Some of the greatest experiences an arranger can have are the opportunities to lovingly “mess with” someone else’s melody. I’ve found that it is also the one aspect of arranging which less experienced musicians are the most intimidated by. However, altering aspects of a song’s melody shouldn’t be looked upon as something that is taboo. [...]
Dr. Richard “Ricky” Suk (rhymes with “book”) is the director of Ohio University’s Marching 110, an illustrious marching band that may fly under the radar because the school’s football program isn’t exactly among the nation’s elite. In fact, the Ohio University Bobcats have only made it to one bowl game in the 13 years in [...]
Vandoren’s B50 Mouthpiece & Java ReedsVandoren’s B50 bass clarinet mouthpiece was designed to create a compact, focused sound, and to generate a big, rich, colorful sound with minimal effort, even with harder reeds. The V12 and Java Red reeds from Vandoren have set sales records in new reed introductions, nearly doubling the normal growth curve [...]
Fundraising can be challenging for any school’s music program. How does a music educator convince his or her school district to pump money into the music department? How does a band director motivate students and parents to organize a car wash or a fruit sale? How does one convince a community to fund a high [...]
The first day of rehearsal can be the most stressful day of the year for directors and instructors. There are the new students who have to get acquainted, paperwork that needs to be handed in, drill to be handed out, music to be memorized, and so much more. The first day is also one of [...]
…you can’t tuna fish. So goes that stale, old joke that is nevertheless ever new in my world. I work with beginning band students, and for most of them, it’s fresh and still quite funny. But while working with beginners carries with it the opportunity to incessantly recycle old jokes and instructional anecdotes to ageless [...]
PASIC 2009|The Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC) will take place in Indianapolis, Indiana from November 11-14, 2009. For the second time in the event’s history, Indianapolis will play host to more than 6,500 drummers and percussionists from around the world at the Indiana Convention Center and Westin Hotel. PASIC is the world’s largest and [...]
I started playing cornet in third grade and switched to a professional trumpet my second year not due to any great improvement on my part, but because my older brother who was going to high school switched from trumpet to French horn and I inherited his trumpet. I thought that I sounded a lot better [...]
Two years ago, we reported here about the Classroom-Based Performance Assessments (CBPA) program being implemented in the state of Washington (SBO August, 2007). Many readers were interested enough in this news that they accepted the invitation to take a closer look. Now, educators from 15 states and seven countries have contacted Ms. AnnRene Joseph, Arts [...]
California is facing a tremendous fiscal crisis. With over 72 billion dollars in debt and a budget shortfall of more than 25 billion dollars, lawmakers have been scrambling to find ways to balance the state’s troubled financial books. Unfortunately, any conceivable solution will undoubtedly take its toll on schools and other educational programs. Recent estimates [...]
