excellence

5 Considerations to Making a leap of Faith

Leap of faithby John Gardner

This graphic illustrates a scenario we all face, individually, in business, in school as well as in music ensembles. Most of us, at least once, have been to the edge, looked down, looked across and pondered the possibilities. It is easy to say you want to get better, but how do you make that leap to the other side?

Realize that not everyone WANTS to get to the other side.

Many are satisfied with the way things are, represented by this marching band member attitude:

I am okay where I am. I am not last chair, I can play my part reasonably well, I can pass the playing test. I see those people on the other side…..so much pressure, so much work, and for what? Band is a good social group. It is a good place to find a date, to make friends, to feel connected. I enjoy the bus rides, the longer the better. The band parent provided food at competitions is good and I like the freedom during the down time to hang with my friends and watch some other bands.

You are, after all, standing on solid ground. It is safe where you are. You KNOW where you are and are in your comfort zone. You look over the edge and see danger. You could fall, you could fail. You could get hurt.

WANT it….with everything that is within you.

You hear the musician who plays the more difficult solo or watch the marching band put on a crowd cheering performance. You see the elation at the award ceremony and YOU WANT THAT.

In “The Return of the Jedi”, as Luke Skywalker finally stands before his ultimate enemy, the Emperor says to the young Jedi who is viewing and considering his weapon,

You want this, don’t you?

Know that small, safe, baby steps won’t make it.

If you stand on the edge, look down and take a step, you will fall. The gap is wider than that and will require a running start LEAP.

Practice and Prepare to Perform!

Olympians don’t just show up at the games. Basketball players spend hours behind the scenes practicing boring free throws and doing exhausting repetitive fundamentals up and down the floor. The ice skater doesn’t decide at the start of the performance that a quad would be a good idea.

There is no short cut to success. You must be willing to pay the price.

The ice skater going for the quad is literally a “leap of faith”. There is never a guarantee of success, but repetitive practice, falling down, getting hurt, figuring out what went wrong and working harder to get better…..are necessary ingredients to establish confidence and competence to make the jump. A phrase I have used in rehearsals,

Like the ice skater who misses the quad, missing notes (steps, sets) in performance can hurt.

A good cartoon by Tone Deaf Comics illustrates part of this idea.

One more time

Commit to go….and then GO!

No more standing at the edge. No more looking down. No more considering the consequences of failure. Back up, focus on the other side, set your mind and then RUN hard at the edge. When the Israelites were crossing the river Jordan, the waters did not part until the priests feet touched the water, the point at which they demonstrated both faith and commitment (Joshua 3:14).

Once you commit to go, you have to “go all out”. Know where you’re going, practice and prepare, commit and go.

 

 

leap-of-faith-2

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10 Anti-Excellence HS Peer Pressure Standards

By John Gardner

When I asked my high school Valedictorian son why he had chosen a particular top-tier university and why he was tired of being the geek.

I’m tired of being the geek. I’m tired of ruining the curve. I’m tired of people getting mad at me because I do the extra credit anyway. I want to go somewhere I can be normal; where it is okay to be an achiever.

Pressure surrounds teens.

Parents push them to do better. Teachers need performance data in the ever-increasing “prove-you’re-teaching-and-they-are-learning” world of government schools.  The strongest pressure, however, can come from peers.

In handing out a “pre-test”, a beginning of a semester assessment to find out where students are on a subject, a teacher was explaining to the class.

“This is NOT for a grade. This is to help me find out where to start. If you already know most of what is on this pre-test, I’ll be able to give you higher-level work.”

A student in the class spoke up,

“Fail it!”

The message was clear.

“If we look like we know stuff, they will give us more. If we all fail the pre-test, we’ll get easy stuff to do. LET’S GO!”

Anybody can be mediocre


Here is some of the unwritten peer-pressure-code of many high schools:

  • Go easy on the pre-test. Save your effort for the one that counts.
  • Don’t ruin the curve.
  • If you turn it in early, you make the rest of us look bad.
  • If the instruction says 500 words, don’t do 501.
  • Just do what you have to do to get the grade your parents won’t yell about.
  • Don’t study at home, practice at home or do extra research at home because they’ll start expecting MORE.
  • The teacher will adjust the level of work to the level of the class. We vote for easy. Don’t mess it up for us.
  • Share your work with us…. we’ll change a few words and get away with it.
  • Teachers are the enemy. Don’t be a “teacher’s favorite”. The only time you should be “friendly” to a teacher is when you need something – or when you’re asking for more time, etc.
  • Snitches get stitches. C’mon! Who’s side are you ON?
  • If they give us the entire class period to take a test – take the entire time. If we get done too early, they will start on something else.
  • Tell your teachers what they want to hear, even if you have to make it up.
  • Use up the entire limit: number of times you can be tardy, number of times you can be called out before discipline, number of assignments you can miss, number of low grades that will be dropped…..and then use your puppy dog eyes and maybe even a few tears to plead for mercy, forgiveness and another chance — after the limit is hit.

Below are a few of the pics/graphics I try to use to encourage a different path…..

If you want to do
This pic is from the goal line of Lucas Oil in Indianapolis. Indiana bands have state finals here. Drum Corps International and Bands of America have national finals here. And…. many of my students call me ‘G’…

Excellence

Get Things Done

If the notes are on the paper


You should seldom have to tellSlide29Slide30

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Music Teacher Unreasonable (?) Expectations

Three things prompted this post:

  1. The Meme (below) about putting students on a stage, because….
  2. Our Christmas Concerts are next Fri/Sat, and
  3. A recent discussion involving music teachers and an administrator

In a recent Professional Development event discussion involving middle and high school music teachers and an administrator, one of the question prompts had to do with what we expect from our students. The admin was mildly surprised when the nearly immediate response from multiple music teachers was – 100%. I saw him write that response in his notes.

But it is true. I’ve shared this video before, but it is a good demonstration of our level of expectation from our students. In a math or english class, for example, if you miss one out of one hundred, that is still a high ‘A’. When this director gives everyone in the band the opportunity to miss one (only one) note, you can hear the tragedy. Then he goes for the second note, which would still be a high ‘A’ in any other class.

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S-Steps To Success

By John Gardner

Super Size Poster
Super Size PosterContext: Large, only high school in a county that includes students from 20-miles and long-distance phone calls away, some spending over an hour each way on school buses. Marching band is small for the school size and behind some area powerhouse programs in terms of size, staff, equipment, all things financial and cutting edge.

S-Steps To Success 

#1 – Super Size

The FIRST thing we need to do is to SUPER SIZE this band. Size doesn’t equal quality, but it can impact the sound. To some extent, numbers translate to sound, crowd appeal and score. That is part of the reason the State Music Association has different qualifying levels for the different class sizes.

We need to Search for Super Sizers. You can help. Be enthusiastic about your band. Enthusiasm is contagious. What YOU say to a middle school band student, or to any prospect, is often much more effective than what a teacher/director says.

Sideline ensemble people don’t have to be band members. Your friends who play piano can play mallet instruments. People who quit band in the past can come back. And then, without taking anything away from what it takes to be a percussionist, we can teach just about anybody how to hit something. And now that we’ve incorporated guitars, we offer an opportunity to some of your friends who are band members of a different type. Know someone with a dramatic voice? Perhaps they can perform the voice-over script.

Sadly, we have seniors graduating. For those who remain, I wrote a note to you,

Now It Is YOUR Turn

You need to Stay to be Seniors.

I’d love to see the school or community have to deal with

  • a band that can’t fit in the band room
  • scrambling to get instruments and equipment for the participants
  • providing 4-5, instead of 1-2 busses

#2 – Sensational Sound

SECOND, you should Strive for Individual Success. If you become the best that YOU can be, then we can work to blend your individual abilities to improve the overall band. A super-sized band can produce more sound, but we need your individual improvement to enable us to play some of the more challenging music you’ve heard.

Study Seriously for Improvement. Consider Individual Study on your instrument. If you can pay, we have access to professional experts on almost every instrument. They absolutely make a difference. For less pay, we can connect you with some college students who are looking for some experience.  And if you can’t pay, let us know, because some teachers will make allowances for hard working students. For sufficient interest, we can explore periodic after school Master Classes for instrument-specific instruction in a group setting. And several of you are already taking advantage of some of the musical ensembles at the local university. Instruments need to go home. There are no shortcuts. Proficiency requires practice. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it certainly helps, and you can’t achieve perfection without it.

Your Individual Level of Musical Success depends on a combination of

  • your musicianship
  • your training
  • your equipment
  • your commitment

#3 – Sizzling Show

FINALLY, we need a SIZZLING SHOW, and it won’t come cheaply. Sizzling requires specialists in music technology, creativity, art, design and construction, as well as dance, theater and maybe even drum corps.

We need Spectacular Music. That can including paying for licensing and excellent composing and arranging.

We need Stunning Drill Design. Some competitors pay three times what we are able for expert, on-site designers. We have had good drill design by someone in the area, even if he can’t be on site.

We need Superb Special Effects.

When I watch state finals, I notice patterns from the top groups. Effect generators include tarps, ramps, platforms, multi-functional backdrops, and some really interesting custom-designed and built theme-enhancing props.

Most color guards have 2-4 costumes and 4-6 different flags plus rifles, sabers, wheels, sticks, and other theme-specific props.

With the props and the horn and body flashes, we need some theatrical expertise for our show. Marching band is not just about marching and playing any more.

We need Splendid Style, requiring splendid basics. We have to march better, to get it sooner and to push it harder.

We need State-of-the-Art Equipment. Most of the drumlines had 4-6 snares, 4 quads and 5-6 basses. If we want to do that, not only will we have to super-size the drumline, but we’ll need more drums. The front ensembles tended to have 6-8 mallet instruments and 8-15 people. Many of the sideline instruments were individually microphoned with sound controlled by a remote controller managed by a staff person in the audience. Most had new silver Sousaphones or shoulder Tubas. One had ten such tubas and five bari saxes. One of the largest, if not the largest band there, had 100% silver brass instruments (trumpets, mellos, trombones, baritones, tubas). Another had all silver brass except trombones, which marched in a separate block.

This example built from two modified and stacked storage containers.
This example built from two modified and stacked storage containers.

If we’re going to get more and bigger stuff, are we ready for our own personalized semi trailer, like just about every other Class A band has?

We need a taller, safer rehearsal observation platform. It could be permanent or portable. Portable would enable us to move between rehearsal areas. A design I especially admire is basically a garage (for front ensemble equipment storage, podiums, etc) with inside access to a platform on the roof. One school has such a building in between a grass practice field and a parking lot…so they can watch rehearsals on either surface from the same place.

Let me sum it up this way:

Let’s SUPER SIZE this band by searching for super sizers and staying in band.

Let’s develop a SENSATIONAL SOUND by striving for individual success and studying seriously.

Let’s field a SIZZLING SHOW with spectacular music, stunning design, superb style and closer to state-of-the-art equipment.

You give us what we need in people, equipment, work ethic and attitude – and we’ll take some major steps toward super-sized, sensational, sizzling success.

Thank you.

VMO Business Card

 

 

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Girls Just Want To Have Fun

With all the current controversy in women’s sports (which I have been posting about…..), this showcases that in music, it is not about male vs female, it is about excellence. This girl is incredible with the number of different instruments/parts she is playing. and the tune…. well, you’ll get it. (Kudos to my son for sharing this video).

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