AS 703 - Beginner Percussion

Welcome to After Sectionals. The podcast about all things banned. I'm Darcy Vote Williams and with me is Jen and T.J. West. Together we come to you from our chicken-filled band hall in Central Texas. Welcome to another episode of After Sectionals which is apparently the first episode of the year in which I sound like a human. It's depressing. I mean sort of you have kind of lost your voice. Yeah well no I'm just back to like sexy Darcy. Um sexy Darcy. How frustrating though to have recorded two full episodes before recognizing or going back to listen to them to see that I had the reverb. Were all of us booming in them? I haven't listened to that. Now while I was able to take out it was a little booming on y'all and I was able to play with some levels to get most of it out of y'alls and then mine is like full on crazy. It's like you're from we're having the meeting and you're like down in a canyon. Yeah well there's somebody posted on Facebook that the whole time they were listening they kept picturing the snake from Disney Robinhood where in the snake has his head in the bubble. Yeah in the balloon which I thought was pretty appropriate. Okay so today it is TJ and I because we are talking about beginning percussion and this is something that several people have asked us over the years about how we are handling percussion now that we do not have a band director that is a percussionist. Have we not really specifically talked about it since I've done it? We really haven't and I have to imagine that our situation is more common than not. I would imagine that in most middle schools or wherever beginner classes are being taught across the country most of the time there is not a percussionist that is on staff. There are a lot of Texas schools and probably schools across the country that do have a dedicated percussion person. A lot of times it's the high school percussion person that comes down to the middle school to help out with those beginners as well as you know doing pullouts with the older kids and that is not the case that we have. For those of y'all that have followed us for any length of time you know that we are a split feeder where half of our kids go to Visteridge and Visteridge does have a direct feeder so when they do send their percussion person down they go to Henry Middle School. We also feed half of our kids go to Rouse and Rouse also has a direct feeder so they send their percussion person down to Wiley which leaves little red headed stepchild styles but we are very fortunate that the district does set aside some money for us to hire a person to come and fill in the gaps. And they do that for two other schools in our district they're in the same boat so at least we we have some assistance in that realm. But we're going to kind of talk about how we navigate both our beginners as well as our older kids when we do not have a dedicated percussion person. And I think that that's kind of that beginning percussion class is a lot of times a class that band directors can be leery of being assigned especially since probably the majority of the band directors out there are wind players. So TJ how did you feel when I told you that you were going to be as a first year teacher taking on the role of beginning percussion instructor. I was not excited I mean like I was I was excited but I was like that was scary like I don't want to mess that like I was like I because I genuinely had no idea my percussion methods class in college was like super chaotic and I learned a lot about percussion but I did not learn like transferable skills to actually teaching beginner percussion like he taught us four ballots. Oh god. And I had to learn drum set and so like we did a world percussion like it was a cool class and I learned a lot about percussion. What did your percussion class look like in college? It was called percussion methods and Tony Edwards who's awesome. I love Tony. I know you're not listening Tony but hey he um he was he's the percussion he was a percussion professor who percussion professor at UT one of them there's two and he taught the methods class and the music department was pretty small so there was like 12 of us in class and we got to go into the percussion studio and like we basically did like a different instrument each week it was twice a week for an hour and a half you know and then he taught us all the grips and then all the music and he used the there was like three percussionists in my grade I guess if you will and they basically like T8 the class so it was even smaller and so we got to take like snare, timpani, marimba all sorts of weird like drums I don't even know the names of anymore we went in the Gamelan room once like it was really an interesting like we did tobla but yeah but it was like a day of each like it was kind of like a sampler like an appetizer sampler and I remember taking that class and being like thank God I'm never gonna have to teach any of this and I think that's probably what most of us assume yeah and there was offerings to take music editors like we had 115 set my school and like you could take it on any instrument you want and you had to take it at least for and as a wind player I took one on almost every instrument but percussion so I was like I'm not gonna need that sure I have very few memories of my percussion class I cannot begin to tell you how often it met or like I know we did pad stuff and we worked out of that maybe I don't remember what that book was called it's the one that the last piece in the book is finished line oh is it the wiley book maybe I don't know I don't know the last one in the wiley book I don't remember I don't I yeah I have no clue but not mean I only have the only like clear memories I have of percussion class was the day that we did Tempani learning how to hum to tune them I also learned that it is very possible to miss a Tempani head because I was playing some little like basic a two they had us working on on Tempani and completely missed the big drum and the percussion teacher just kind of like shaking her head and I remember having to hold a marching bass drum and thinking why would anybody do this willingly and that's basically all I remember for I don't know if we touched mallets at all like I truly don't remember but not that can't be true because I do remember learning that there are two different ways you can do for me we had to I only learned one but we had to learn yellow after the rain yeah we definitely was freaking hard and the only thing harder was you learned the four basic beats on on good drum set and I was terrible and I remember going in and him just giving me an A and him being like you're not very good at drum set but at least you're good at the tuba and I was like I'll tell you we did have a drum set day because I discovered I was very uncoordinated we spent way a lot of time on drum set if anything that's more prevalent in my memory from drum set and yellow after the rain start with me more than anything else well so both of us have the same story that our percussion class was not overly helpful but I would imagine that that's probably how I mean we've said this before method classes do not prepare you for whatever instrument or I mean if you're a brass player and you're learning basic clarinet stuff in your methods class that's not gonna be helpful so what was your strategy when I told you because you had kind of a unique situation in that your roommate is a questionist yeah so my roommate so my like two best friends actually were both percussion directors they were percussionists at UT and so I genuinely used her a lot especially with like flip grids and stuff I'd be like will you come watch this and tell me if what I'm thinking is the same as what you're thinking and she was really helpful I really appreciated it which really helped a ton and then I just kind of like lean in like I like I practiced a lot of percussion that first year like I had a pad at home and drummers are such nerds like she would pad with me on that sounds wrong but like she would like you know we would drum around oh my god okay we have to pause I hope that that sound came through the podcast we came to school one day and there was a cuckoo clock in our band office just a random cuckoo clock and then one of our most awesome amazing custodians came in apparently his wife collects clocks and she just happened to have this random cuckoo clock in which every hour on the hour a chicken oh on the oh two a chicken pops out and does like a but the mechanism to open the door is far louder than the chicken and it is startling every time every time and as these lesson teachers have been like rotating through the school as they've been coming back in it has scared like a half of them we've just kind of joke that we should make every lesson teacher have to teach one lesson or one day of lessons in the office sometime we're overlaps the hour so that they all have to experience it it's awesome okay so you were you were working with your roommate and your other friends on this at home yeah okay so the way we do have our beginning percussion class set up is TJ is 100% in charge of him he is the teacher of record and he is the one that leads the class which we will get more into later we do however have the percussion specialist his name is Ivan maybe you saw him on our Midwest program Ivan is great he also works up with the with the front ensemble at Vista Ridge High School. But he. He comes down to us a few times a week. He comes down on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the school day, and he is there from our concert band, which is third period through fourth period, which is our beginner percussion class, and then honors and symphonic and sixth and seventh. So he's there with us in that middle window of the day on every Tuesday and Thursday. And then he also additionally teaches a combined second and third band percussion sectional and a top band percussion sectional once a week before school. So those kids are getting some extra time also. So even our seventh and eighth graders, which we'll get into later, do have three times a week where they are completely separate with a percussion specialist. But so with our beginner class, though, not to get ahead of myself, TJ is in charge of them all five days and does run class even on the two days that Ivan is down here with us in the beginner class. Now we kind of went back and forth on how that was going to look initially. But what we ultimately decided was that the person that needed to be leading the class needed to be the person that was here on a consistent daily basis. Because having one teacher three days a week and another teacher two days a week when the flow is different and the verbiage is not as consistent as it could be. That's not what we wanted for our kids. I also really like having the percussionist, the beginning percussion class, I'm choosing my words carefully. The beginning percussion class to be led with the same intentions and motion that the other classes do. We could say this with just about any instrument and I know there's lots of arguments for percussion. But I still want the percussionist to be band members as opposed to this separate entity. And all of us can, I mean, we can all agree that there are band programs in which the percussionist do not feel like they are part of the band program. They see themselves as special unicorn instrument people and there's just not the cohesiveness. And there is, there's like a, there is a, I don't know how exactly to say this. And this is, I would love if a high school percussion writer and this isn't me gilting them to come down. But the situation, it's not in there, like it's not, they're not supposed to. But there's something to be said about having one of the three band directors on your staff be in charge of that class, like the others, whereas even if your high school guy is coming down, that's one set of 12 kids has a different teacher than every other kid in the program. Every day of the week, there's a slight, there's potential for more disconnects there in your program. Totally agree. Then the other way. And now I don't think that there are disconnects with either Hector or James at their schools and in their middle schools. But I just know macro across the country that that might be a little more awkward for some places than others. Totally. Okay, so let's kind of start at the beginning. So when we are picking our percussion kids, we do, I mean, we've talked about instrument testing on here, so I'm not going to go into it, but we do have a percussion person picking our kids. And for the last couple of years, it has been Ivan. And so when Ivan sits down with those kids, the first thing he's looking for with those kids is just basic, can you keep a pulse? Like can you tap your foot with the beat? Can you alternate your feet with the beat? Can you do two on this foot and two on this foot and keep a steady beat? Can you clap while you are patting your foot? Can you tap your foot and clap on the upbeat? So he's doing really basic coordination, coordination games. He also does some, I play you play type stuff. Can you hear a rhythm and repeat it back to me? And he uses, he gives them one drumstick, right, where I think this year, I saw him like just if they can hit it. Yeah, just seeing what's there. Yeah, nothing. I think they do stand at a practice pad and just to kind of see what they naturally want to do because I mean, just like we do with all the other instruments, we want to see what sort of natural ability you have and I mean, drumming is a natural ability like anything else is. Yeah. And there is something about body awareness that is hyper important in something as fine motor skill. Like they're all fine motor skills, but they're standing and they're moving all parts of their body at once sometimes. We also do ask the kids if they have piano experience and I'm going to be honest, it's a factor, but it's not the factor. We definitely have had kids that have made the percussion class that show high aptitude for coordination but haven't learned the reading stuff. Yeah. Every seventh grader and your band right now was not a pianist. Really? Well, there you go. And there were pianists in that class. Sure. So, I mean, I don't think, I mean, just like on any instrument, everybody's learning how to read the notes on the staff, at least when they come to us since we don't really have elementary music anymore, but sad. Because a percussionist has to learn multiple instruments, if we can take that skill off the table, we would like to. Sometimes that works in our favor, other times it does not work in our favor. We have a really high population around here of people that have taken, like Indian drumming, like taking tabla lessons and that kind of stuff. And so we ended up having several of our kids that they have years of experience and of course they came with really good coordination because they've been taking tabla lessons for years and years. To be perfectly honest, the kids that come to us saying they have drumset lessons don't typically have drumset lessons. The highest coordination. I feel really bad for parents when they come up and they're like, our child has been taking drumset lessons for four years and then they come up and they don't have coordination and I'm like, oh, I'm really sorry. I'm glad you've invested all of this money into this. It did not translate well. So there's that. Yeah. Okay. So we're looking for kids with strong coordination, hand-feet coordination. If they have piano, it is a bonus but not a make or break. Talk to me a little bit about the supplies that we're asking our beginners to buy or rent. Yeah. So we have them get a little percussion pack from We Do Lone Star. It's gone back and forth with the IP before. We are not using Lone Star. We're not using Lone Star. The same stuff in the bottom line is in the little pack. They have a pad and they all have to get their own pad and their own pad stand. That is super important. And it's a pad that has a rim on it. Yes. Pad with a rim. It's not one of those like. It's not a small one. It's like 12 inch, right? It's one of those pads. Yeah. And it has the thing on the bottom so it's one that you can set on a snare drum. Yes. Which I think is important down the line. But they have that. There is one set of bell mallets, one set of marimba mallets. A set of drum sticks and a set of tempeh mallets. And that's all that's in their little pack that they carry. And then we do have our students rent a practice marimba through straight music or music in front of them. Yeah. They're using the marimba one marimba. So they rent that. And that stays at home. Yeah. It comes with the X stand. They have that at home. We have had a couple of families now that there are enough programs out there that are using the real practice marimba instead of the tourable bell kits. There are also enough used ones out there so parents have that option as well. And we've got a good set of like six here too. Yeah. And the kids are required to have their own pad stand. Yes. And our beginners are required to bring their pad stand with them to school every day. Every day. Every single day. We need to know that they know how to use it when they get home. That's really important that they know how to use their hardware. Very important. What books are we using? What two books do you have for this? We have them purchased. I have it right here. Let's say the title right. Simple steps to successful beginning percussion by Ken and Wiley is the only book we really use. There's another book that I bought that we use by Luke Vogue that's got all of our solos out of them. And we will talk about that specifically later because it's a great purchase for you. Great purchase. Great purchase. But yeah, simple steps to successful beginning percussion encompasses everything. Just like any other method book. The order is kind of crazy and you really need to look through it and specifically choose which things you're going to do out of it, which ones because there are some things that I don't necessarily love but just like any other method book, you can't make your whole curriculum based on a method book. Like it, it's great, but there's just some things like they don't really need to be doing things in 7, 4 on day two of pad, but you know. So our kids, because they have that stick bag with all of those sticks and melons in there. That's what it's called. I could not think of the word stick bag. They also have that pad and their pad stand that they're bringing to school. We do assign all of those kids lockers, but they get one of the big like euphonium horn lockers and they have, there are several kids in there at the same time. It's three to four to a locker. Yeah. Yeah. They have an edition of it, they all have their own stuff every day, yeah. So our beginning percussionists do start together with everyone. Y'all know that we start all of our beginner classes together. They're all learning, you know, the fundamentals of music. They're learning how to account. They're learning how to read basic notes and they do all of that with us. They are not special from the beginning. They start at square one with everybody because I want everybody to have the same common language, even our percussionist. And they learn how to talk and we'll talk about why that's important. Our percussionists do count Eastman. They don't count the Darcy Williams method. Oh my God. You don't even get me started on that. Eastman is not my method. They count Eastman and I say this because they do not count one e and a. I firmly, firmly believe that every single person that is in my rehearsal should speak the same language that I am speaking with everybody. I should be able to speak rhythm with my percussionist, my percussionist. Same thing as physicians. Yes, they should all be talking the same language. And the whole thing about not being able to count fast enough at 1T Tata, you're telling me that the clarinets can count it fast enough, but the percussion can't. Yes, I realize percussion gets into crazy rhythms. Have you ever seen high school flute and clarinet and trumpet and saxophone and oboe music? Have you seen that stuff? We are counting the same crazy stuff. Our fingers are moving just as crazy. And yes, we invent weird ways to count 30 second notes just like everybody else. When you learn to count, you are not learning to count at full tempo. You are learning to count slower while you are learning the rhythms. Yes, a percussionist can count 1T Tata, and we've had many successful percussionists who have. Period. Boom. Period. There is no need. If your school uses 1&a, then have your percussionist count 1&a. If your school uses 1T Tata, then your school needs to count 1T Tata. If your school counts blue jello, then there is a Facebook post about that. But in any case, whatever your wind players are counting, whatever you, or your headband director, decides it's going to be the counting system that you use. Every single person, including your percussion person, needs to be using the same language. So yes, hours are learning that. They are making flashcards, just like ours. When we get to teaching the kids how to start transferring rhythm over to wind skills, like singing on toss, we teach them that also. That step translates to like note duration when they get to rolls. All of that stuff is still good information for them, even if they are not going to use that stuff immediately. So at the point when we do finally split, which is coming up in like sometime next week, which will be our second full week school, it's going to be great because that's our fourth period. Oh my gosh. It's amazing. Our fourth period is so smart and so delightful. Like across the board. Yeah. I have other periods that I do not feel that way about, but fourth period is a delight at all times. When y'all split, how do you set up the room? So when we split, I have them set up in, well, the first day we split, when we go out to the back room, the first thing we do is I have them all sit in their arc because I have them do an arc when we're on pad. And then on keyboard days, we have spots where the keyboards go and they stand in a specific order. But the keyboard day is like, we can't really get in an arc with like five rimbus. But the first, yeah, we split and they sit in an arc and then when we're on pads, the first chair is in the middle, second, third on either side and we like fan out. And then do I talk about flashcards now? Well, we can. So on the, I mean, we can kind of jump around. So on the first day, y'all are in your arc and y'all learn how to put together the, yeah, we learn how to put together the pad stand. All of their materials that they like definitely don't know how to put together yet. We like, make sure that like, they know how to set up their pad stand. I do like a doofy thing with like, it goes up to your belt buckle. So like, we like dance around, we grab our belt buckle, we do, it's really, it's really dumb looking. That's a perfect way for them to find the right height. And then we have them all make it and then me and Mr. Track, that's Ivan, we will go around and I tape with electrical tape, the height for all of their stands so that when they get home and they need to readjust it, they're going to the correct type. And they take them apart and put it back together like five times that first day. Like some of the first days that we're doing snare stuff or pad stuff, there's like five or six times randomly in class, I'll be like, all right, take apart, reassemble because they got to get used to how fast they, how little time they're going to have to do that. Absolutely. Every time. Y'all do that on the first day. But then the second day, y'all go straight to Marimba because you want them to be able to touch everything pretty quickly. Yeah, and I didn't, and I, the Marimba, yeah, I want them to touch everything in those first two days because that's the first day, everyone else is touching their instrument. And there are some stuff in progression that we do have to do, but I want them to be able to like, see it. And that's when we assign in the beginner class, who does what specific Marimba on keyboard days? So let's back up or pause for just a second. So we are extremely lucky in that we opened up with, when we opened up 11 years ago, we opened up with your standard, I think, two Marimbas, two, four and a half octave ones, probably. Two sets of vibes, which we weren't supposed to have two sets of vibes, we were almost supposed to have one, and we weren't sure where the second one came from, but. Very crisp. Yeah. Always have to be the kids favorite keyboard to play as well. And a set of a, a zile phone. We opened with that. And then we found in the warehouse, which is where things go to die in Leander. We found what we call grandpa, which is the oldest, jankiest. Hi, Doctor of Marimba, you'll ever see. Yes, that was used as as a marching band outside Marimba for like 35,000 years. It's black keys are all like all of the keys, it's a black Marimba and like all of the keys are like white at all of the straight points, but it's another instrument for two kids that they can fit on there. So we have, we have three Marimbas and then we had a former band student who when he graduated high school gifted us his other Marimba. So we actually own four Marimbas. We own two vibes. We own one zile phone. We own one set of bells. And then over the years, we have been collecting practice Marimbas. And we have six practice Marimbas and so we have a lot of mallets. We end up using, I don't, you always use the zile phone with the beginners because it's a little small, it's a little different and different, I just, it's just different. But we'll use all of those Marimbas, both of those vibes and then there's always two practice Marimbas that get set up and first and second chair use the practice Marimbas. So it's like a curse and a blessing. Yeah. That's part of like that. One of our practice Marimbas is the most out of tune. I hit it. It's like astounding. Like it's like the scale sounds not like a major scale. Awesome. Um, last year, I've been and I discovered that and I was like, something is wrong. Someone's hitting a wrong note and they're like, we promise we're not. Do you all leave the mallet instruments out after class? No. They have taped spots. They go back to, they know who's in charge of what. So even if you're not on that Marimba that day, you're still in charge of it. They'll be like, so there's not even a rotating pack up. Everybody is assigned to the beginning of the year. One mallet instrument and they put it up every single day and they cover it every single day. And in the beginner class, like I keep on the board, the pack up assignments, like it's, like it was hard to erase last year, it had been up for so long, but it's really easy to tell because we know which Marimbas, which, who does what? And like the kids get kind, some of them end up being kind of into it. Like it's probably because we put the right kids on percussion and they're like into like logistics and Tetris and crap like that and so it ends up becoming kind of a well-oiled machine by the end of September with the beginner class. Yeah, we have, Darcy made some really funny signs that go on the, that went on the, the, yeah, talking about naked, no naked instruments. Um, okay. So we've already kind of talked about your day one is just going through and learning how to put together the, the pad on your first day of mallets, talk to us about your flash cards. Okay. So we make another set of note name flash cards for the percussion class. Yeah, he says another because with the combined beginner classes, we made our first octave. And with our keyboard kids, we teach them third line B to be above the staff. Yeah. And yeah, it's whatever. It's whatever. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, but we use those same notes. The first 12 notes they get in the mirror ones, but I make them like, we have like an art day and I make them draw a keyboard on the front of each one. And like, I don't care if it, if that takes 20 minutes in that class because they need to look nice because we will add to this throughout the year, but I will do keyboard flash card tests. So they draw a keyboard on the front and we put like a dot or an X on each of the white or black keys, whatever key it is. And then on the back, they draw the staff again and the note and the note name. So it's like another like they should be able to tell right away. One time I've ended something kind of fun last year where like he made a kid, it would make the kids in front of him. He'd show them the note name and the other thing and they'd all have to hit that key on the mirror and one. Which is great. And then I make them do that and then I found, I don't remember where I found it. I don't know what it came out of, but it's like a written little test and it's got like 15 on it and it's got keyboards and it's got staffs and it's like matching and you have to do it. And so we'll do that. I don't think I end up doing that one last year, but I kind of want to bring it back. It's a great one. They were good readers last year, so we didn't have to do that as much. But they have to do that pretty regularly, like I'll throw, I try to throw in a note naming Marimba flash card thing at least through the four, six weeks through flats and sharps. And we do that. So kids, our kids at styles, like they are very good mallet readers. They are very, very good. And I think part of it is because we harp on the flash cards so frequently, both with the original set of flash cards, the flash cards that they're doing with you, when our wind classes are going through a note naming, our percussion kids sing and note name all of the stuff just like they do. And when our wind kids are note naming and adding fingers, our percussion kids are note naming and actually touching them. Finger tapping, yeah. So there's a lot of consistent t-taw finger tap and count, t-taw, like they have something that they do that fits with what the winds do that is the same concept. Absolutely. a lot of times, I just want to talk about this now, I don't know if it fits in now, but the reason percussionists end up being weaker note readers is because every other instrument is actively reading notes and playing an instrument at the same time, and that percussion is literally cut in half and sixth grade, because when they're learning pad, they're not reinforcing keyboard, like note reading, like they're rhythm reading and like that's not a stuff, but like there's no pitches on there, so like we, especially at the beginning, a little hammer, like I'll put in Google Classroom, a keyboard thing, or something that they have to do the days that we do pad, like a lot of times on a pad day, keyboard homework will be assigned still, and vice versa, just because, especially with keyboard, so it's easy to forget that. Yeah, you want to keep all of it fresh, and it's, yeah, that's exactly right. If you spend your first semester on snare, and then it's after Christmas, when you start to introduce keyboards, well, yeah, your keyboards are going to be super weak after that, or if you do a huge chunk of time on mallets, and then spend a huge chunk of time on snare, guarantee if that whatever skill they're not using, they are going to lose. Yeah. I mean just like anybody. Yeah. Yeah. It's time, time to finalize plans, or start dreaming of the next adventure for your band, orchestra choir, jazz group, large group, small group, or drum core. Colitiscope Adventures has nearly 30 years experience making student travel a breeze for you, and the stuff of memories for your students. Whether it's somewhere close, over there, overnight, or overseas, Colitiscope Adventures has a trip for you. Find out how you can travel beyond expectations at mykatrip.com. Okay, so they're using the Wiley book throughout all of this. Is there anything that you'll supplement with mallet stuff? We'll use the flute essential elements book, and we will learn lines from that. So we will have them read lines like two or three a class. Because when we're first learning keyboard, it's like scales, shin piston strokes, and all that good stuff, their grip where they hold it on the thing, but they're not the Wiley book. There's a lot of things I like in it, but there's not enough songs, and there's songs. And that's what they get to want to play, even a percussionist. Even like the first time we do Mary had a little lamb, they lose their mind, and then Mary had a little lamb is like the first song in the Wiley book. And then it's a bunch of like A2's and songs are written, but not like songs. They don't have names. They're like good things, but like they want to play Gotalant Rody like all of their friends in tuba class are playing. Sure. So they can practice at home on the same things or whatever. So I try to like, at least do a couple of those. And especially by the end, that book wants to have a really good sight reading for those keyboards, because you can't tire out your face on a keyboard, and you can just speed band through those things, and it gets them used to playing in keys, and like reading things that have a melody that they can recognize and know when they go home, they're playing your right or wrong. So there's like one complaint I have about a couple of them, but songs in the book is that they don't know the song, how it's supposed to sound before. And so like they could learn it completely wrong and like not hear it, if that makes sense. Sure. Whereas like if you learn Mary had a little lamb with a minor third instead of a major third, you know what you don't know music, you know, that doesn't sound like it's what it's supposed to, but a keyboard player's not going to know that when they're learning song number seven. What do you think that you and Ivan do in that class that creates mallet reading fluency, so that when they get into seventh grade, they aren't scared of reading mallet music, they're not scared of sight reading mallet music. What do you think they do? I think part of it is the flashcards and the reading and the songs, because a lot of them will go learn the other songs too, because like they're like, I learned these, these, these, and I'm like, oh, we're not going to do those in class, but like that's all that like when they're first learning, they're still six graders and those little kids and they love learning that new songs they recognize. And I genuinely think it's just that and keeping up with making them do note naming when they play. Sure. So like we'll make them like I will make it's when it's easy. You know what I mean? When it gets to convocate rhythms, obviously it's hard to be like in saying note names, but like everything they do in sixth grade, they can go E, D, C, D, E, E, E, E, and they sing it for the length of the note, whether we've done rules yet or not. Sure. And I just think that constantly having to note name, like they know I'm not going to let them play it in class until they can finger tap a note. Yep. Just like we do with our wind players. And so when they can do that, it's better. And then they know that that's how they have to practice it at home. And I think that's why I don't know if there's anything specific. So one of the things that I know that because of watch percussion teachers do this is drilling measure at a time stuff. And this is one of those things where I would assume that what we are doing and how we treat our percussionists like regular band beginners is helpful. Those mallet kids, they are counting the whole song. They are note naming the whole song. They are note naming and touching the whole song and then they are playing the whole song. Like they're not, they're not drilling a measure and then adding a measure. Like I can tell a mile away when we get a move in percussionist that that is how they've been taught because they do not read in chunks and let's be real, they're not reading. That kind of teaching, when we very first open styles, we had a percussion person that came to work with our kids. And they were teaching the beginners to play like I know happens sometimes in the percussion world where we're so intent on having technique early on that the literacy part gets shoved away. And I had to like go in and chat with this person and say you are teaching them to not read music. When you go one measure at a time, you are not allowing them to have to read. And that's how you learn how to read is by reading. You get good basketball, by playing basketball, you get good reading by reading. And so they were going through and he would teach one measure. And like there was some disconnect like kids can, mallet kids can read, they can read and play. Yes, it is far more awkward. And yes, I totally understand that when everything is set and done, a mallet solo is played by memory. Like I get that. However, like they need to be able to read this basic stuff. And while it is basic, we should be able to require them to read while they play. There is no need for them to memorize one measure at a time and swing together a song. That is when you start creating kids that are nervous about reading mallet music is when you have taught them in that realm. And I remember getting some pushback from that initially. And then weeks and weeks later, said person coming back and being like, wow, they really are able to do this now. Yes, they are. Yes, they are. I promise they are. No, and we will do, I think a lot of beginner mallet stuff ends up being a lot of scales. If you're not supplementing with songs. And the scales are important and they need to learn scales and they are like, we do the same called keyboard warm up and we call it keyboard woo. And it's like, that is all the scales and we will make them do it like, Mr. Track or I will be like, look at me in the eyes while you're playing it. Just getting used to like, it's not moving. Yeah. Like, it's not good. Merma is not going anywhere. You're not going anywhere. If your stuff is set up right, like, I don't even care if you hit a wrong note. I'm just like, get used to what it feels like. But if they're not actively having to read, they're going to practice those scales at home, staring at their at their. Sure. You can do to stop that. Yeah. Unless you're requiring it at school, it's not going to happen at home. Which I think helps with their confidence in reading. Sure. I don't know. And then the finger tapping, like, they don't get to play it. They don't get to finger tap it till they can count it. They don't get to play it till they can finger tap and note name it. And we are like, A holds about the note naming, which is a good time. Okay. So obviously grip from mallets to snare. It totally transitions because it's just basic match grip and bow. Similar, yeah. Yeah. So everything that you're doing on your, on your Marimba days does in some way. Yeah. Still transfer. And we, and we talk about home, Marimba, it's a piston stroke and on snare, the different kind, like, it's like a full stroke is what we learn first and the, they're different but the same, you know, sure. And we make them, I make them all do, like, we do, like, the 10 inch height is what we do for the first, like, long time. Like, I don't worry about adding anything change from that. And I'm like, look at your neighbor. Do you match all this kind of, all that stuff. Just like, self explanatory, I guess, in a way of, like, everyone's kind of expecting that. I didn't do that my first year. I was going to say, I don't know if everybody does do that. Like, and it's not just like training them for marching band, it's training them for good technique. I mean, percussion is a very visual instrument. And like, when your body looks the same, it probably sounds the same. Yeah. I mean, heck, we could probably say about every instrument for real. Yeah. Okay. So pad stuff, the very first thing that you all are learning how to do is full strokes. Yeah. Full strokes and coordinates, like, really simple. We will go back in all of the charts that they learned how to count when we were all combined. Those are the first things we play on pad for the first, like, two months. Like we're going through and like, by the end, like, chart seven is a really fun one when you get into eighth notes. Chart six is a great one. So y'all aren't immediately starting the percussionist on eighth notes. No. Okay. Do you want us to? No. I do not. Lovely. I'll do. And we, like, especially when they're doing, it'll be, it's not at 72. I do start them at 84, which is a little faster and it's a little easier for them to feel that control. Sure. Like, there's that sweet spot. It's my preferred tempo. And the quarter notes, they can really think about matching the height back to their other note. Correct. And they're playing the slower notes. And like, even the half notes and all that stuff, even though we're not rolling yet, we're not buzzing yet. We're not bringing any of that stuff, like them pulsing and counting through it while they're playing is making them associate, like, I have no, in a quarter note. of buy a rest are going to sound the same right now, but they have to know that they're not the same. No. Correct. They don't. They're going to explode. Um, how once you all get kind of a groove going, what does normal alternating days look like in percussion class, alternating between, uh, Marimba and Pad? Marimba and Pad. So we, once we get the first, like, we'll do like a full week of Marimba and a full week of Pad there at the start or whatever. Um, but we end up doing two days a week on each and I make those two days in a row. I try to. And then one day last year, because of early releases, it was Wednesday. It was like the flex day and I would tell them what it was going to be the next day or we do a little bit of both or like the chair test, we'll do a chair test every week, but it'll be on one or the other and that'll often be the day that's like not set for direct instruction. Sure. Specifically for Pad and Marimba. But by the end of after spring break, we're, we're probably doing a little bit of both every day. Um, and they get so good at setting everything up that it's, it's not hard. And I, I try really hard to make sure if I make them set up both that we are going to use both in class because that is a pain and that is a lot and other instruments don't have to deal with that and I get that. Um, but we end up doing a little bit because I like to back to like doing two days and two days. I like to really introduce the skill and see it the next day on that instrument versus the other way. You make sure to do also is if we do like a heavy keyboard day or like even like a three keyboard day week, at least two of those days, they're going to have pad homework. Sure. So like they're still doing like it's like, okay, tonight before you do your key, whatever you song you're learning, play all of chart six, seven and eight, right hand lead, whatever, whatever we're working on, you know, and it gets them advice versus on pad days, we'll have them learn like I'm like, oh, learn that song tonight or whatever it is. And I tried to check that because that just, it's two, it is two instruments. It's two instruments and there's a ton of crossover, but it's still, it's two distinct instruments that they're learning how to play. And if they're not doing a little bit of both every time one's going to get weaker than the other and every kid's going to have one that they like more than the other, of course. You know, like I had a bunch of kids last year, there's, there's, there's two girls that would always wanted to be a pad day. And then everybody else was like, can we do a Marimba today, can we do a Marimba today? And one girl who's, who I love, one girl who's always like, and it was so funny because when it was a pad chair test, she was first year. Yeah, yeah. And when it was a Marimba chair test, it was toss up. Interesting. Oh, I just lost my, trying to thought, how do you utilize Ivan when he is here? On the days that our percussion specialist is here, what is his function? So Ivan, I will still run class every, the only time that Ivan will directly like run something is when it's the direct introduction of a new scale, especially on snare because like, I have a terrible buzz roll, I have a tear like I get it, I understand it, but like he can demonstrate and model so much stronger and so visual in that class that he'll do it. And then I will literally come back to running the class and he will walk around and like, they're almost getting like many direct feedback from him, he will be standing in the middle playing it, it will be like, Mr. Track versus class, all that kind of, all that good stuff. And I think initially we had even experimented with him running class on some of those days, but again, trying to keep it consistent for the kids, like the pacing that TJ is building into that class needs to continue even on the days when there is more specific instruction. And even Ivan would say, like, Ivan's not a band director, like he's like, he's a percussion teacher and like, I think that, and we're pretty close now, we've been doing this for a while together, like, we've hit a flow where like, he knows the spots that he kicks in. I know the spots that like, I'm running it and like, it's just like what you and your band directors co-teach clarinet or whatever it is. It's no different. Like it's not like when the clarinets are combined, one of us is silent. Like when Darcy's running it, I'm doing what Ivan basically does in percussion class. And it's vice versa. And so that's always really helpful. And especially when we get to toys and accessories and all that stuff, like he knows so much more nitty gritty about that than I do, no matter what, I can like prepare, like, there's just so many more like, he's like, this is the more efficient way to scrape it. And I was like, you're right. But yeah, so he probably directly stands in front of the class teaching like the way we think of beginner classes, 10 to 12 percent of the time max on those days. And then he's around like getting into their faces and we are just, yeah. And I don't think there's, I don't think that anybody that's listening should feel bad about that being the expectation, like TJ knows the flavor of styles middle school band. Like he is here every day. He's part of every day and every classes running. He knows exactly how this is running. And if you can trust a band director to be in charge of that class and allow your specialist to actually come in and be a specialist when that specialty is needed, I just think that that keeps consistency in your program that you want to have. I just think that that's really important. Let's talk about winter concert. What do the beginners play on the winter concert? Every single beginner plays marimba on the winter concert. Yep. The flute part of jingle bells and whatever the other song we play is up on the house hop. Yes, something like that. So whatever it is. We, that is like, and I play snare drum. That is my personal judgment call. Like I, I can remember very early on in my career, a beginner snare almost killing the very first concert the kids ever gave. That's a ton of pressure. And like why the heck would I ever want to let one person have the power to kill a concert for every other person? And like no, that's that's like literally pick one clarinet in your class to control the entire band. You trust none of them. Absolutely. Pick one beginner trumpet to control a higher band. And the pressure that that puts on the one kid who's playing snare, I cannot imagine. No. At your very first concert. Yeah. Absolutely not. That's crazy. So yeah, they all play marimba with their soft yarn mallets and there's enough of them that you can kind of hear it and they play a little. Last year we played all clear de la lune or whatever as their little section feature and they all play that on mallet and they play across all the octaves. So it sounds kind of cool and like they don't know that that's not normal. They don't like. They don't know that that's not what you do yet. So. And typically we'll have like I think last year we ended up having or I can't even remember. I know in years past we've had like TJ played the snare part and then like hey honors band kid who has a sibling in the beginner band. Can you come play bass drum or whatever. So we do have like a tiny real percussion section back there. But it's not want any one beginner that can sink it. And last year we did that and like a lot of the kids after the concert were like when are we going to get to learn to do all of that. Like it creeps some create some hype around bass drum and crash symbol which would otherwise have no hype. Absolutely. Like like the amount of putting off bass drum is like the accessory new instrument that we learned until like May last year like all they would talk about every day is like are we doing bass drum today. Are we doing the bass drum today? I was like it's not even cool. Okay. So we do have the beginners do we do a little percussion concert so that they have so that all of our percussion kids have something to like really work towards in their boring band music. Yeah. What kind of ensembles are the beginners doing. It's the I've used the same one every time. That which is fine. Yeah. Is this a mallet one? Does it use everything? One snare who uses a snare in a high hat there's timpani and then there's like three mallet parts. It's basically a quintet that we double every part on except for I have them do a little audition for the snare what was funny was last year was the kids kind of were like oh she's going to play it. Which was cool because like it wasn't even in like a defeated way it was in like a there was like a big fight between two boys of like who was going to get vibe one and who was going to get vibe two and I regret putting vibe one and vibe two because it's the same part like I was just like one kids playing five like I was like you're both playing five learning the pedal blew their minds but we start doing that about two months before the concert so this year that concert will be in April so probably start learning it around February TMEA time it's called imminent launch if you want to look it up it's awesome. It's really cool the kids really like it it sounds like a James Bond theme it uses some cool rhythms and they it's not it should be it has been in the years past and it probably should be pacing wise everything in it is easier than what they're learning individually. So like they're not playing like even if in snare like we're doing like one Tata 2D Tata 3 Tata 4D Tata stuff on the in class like when we're learning it nothing is that complicated in the song like it's like they learn the concepts of those rhythms by December of November but the music in front of them's not going to be too hard yeah it's in the key of B-flat they get to pedal they like it uses a bunch of stuff there's a template part that's really cool and I have them all the first thing we do is we all learn the keyboard one quotations keyboard one part and they all learn because that's where the main melody is they all learn that and then we disperse around who's going to play it on Zylo who plays the bells who plays this because there's it's written for all of those and it's an individual part but the parts are the same yeah yeah well the parents loved it last year like there was a mom weeping thought it was so cool I like the idea of using and you know y'all can think what you want but I like the idea of having the same song played every year because then all of the older kids when they hear it can be like oh my god I remember playing that and it's like a rite of passive yeah they're like oh my god I played eminent launch in sixth grade yeah it's like what to do but it's y'all get to what tempo to jog it to. It's marked at like 170. It sounds cooler like 132. I swear, it's like a cool jam. - Yeah, that is like a problem with all. - Middle school music. - All music. Like the tempos are all like-- - So fast. - 10 to 20 beats. The marked tempo is all 10 to 20 beats faster than anybody ever needs to play it. Ever. I'm sorry, nothing should be played at like 180. All of you people, like there's all these composers listening. All of you composers out there that are writing pieces that are marked at 180. It sounds free and to don't do that. 150, 160 is fine. - And it's, and like it was cool because my first year we had done a pad jam and they all played a pad thing with like a little backtrack. And it was cool, but like at the little concert, the other three bands of the seven eighth graders played like real percussion stuff. And I wanted to find something that was like a percussion ensemble, but I wasn't gonna like waste time with a kid who's now gonna play triangle for two months while we learned this. We wanted it to be supplemental to what we were doing and this one is. - Sure. - And there's plenty of other great pieces that are, there's plenty of great pad jams by Luke Vogue. (laughing) - Which we'll plug that again here in a second. - Yeah. - So let's talk about, like you mentioned, triangle just now. When do y'all start introducing accessories? And at what extent? - We start introducing them after spring break. - Okay. - And it becomes kind of once a week, depending on the accessory, it'll either be half the day or we'll do a couple in a full day. And after spring break, and I tell them, like I'm like after spring break, we're gonna get to start with like the accessories and the toys and they're all like, "Wow!" And so like we'll do a day of like one, it was always Wednesdays 'cause the early release last year, but probably Friday's this year that'll be like, it'll be Vibers lap, Claves and whatever it is that day. And like we have them learn it. I teach them it and then one by one, they all come and play it and we all, we like made it kind of fun. We're like, okay, what line from this chart 'cause we go back to the charts and they're still playing quarter notes on these things. And we're like, what line do you want them to play and someone says it and like, what dynamic do you want them to do it? - Oh my God, I want to hear a chart 3.5 line one on Vibers lap. - That's, no, that's all we do. - That's sure. - And like it's super cool. - Oh, yeah. - Boy. - And so like it's doofy and they all really like it and saving it to after spring break, almost all of them are gonna feel so much more confident on pattern remember that it's like missing a day if that in the week doesn't matter. That's also how we do timpani. We don't do a ton of timpani in sixth grade at all. I mean we do, like they learn it, they learn how to tune it, they learn like stuff, but like every single band does re-timpity work in seventh and eighth grade with Mr. with Ivan, which is super great 'cause we can only do so many things in sixth grade. But that's when we do bass drum, that's when we do all of that stuff. And we kind of do one a week and we time it out where we pretty much have gotten through everything by the end, everybody has touched every single thing in that percussion cabinet. We learn where it goes when we do it, like this is the vibe or slap, this is what it looks like, all that stuff because a lot of times, and there's still stuff we didn't even get to last year where like the kids are like, Mr. West, what is a insert random percussion thing here? Especially when the top band and your head band director or your school just loves programming grade twos that have percussion for like grade fives. I don't know who's ever done that. Tarsie, it even jungle dance. Oh my god, it does have so many parts. It's great. But speaking of that, so when we get to our spring concert, they are on real hard stuff. Because we split the band in half, nobody's having to like double too much. Sure, so we have like 170 beginners, so those will be split into, whereas the Christmas concert is one mega band. For the spring concert, we split our beginners into two bands and it is secretly ability split. And we do that with our percussionist too. We make sure that the music is appropriate for both groups. And it's a full percussion section with one to a part, with one of the beginner classes and one to a part on the other. I mean, it's a real thing. And then change, and like we played two songs with each of those bands, and one you will play snare on one song and probably remember on another or you might play bells on one and try and go on, like you're not playing the same thing twice. Correct. So it finally gives them, they get one concert where they're getting a true full band experience. And I can remember the girl who played triangle last year, when I told her she was playing triangle, the like light in her eyes was like, yes, which is so funny. But like, it was an important triangle. It wasn't important triangle, but she did a good job. I remember telling you, you better put the best kid on that triangle part. It's gonna kill my piece. Let's talk about solos. So we've talked about how they really only have, they have four performances a year. So they do actually have one more performance than our wind players do. They have their Christmas concert, which is all in Marimba. They have a beginner ensemble. They have a true full band experience for spring concert. And then for their solos. What are they, talk to us about that? Okay, so for their solos, we learn them out of a book called Percussion Jam's Volume One, Complete Edition. It's by Luke Vote, who was actually the Ivan, my first year teaching here. Vote, like Darcy Vote, Williams, V-O-G-T, no relation. No relation. But how bizarre that at one point in time, there were two votes in this time's band all. Yes, and what's awesome about this, is that they have really, really easy to like solid beginner solos. So there's solos that a lot of kids in Symphonic and Concern Band end up playing in something that it's great at the end of this book too. So if you buy it, it's great. They all have electronic backtracks that are cheesy, but awesome. The kids lose their minds. We set up a little speaker for their solo contest. They learn how to set it up. And like, let's be real. That's what percussionists do. They're really into it. That is cool. And what's awesome is that two of the books of the songs, one is called "Group City," which is the solo that we do on Pad, has a Marimba version. So if you want to do a percussion ensemble, that's not imminent launch, all of these work as a percussion ensemble where you can a half of the group on their pad and half of the group on the Marimba and the backtrack and it works. It's not the same as a percussion ensemble, but like they have fun. It's cool. It's great. There's also the Marimba solo. We do electric sunrise. If you ever look at them, there's one called electric sunrise and one called "Group City." The book is awesome. It comes with like the sticking. It comes with a copy that has the sticking on it. And it comes with a copy without the sticking. And they have to use the non-written sticking-in version, which is great. So they can't like, they get used to it. And we write in our own stickings on certain measures. There's little teaching things with each of them. So like, he's added a lesson plan. And he was a band director for a while. And he taught percussion. But there's like, which rhythms you're going to need to use in the solo? The techniques, the rudiments, all sorts of stuff. And honestly, they're awesome. I can't imagine myself ever using something different than this. The kids really like them. They're hard, but like appropriate. They sound cool. The pad one uses clicks, all sorts of stuff. If you do it as an ensemble, we have them clicking each other, sticks to each other. You came really their versatile little teaching tools. What was the name of this book again? The name of the book is percussion jams, volume one, complete addition, 10 contemporary solos with audio accompaniment. And it comes with the audio accompaniment. So what we've done, the kids, we bought the book. We teach them that. We practice the audio accompaniment in class. The first time we add that accompaniment, it's really cool. All of the accompaniment, he has it four different tempos. Perfect. It's always pretty much like one around 72, one around 90, one around 110, one around 130. All of them sound good at all tempos. So whatever, they're really versatile. It's really good where you can have a kid who's really strong and a kid who's not that strong playing the same thing. And it's going to challenge both of them when you can set it up. How they want to set it up. Sure. So this is downloadable. Yes, this is an e-book. It's from Waveform Percussion, is the copyright. Cool. But if you just search Percussion-- Luke Boat, VO GT. Yeah, Percussion jams, volume one. They're great. They're super cool. A lot of the people in our district use them now. And Electric Sunrise, them Rinbe Solo. It's honestly non-ironically non-pig-interbandy. It's cool. It's really cool. It uses a ton of dynamics. It uses a ton of-- they all got really, really into it. Parents loved it. It's great. It's cool. I don't know. It's like the nerdiest thing ever, but it's so fun. It's so fun. Everything about Percussion is super nerdy. OK, so let's-- And there's multiple solos in that book. So if you don't like those two solos, there's definitely-- wherever you're-- if you have a particularly strong class that year, there's a little harder one. A particularly weak class. There's a little easier one. We actually learned one of them just for fun in class like before we did the Solo, the very first one, Rockstar. And it's like the first song they'll play that it combines all the rhythms. So when we try to play in charts, we'll do Rockstar, we'll do whatever it is. But it's a great time. It's so fun. I could talk about Pat Jam, the Percussion Jam's a lot. Moving on to the last little chunk of our topic is our 7th and 8th graders. And we're not going to talk a whole lot about this. Our percussionists are in full band with us Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And on Tuesday, Thursdays, they are out completely with Ivan. Just the way it is working out right now. Some of that time is spent with just fundamentals, like just percussion, hardcore fundamentals that they still need to be getting because they are one step away from being beginners. And they still have to note name in those. They still have to note name in those that does not go away. And he's all on board with that. Like he's just like, I make my honors band sectional. We had to note name in saxophone sectionals yesterday. But so they're still doing that. And that's, you know, time where they're getting started. their specialist time. So there's a lot of snare stuff that happens in there. And those I am not in those unless occasionally I'll pop back there but like it's just Ivan with them. He does spend some time on their full band music with them and going through and making sure that they can play large chunks, counting the rest out loud. I mean just like we would have all of our kids do so that when they are in full band they are functional. I think that there's a lot of band directors that they get into a mess with their percussionists because they assume that since the percussion parts look easy especially if they're on accessories they're just going to know how to time all that stuff out in band class but having that time with them where they can like truly work on hey there is an actual technique for crashing assemble. Hey there is an actual sweet spot for hitting the bass drum and sometimes we muffle it and that's how we do that. And I mean like going through all of this kind of stuff but then making them run huge chunks of this so that when they get into the band clouds the band without hearing the other like playing it alone so that they are not playing by ear they are still actually reading the music while they are doing this. And then if they are also playing like it reinforces like let's be realistic there's plenty of pieces that I have played where I'm like I know I enter right after trying to see this but I can also count and do it like yes when they can do both of those it just saves them if they've lost count or if they've just whatever it is it just gives them more opportunities to be successful. And with with my percussionist he is spending one of those times one of those three times that he sees them you know the two class times plus the sectional sectional he's going through and working on region a tubes with my kids right now he's not doing that with the other two bands so with the other two bands they're working on mostly fundamentals but also some some easier a tubes that are more accessible to them. And they really like those days like but they've but they've become so trained in sixth grade to what band is and it's the same guy who was there like it doesn't feel like when they're gone I'm worried about what they're doing or when they come back in they know how to come in they know what to do they know what they're working on like it just sure the culture of the vibe really works well. They also have a pack up list that they are in charge of putting the stuff up even if they don't play it it's a funny fan's gonna die on Monday. No comment. So when they are in band on Monday Wednesday Friday so like right now especially right now because we're at the beginning of the year we're trying to get faces reset we're trying to teach ensemble stuff we do not have the kids play on marimba's when we are focusing on tone. Yes when it comes to tone and balance that is when we have the kids on pad because let's be real I can barely hear them. And I don't want that ringing of the mallets to cover up what we're trying to listen to in the ensemble. And I'm sorry rolling in 8B concert app is not as beneficial to them as freaking eight on a hand or whatever their different lines are like it just isn't. So I mean we've talked about this on on a number of the podcast episodes and definitely in some of the clinics is that we have this thing that I don't have a better way we call up the melody and exercise which is an eight count concert F 10 in different ways. But years ago we went through and wrote out specific things for the percussionist to be doing on the pad while we are playing that eight count concert F stuff. So the percussionist go at the beginning of the year I had them go in and write in their music. Okay when Mrs. Williams is showing the band that they're going to play two whole notes tied together I am playing this line when Miss Williams shows them that they're going to play a whole note followed by four touching quarter notes I'm going to play this line. So it's I'm giving the hand signs the percussionist know which line of this they should give that gives that value and I think that that genuinely makes and I think the way we do six grade also helps with this and the way it is like it makes those percussionists feel more like they're part of the band and that when there's something written out for them and it's not just like random whether we want to admit it or not like they feel less like an extra and that's going to help your personal vibe with your percussion especially if you're at a school where like you don't teach that beginner class and you have those kids come in and you don't know them and it wasn't taught by a band director like it's having things that they do that isn't that is like very planned and just as important as what the other ones do and play play on pad when we do have around the room and like they like they yeah when we get to the end of tubas we go to pad and we hear them play there dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun whatever it is we have we hear them too. I pick it and mine I pick a tone model and I know that sounds doofy but like and then it's like like so and so you're going to be the person and then they all join and they just listen for being together but it just yeah adds a layer of like cohesion to the band I think that misses missing and band warmups a lot. Sure and when the band starts doing technique stuff like when we're doing like scale patterns or articulation and that kind of stuff there are times when we specifically ask them to be on marimba's like obviously if we're doing scale pattern work we're gonna ask them to be on marimba and not pad and that helps me read it absolutely does when we are having them doing like articulation stuff we're having them on pad so that they're working on timing just like we are and that is one of the beauties of the foundations for superior performance book if you do not use that with your band for fundamentals. The blue book. The blue book has a ton of exercises for your percussion is to be doing it's a really thick book because it has all of the exercises written out for snare and all of the exercises written out for mallets so whatever instrument you are having the kids play and whatever exercise it you're asking the band to play there is a corresponding real exercise for your percussionist to be doing which again you're creating a culture of inclusion. Inclusion with our percussionist. Final thoughts. What do you think the biggest misconception is for teaching a beginner class specifically as like being like a wind playing band director having to teach percussion. More of it is the same than is different like it is I was scared as hell because I was like I don't know what I'm talking about I don't know so much of it transfers just like any other instrument is just like any other their rhythms are not different their notes are not different like this skills while yes hitting a keyboard is different than tongueing on a read tongue on a read is different than buzzing in a mouthpiece and we don't act like oh damn chicken and like those skills aren't that different like the the transfer they're just as much a part of the band like more of it transfers than I thought it would and it's kind of my favorite beginner class to teach now which is just almost sickens me to say and like a but you know what I think is transfers back to the conversation we've had before about secondary instruments yeah like when you end up having to teach a secondary instrument you are like so hyper aware that it is not your best one that you like really start digging in so that you don't feel this like impostor syndrome teaching yes and you start like taking pride in the fact that you learned how to do this and when you start doing it well you take even more pride in it and then you just I don't know I think it like grows it's kind of like why typically on another year teaching trombone is my favorite well and I will say that like I was really nervous this past year because this the current ninth graders were the first kids that I started and yes there was a pandemic all that blah blah blah but everybody had the pandemics all of the kids are coming out of middle school from the other middle schools different I was like really afraid where our kids would stack up against the other kids with like the opportunity to make the drum line or to make the line and like it was fine their kids being successful on every level from the bay like even me feel better about okay they're not being said I know that that's all you have one of your one of your beginners a tuba slash clarinet taught beginner you know TJ being the tuba slash clear yeah one of your beginners is on snare line at this ridge yeah like it it it it is not a curse to have a non-procussion is teach that class and I just think that like as much as you can make your beginning percussion class have the same flavor as all of your other beginner classes that's what creates a culture of them being in the same band and not being this percussion section yeah it's somehow strange and different and needs special treatment yeah they can figure that out when they're in high school well and they do yeah and they do because all of the stuff that we set them up with is still setting them up for success and I mean thank God for lesson teachers yes thank God yeah thank God that the district still gives us you know funds to help supplement now that we're like we're in like four years like the percussion teacher is like one of my best friends from college now too it's so funny like he's like I can't believe that I'm teaching private kids in your percussion class of everybody that we went to school with yeah and it's great I mean like it's it's just it's super fun it definitely was a much less steep learning curve of learning how to play it like I struggle more a saxophone than percussion oddly enough even though and I know that I and I wouldn't say that I worked harder at percussion than saxophone but like as I was doing it I was like this is not that different it's just hands and set a mouth I played saxophone in my saxophone sectional for the first time since TJ has been here because I have not played saxophone since I stopped teaching the saxophone class and now that I am helping with the saxophone class again I have a saxophone again and so I'm playing it and God I hate playing saxophone I actually make a pretty good sound on it I hate how it makes my teeth feel I despise how it makes my teeth feel and I am forgetting how to finger see. - We like-- - It's just so stupid. - Yeah, that is dumb. That's so funny. Well, we have that fun, like, inverted thing. We're like, like, you sound way better on saxophone, and I sound better on clarinet, but I sound like a clarinet player on saxophone. - Yeah. - And you kinda sound like a saxophone player on clarinet sometimes. - Sometimes, when I'm not thinking about it. - Which is not the hue about it. I have to think so hard about saxophone when I'm playing it. - Yeah. Well, I broke my clarinet mouthpiece the other day, and-- - Broke it. - I broke it, I broke it, I dropped it, and I was like, it's not gonna break, because I am the teacher, and the teacher doesn't bring a mouthpiece, and then I looked down, and it was definitely broken. The read was fine, the mouthpiece was broken. And it was like, I was playing on some, like, B something. - Yeah, probably a B45. - Probably. It was whatever was in the case. - Here comes that last minute. - So then I had to slap on an M13 lyre, which is what our beginners play, which is a much more closed facing, and it's horrible. It's not horrible. I just have not been playing on it, and it felt so different. - She's been playing like Klezmer for the past eight years. - It, like, that, trying to play on that M13 lyre with a read that is probably not appropriate for that mouthpiece, and that's like a whole other conversation about reads matching. - We started talking about reads and mouthpieces on this percussion podcast. - I know, but it was-- - 'Cause it would get mad. - Oh my god, it was so bad, and I sounded so terrible, and at one point, I was needing to demonstrate, 'cause we were working on stop-tongued. And I was like, "Guys, I'm gonna sound real bad, "but my stop-tongued technique is really good. "I really just need you to listen to the ends of my notes "and how I'm doing it, and you need to ignore the tone "and everything else that happens." - That's so fun. - Anyway, anyhow, hopefully that gives you a little insight on what a percussion class looks like when you are not blessed with having a percussion person coming down to teach a class. It is very doable. - I just thought of one more thing. - Yes. - Talk to your friends who play percussion still. Just like you would talk to your friends who play saxophone or whatever it is, like talk to the people you know that do it, 'cause that helped me a ton, and I don't know if I am or that hard enough. - And I'm sure that any percussionist would love to chat. I mean, they love to talk drum. - They do. - Ask 'em, I mean, that's, yeah, absolutely. Great tip. All right, on that note, see you later. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)