together and lie down. I dimmed the lights and put on Steve Reich's Drumming. About twenty minutes into it I could tell that they were slipping into a near coma (which was probably a good thing for the seniors who had just come off of their finals).

Of course, in the middle of this someone from the front office came looking for me and, upon opening the door, walked into a semi-darkened room with bodies sprawled over chairs in what probably looked like a scene from Haight Ashbury (or maybe Jonestown).

When it finally finished (about an hour later) everyone slowly stirred and gave me the same reaction that the previous classes gave.

"Woah"

Vacuum Cleaner Repair 101

... yup... one of the unexpected required skills of teaching. Well, maybe not for everyone. I'm one of those workaholics that actually manages my own room clean-up most of the time. I spent $150 of music department money on a decent vacuum cleaner last year. It works pretty well.... well, except up until Friday when it started getting uppity. I was a little pissed; it's WAY too new to be acting up. After looking it over, I deduced that there was some kind of blockage (which I prefer to a broken belt... my last vacuum cleaner made me an expert at dealing with that) and decided to put off trying to repair it until later.

When I finally looked at it closer (today)I found a huge clump of stuff at the base of the hose that required a partial disassemble-job to remove. The real fun came when I fired it up to see how much blockage I had cleared and the dang thing spewed a cloud of dust at me-point blank. Imagine every slapstick routine you've ever seen where some poor slob gets a face full of soot/engine smoke/dirt whatever and walks away looking like a blackface performer. That was me.

My T.A. stood by, highly amused by the whole thing.

After another twenty minutes, I realized that the real problem wasn't the blockage but the fact that the HEPA filter needed to be cleaned. So I took it outside and started whacking it against the side of the building, and I swear it seemed like I stood there for five minutes as more and more stuff kept coming out of it.

Well.... I'm sure you're thrilled about all this. I just decided to blog about it since I just finnished that little job ten minutes ago... I still have three periods to teach, and I'm basically a walking dust cloud.

The Worship of Sound

Thursday evening, I saw the local professional orchestra perform Beethoven's 9th. I blush to admit that I'm a 40 year-old trained musician who had never heard a live performance of B9 before... although I've worn out several copies of the 1972 Solti/Chicago S.O. recording. It was an incredible evening.

What made it even more so was the surprise I experienced in the first half: Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna for choir, organ and orchestra. I didn't really look at the program before I walked in. My mind was wrapped around B9, and being that I didn't recognize Lauridsen's name, I figured it would be a piece that I would simply tolerate whilst I waited for the (real) Maestro to take the stage. But the Lux Aeterna washed over me like a storm after a drought, and I found my self literally in tears by the second movement. I hadn't been that taken with a piece since I discovered the Brahms Requiem.

The Beethoven was... well,being quite familiar with the work I didn't think there would be any surprises. And there weren't... up until the 4th movement. And I'm not sure I would use the word "surprised"... It's more like one might feel when seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after seeing it in photos or on television: I wasn't prepared for the splendor. Again, in the coda of the 4th movement, I found myself in tears. If the man had written no other notable work in his lifetime, this one effort alone would have earned him his immortality.

It's funny... two years ago I visited Beethoven's grave in Vienna. I worked myself up on the trip over listening to his music on my iPod... but when I got to the grave site I didn't break down like I thought I would. I was kind of numb. Thursday, I finally understood why. That little plot in the Central Cemetery of Vienna was just a carved stone with some dirt; beneath it was the remains of a mortal shell. The Maestro himself no longer lingers there. He was a musician, after all, (maybe the greatest of us) and graveyards are... silent. But Thursday night, I had the reaction I thought that I should have had standing at his grave... overcome with the sensation of trying to perceive the universe all at once. Indeed, that is where the Maestro lives... in every bow stroke, every column of air that resonates through a wooden or metal tube.

I keep saying that I'm an agnostic... but I do know that if God does exist, this is what his voice sounds like.