Vintage or just Old
Cleaning some mouthpieces I used in college (@ 50 yrs ago). The Kaspar seems to be especially valuable on a selling site, but that is not my purpose in the cleanup.
Vintage or just Old Read More »
Cleaning some mouthpieces I used in college (@ 50 yrs ago). The Kaspar seems to be especially valuable on a selling site, but that is not my purpose in the cleanup.
Vintage or just Old Read More »
I was looking for this symbol when I found I had used it on a post from some years ago. Yes, it is not always the teacher who impacts a student.
I thrive on their youthful enthusiasm Read More »
Insurance rates are crazy Read More »
by John Gardner (via LinkedIn)
The starfish story (not my original) is about someone trying to make a difference and I think of it periodically when I find myself trying to balance that healthy, professional detachment from the lives of individual students with the reality and significance of those lives and my desire to make a difference by being more than “just” a classroom teacher.
Working with students is not a life or death proposition, of course, but some seem to get washed up on the beach. Here’s the story and 10 ways to make a difference. Those 10 ways represent my core beliefs in teaching and working with teens.
The man was out for a walk on the beach when he noticed a boy frantically picking things up and throwing them into the ocean. Curious, he approached the boy to discover that he was picking up starfish that had washed up on to the beach — and was throwing them back into the water.
“Son, what are you doing?” the man asked.
“The tide is going out and these starfish got left behind. I’m throwing them back into the water to save them.”
“But son, there are hundreds of miles of beach. You can’t possibly make a difference.”
As the boy picked up another starfish, he threw it into the water and then turned and said to the man,
“I made a difference to THAT one.”
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Teen years can be trying times. Parents may be fighting, separating, dating and remarrying, which means the teen now has to not only deal with a break up of a foundation in his/her life, but often now has to live in multiple households. Some have to adjust to step-siblings, job losses, financial struggles and more. Then, there are the complexities of school with seemingly unending pressures to perform, trying to get through the dating games, often without an anchor or example to follow. Influenced by increasingly negative social standards, or lack of standards….. teens can get caught in the rise and falling tides. Most learn how to negotiate life’s trying currents, but can turn the wrong way, make a miscalculation or poor decision — and find themselves high and dry on the beach…..and they need help. Not every student needs, wants or will accept a teacher’s help. Sometimes the teacher’s effort is both unappreciated and unsuccessful.
But try we must…because we CAN make a difference “to THAT one”.
Students are not Starfish Read More »
By John Gardner
This time of year can be stressful for those romantically attached, hoping to become, casually dating, good plutonic friends or single not by preference. I understand widowed or divorced, too…. but this post targets mostly high schoolers. If you have it all figured out, STOP HERE!
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Valentine’s Day Stress and Teens Read More »
When you hear “from the river to the sea”….yes, that is what God promised… from the wilderness (Egypt) to Lebanon and from the Euphrates (Jordan) River to the Mediterranean Sea… “will be yours” and “no one will be able to stand against you”. -Deut 11:24-25 This map of the tribes of Israel pre-date anything called Palestine. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is built on top of a Jewish Temple. So who was there first? Yes, Israel conquered the land….but what land is there anywhere on earth that has not been conquered? China, maybe??
From the River To The Sea Read More »
I have used this video multiple times in ensemble rehearsals. Really makes a strong point in the difference in expectation and excellence level in music. Please listen to all of it.
Why an ‘A’ is not enough in music Read More »
Perfect pitch means you can hear a tone or multiple tones and identify them. There was a girl in undergrad music theory class at UK who had perfect pitch. She described it as painful if a vocal ensemble was to lose pitch, i.e. go flat/sharp.
Another person I worked with professionally was a local band director wife. We could use her as a tuner, because she not only knew the pitch, but whether you were ever so slightly off. We would bring her in periodically to critique and the students always enjoyed trying to “trip her up”. But perfect means perfect and they never could.
In one rehearsal, without a score in front of her, she made a comment like, “The Bb7 chord at letter E is both wrong and out of tune. The altos have the ‘D’ (your ‘B’) and one of you is playing a Bb and another of you is playing the right note, but quite sharply.” We checked. She was perfect.
I do not have perfect pitch, but good “relative” pitch. It serves me well in two general ways. First, as a clarinetist, I can usually “hear” the pitch before I play it and so can come in on the right note/partial and on pitch. Especially when listening to a clarinet, I can usually tell you the note, but more because I know the different timbres of notes. An open ‘G’ sounds different than a ‘Bb’, for example.
It also serves me well in rehearsals as I have keen “hearing eyes”. I can tell if what I’m hearing is what I’m looking at in the music score. I established that when I would say, “Someone is missing [specific note]. If you don’t fix it, I will find you”, they knew I could, so sometimes, when I stop the music, look down at the score (to figure out what I heard and where it might be coming from) and focus my attention toward a section of the group I might find someone with his/her hand already raised to confess, “It was me”.
During a grad class, I had to stay after class one day because I was doing something the professor said I shouldn’t have been able to do and he wanted to find out how I was “cheating”.
His researched position was that you could only retain and re-sound about 8-11 random tones. To make his point, he emphasized why phone numbers are broken down; 260-786-6554 vs 2607866554 or that credit card numbers are “batched” in 4’s because we can’t remember 16.
Then for practical proof, he started playing series of tones. We were to sing them back and drop out when we missed. Not unlike a spelling bee, by the time he got to 12-13 tones, there were only two of us left. The other person dropped out and the professor, in a frustrated tone, asked me how I was “cheating”.
Working 1-1 after class, he noticed (I didn’t even know I was doing it) I was fingering my pencil. His conclusion, and I had none better to offer, was that I was “hearing tones in clarinet” and then “playing them back”.
What I did was not unique. I know of others who have trained their ears to hear specific pitches, such as an ‘open G’ on trumpet or a vocal “do” on ‘c’.
Relative Pitch is not Perfect Read More »
My dad was a 32-yr career firefighter, retiring as an Assistant Chief for a moderately sized, full-time department that had about 10 stations throughout the city. I recall a childhood time when my siblings and I were vising him at the firehouse. When the alarm sounded, he abruptly pointed to the wall, and said
“Stand right there ’til someone comes for you.”
Immediately, 10 doors (5 front, 5 rear) open, the intercom is announcing location and status, and people are hustling from every direction Twenty seconds later, the building is open, empty and quiet. One of the dispatchers invited us into his area while our mother scrambled to come pick us up.
As a small business owner, I believe some of my Dad’s Fire Department practices could help Small Business when it comes to putting out fires. Here are 11 things Small Business and Fire Departments should have in common.
Firefighters know who they work for and will sacrifice to serve. When someone calls 911, firefighters will do what firefighters did on 9/11.
————————————————–
One of the most effective practices I put into place was to bring in a salesperson to talk to our order fulfillment crew and explain to them what happens to his customer, his income and even their jobs when orders go out with too many errors.
Meticulously planning and preparing for, and then efficiently and effectively fighting “fires” is something both fire fighters and small business owners should be good at. Business should be ready, but not always “putting out fires”.
The purpose of THIS post is to encourage you to be READY and SET so that when the alarm rings, you are prepared to GO!
Thanks for reading,
JohnGardner@VirtualMusicOffice.com
I wrote a tribute to my Dad, the firefighter, and included description and picture from the worst fire he ever fought…. the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire of 1977 that took the lives of 165 people, including my high school clarinet teacher. I also talk about his Fire Chief experience with accusations and responses to sexism and racism. Read more….
11 Things Small Business and Fire Departments Should Have In Common Read More »