teaching
i’ve been teaching for about…let’s see…august, september, october, november, december, january…6 months now…it’s crazy. the kids have grown so much!!! i love that Dave has let me use the alesis recorder to record the concerts. it’s really cool to be able to track their progress over the year…and to have a gift for them at the end of the year!!! right now we’re preparing for their solo night which is Feb.4th and also their district festival which is on St. Patricks day…in leu of the date of the festival, i picked some festive pieces…one is called appalachain sunrise…i don’t really like it that much and neither do the kids…but i think after a while they will like it…it is slow and the first violins have the melody most of the time, so it can get kind of boring for the rest of the orchestra…nonetheless it is going to pull together nicely…it’s a ton of notes they can play well and they get the rhythm, so it shouldn’t be difficult to polish up and make it sound really nice 
the second piece is a little slice of the planets by holst…it has a theme from mars and jupiter and they REALLY like it. I had them listen to each of the movements before they played them and they really liked both of them…it helped them understand what was written in their music which is awesome…i wrote out the melody for all of the sections (Because the firsts get it the whole time) and now they have the beautiful slow melody from jupiter that they can play whenever! i think i’m gonna use it a few times here and there before they play that portion of the song…it really helps them understand where their parts fit into the music…and Mars…oh Mars! they LOVE it! they love that rhythm…duh duh duh duhh duhh duh duh duhh. super fun! and they all get to play that sweet rhythm!
and finally, since there are only three pieces they are supposed to play, I decided to pick two easy ones and then….GAELIC OVERTURE! it is so awesome so far. this piece is actually a level 4 which is about 2 levels beyond what they normally play…but it is in a good key for them and the rhythms are easy enough to teach…the challenge will be the tempo for them, but so far they are loving it! it is so much fun! i love fiddle music!!!! they love the different neuances and techniques they get to use throughout it! they get to slap their instrument, stomp their feet, do bartok pizz’s!! sweet! i can’t wait to go on in the piece, they are doing such a great job already and since they like it now, they may actually practice it! (cross fingers)
i am super nervous about solo night and everything i have to do to prepare for it…on top of having to prepare for that and figure out a schedule, i need to start doing my freakin’ progress reports…ayayay! i think i can get it done…i just need to get it started…my goal is to get them handed out by next week…if I can get the students who get taught on thursday and friday done this week and then the students i teach on tuesday and wednesday done next week, that would work best…i have to be gone from school the 21st and 22nd for marks’ sisters’ wedding so i only have a two day week…which would normall make me super happy, but i REALLY don’t want to miss school…i think I should just get over it…if only we didn’t have Martin Luther King day off, I wouldn’t mind so much, but a two day week…stink… i always hated missing school and i still do! maybe I’m too work oriented…anyway…i should start doing those after school tomorrow so I can hand them out to my students on Thursday…i’m weighing whether or not I should bring my Tuesday students’ progress reports home and do them on Monday….depends on what Mark is doing I guess…
Tomorrow I am going to work on the schedule for solo day and the progress reports for Thursday…this is me trying to plan ahead….we’ll see how that goes…
