What a pleasure it is to have this book remind me of the things I have learned as a musician, and band leader. My first full time teaching job was to build a music program. I entered this first year with five students enrolled in the program. This includes band, chorus, and the general music classes. I knew the challenge I had ahead of me, and embraced this challenge. Three yeas into the program I was able to grow a non-existent program into a small, talented one. This third year I was given the challenge of taking the performing groups to a graded festival. A graded festival (for the non-music teachers in the crowd) is where the group performs in front of a panel and the performance is graded based on a variety of standards. I reluctantly caved to the pressure of taking my young groups to this festival but needed to make the best of it. Here are stories I could add to the chapters.
Story number one comes from the jazz band. As a band leader I would often perform with my students. My philosophy is, and has been, teach by example as often as possible. This also made for a team effort in my jazz band. Every student would take a solo and have say in the overall sound of the group. Since instructors are not permitted to perform in the festivals there were two things that needed to take place. I needed to reassign my instrument parts so the music was covered, and I needed to lead the group in a different way. The reassigning of parts took time, leading was easy. As the leader, I kept the same style as I did when playing with the group. I counted off he start of the song, then got out of the way so the players could be musicians. The first remark given to the jazz band from the adjudicator was, “Thank your director, he gets out of your way and lets you play”. The rest of the comments went to the students and the soloists when they took their turn to lead the group musically.
The second story is from the same experience except with my concert band. The concert band I had at the time was smaller than an average jazz big band. There were 18 students in my concert band. In order to get the sound out of the band I needed, I spent time arranging parts to the player I had so all of the important aspects of the music were covered. I then had the challenge of balancing the sound. One of my players was a very strong clarinet player. The problem was he would overpower the rest of the woodwind players as he was the strongest. He approached me looking for ways to help boost confidence in the other players and asked how he could tone down to blend. I moved his spot from the traditional first chair to somewhere in the middle of the band as though he would be a third part section player. The student who was the weaker player then took that first chair part. I also did this with the rest of the band. This physical arrangement put my strongest players right next to my weakest ones and the level of the weaker players rose because of this inner-group leadership. The player who now sat in the traditional first chair spot became the band leader of sorts in the traditional ways of the group. This led to successes of the group that I did not think were possible.
Imagine if all leaders would just get out of the way for a moment. Let those who are working under them to let their talents shine through and help the large group succeed. What if the quietest person became the leader of aspects? Moving the leaders to different sections or even changing the leaders and roles will add a whole new dynamic to a group, a class, or a corporate team. Those that know me, know I live by Rule #6. A past student of mine, who is now teaching, asked me recently if it was ok to crack up laughing when a student of hers did something really silly that made the class laugh. I asked her how many times we laughed in the classes she took of mine and she came back with lots of stories and remembering things learned in that atmosphere. Yes, things get rough at times. I always go by the case of what is the worse that can happen. Then I just laugh because most of what I stress out about, really isn’t all that important in the larger scheme of things. I’m glad we had the opportunity to be reminded of these things at a stressful time.
Photos from: http://www.musicgraphicsgalore.net
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