John Gardner

19 yrs experience as a high school band director. 14 yrs as college adjunct faculty. 30+ yrs in the fundraising industry and 24 yrs as a small business owner. (Don't add all those up.). Experience in both the fundraising sales and education worlds give me a unique combination of perspectives in both. I love working with the youthful enthusiasm of today's teenage achievers and with those who work with them. Also 6yrs as proprietor of VirtualMusicOffice.com, which offers a wide variety of virtual services including web/blog design/hosting/managing, social media management (scheduling posts/tweets for maximum impact and brand enhancement) and small business consulting - specializing in school product fundraising.

The time I was surrounded by bank security

College Prep, Personal experience /

For three years of my undergrad Music Education study at the University of Kentucky, I rented one of five rooms the elderly landlady rented to college boys. Part of our rental agreement was that we would perform one task with her per month. That could be anything from driving her somewhere to assisting with her Christmas Cards.

Life at the Dagley house included an education UK could not match. She adjusted forever my dialect, diction, grammar and vocabulary.  I uncomfortably experienced how the élite deal with the ordinary, picked up breadcrumbs of how the rich keep, manage and spend money and cringed at her political prejudice and unapologetic racism.

This story is about one of those errands when I took her to the bank.

She wanted to “cash” a check. She didn’t specify why….just handed me a money bag and an envelope for the teller. Imagine…. a college student approaching a bank teller with a nearly blind senior citizen woman, and handing the teller an envelope containing a check, a note to “cash it” with specific instructions of how many of each denomination – and a money bag. I was unaware of the amount of the check until the teller summoned security, which quickly, but politely, positioned around us. Can you say awkward moment? The exchange with the teller went something like this:

Teller: “Ma’am, are you sure you want to cash this….all of this?”

Dagley: “What does the note say?”

Teller: “Yes ma’am, but are you aware of the amount you are asking for?”

Dagley: “You mean the amount for which I am asking? (She was always correcting grammar and pronunciation). Is there confusion about the amount?”

I was not surprised that they were questioning her writing, especially if she wrote it out herself. More probable is that her attorney, a frequent visitor, wrote the check, and that her signature was all over it. When signing things, she would ask us to place the pen in the general area. Her signature was huge and never went in the intended direction.

Teller: Are you sure you have the right number of zeros?

Dagley: How many zeros do you see?

Teller: Ma’am that is ten thousand dollars.

Dagley: “Yes, it is. It is in my account and I want you to put it in this bag.”

Bank officer w/Security: “Miss Dagley, may we have a word with you?”

Dagley: “No. You may not. This is a simple transaction and I want you to complete it NOW.”

I never knew what she did with that $10,000 in cash.

This and more stories about My College Years with an Old Opera Singer HERE.

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Music Teacher Unreasonable (?) Expectations

Leave a Comment / Teaching Music /

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.

https://youtu.be/KpyzGO2aQzE

 

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I know exactly when and where I decided I wanted to be a band director

Leave a Comment / College Prep, Personal experience, Teaching, Teaching Music /

Read article HERE

 

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Virginia Beach Music Festival and the 3rd Floor Balcony

2 Comments / High Schools, Marching Band, Personal experience, Storytelling, Throw Back Thursday /

The Virginia Beach Music Festival was a multi-day event that included competitions in Marching, Concert, Parade, Jazz, and Inspection. 

Normally a band year has multiple seasons. Summer and Fall are mostly Marching Band. Some competitions included an inspection element, which included standing at attention for about 15 minutes while someone went through with white gloves and inspected selected instruments and uniforms. Marching season transitions into Concert Band — and Jazz Band starts up. Late Spring and early Summer is parade season. 

To prepare for Virginia Beach, all that had to be going on simultaneously. 

During school, the concert band would rehearse. Jazz Band was after school and evenings were a combination of marching, parade and inspection practice.

The campus had a long driveway that we used, but would often go through a couple of the neighborhood blocks. Inspections involved Copenhaver’s paddle. We would stand at attention and he would walk in front of us, stopping to stare and to grab and check instruments. If anything was wrong, he’d say, “That’s one”, which meant he would get you with the paddle when he got behind you, which could be several minutes later. And if you moved when he whacked you, guess what. Right. I never got the paddle. 

The first time Holmes participated in 1969, (my Freshman year) Holmes was Grand Champion. We returned in 1970 as “Honor Band” for the event. 

Director Copenhaver was from Virginia and our two Greyhound busses stoped at a park near his hometown for a community-provided picnic. I remember one of the busses got stuck crossing a small creek. 

Two memorable events at the hotel we used. First, was one evening during the week when Mr. Copenhaver was in the parking lot and looked up at many of us on the balconies and said, 

“They know we’re here.”

Other than when actually winning an event, it was the happiest I recall him looking and sounding. 

The other was an evening when a group of seniors came knocking on our door. I was in a room with three other freshmen boys. They were there for “initiation”, which normally included some combination of ice down the underwear with shaving cream there and everywhere else — and then locked out of the room. 

The four of us (I think we all four), went over the balcony. The floors were close enough together that we could go from floor to floor…. Until we could jump to the ground. 

I can’t believe I did that. 

But I never experienced “initiation”. And I never did that to anyone else.

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When you hear that students today are behind

Leave a Comment / High Schools, Public Schools, Teaching, Teaching Music /

By John Gardner

I’m not going to defend some of today’s diluted, politically correct, expanded curricula when compared to what students learned decades (or centuries) ago. The Huffington Post published this 8th grade exam from 100 years ago and ask if you could pass it today.

I don’t ever recall, as a student, having to spend school time on bullying or suicide prevention, tolerance, drugs, sex, active-shooter and lock-down drills. I’ve participated in mandatory teacher training on bullying. We provide “digital citizenship” training worth several class periods for using those free iPads we gave them. Schools test to test that teachers’ tests are testing appropriate levels, that teachers are teaching and students are learning.
 
WHAT students must learn today is so much more complex than what students needed to know back in a previous century. Below is a good visual. It would have been much easier to learn to identify and differentiate the crayon colors available in the 1903 vs today, wouldn’t you agree?

Just sayin’.

Crayon Colors

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Student loan defaulters

College Prep, Communication, Family, Job Search, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Social Media /

Bank withdrawalI just watched a podcast showing numerous student loan defaulters who consider themselves “under-employed” and carrying “unsustainable loans”, complaining about the prospect of having to pay them back after years of covid and other reasons for repayment pauses.

I responded. Hard-hearted? Or real? Tell me what you think (nicely, please).

“I went to a state university because I couldn’t afford a top-tier private school. I had some scholarships, but also worked at least one job every semester and accepted financial aid via work-study and loans. With my degree, I got the job I studied for, struggled a few early years to repay my loan, and continued with life.

Current trends are to borrow immoderate amounts for over-priced private, name-brand schools, bypassing the more moderately priced options, to get a useless degree or one that offers low potential for justifying the price or the loan incurred.

With an attitude and degree no business wants to pay for, they accept lower wage jobs and spend what they should be setting aside for their loan obligation to get tatted, buy the fancy new car, best phone, gaming, credit card debt and party life. And then they want ME to subsidize their lifestyle so they don’t have to pay their debt. All four of my family went to college. Three involved loans. All paid back. Pardon my insensitivity.”

Increasingly, hs graduates are opting to learn high-paying trades or going into the military, which offers opportunities to learn, study, and gain financially — with stability. Those are wise decisions in the current environment.

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You can’t say that

Assistant Directing, Communication, High Schools, Personal experience, Public Schools, School Security, Social Media, Social Media, Teaching /

You can't say thatAccounts of recent separations of news personalities from their employers remind me of a time my boss told me,

“You can’t say that.”

Years ago, on a hot sunny mid-day, our high school was evacuated over a threat. One of my thoughts at the time was wondering what was going through the minds of those stopped in traffic as 1500+ students, teachers, and staff crossed the state highway en masse. After accounting for all the students who left class, we sat in the football stadium bleachers until the end of the school day when busses and parents picked up students from the stadium rather than the high school. The congestion and confusion on that side street was significant.

The afternoon was especially stressful to those who had to work through the safety protocols to ensure students left only with a legal guardian. How do you call the school when the school is evacuated? How and to whom are calls forwarded? And what about student records with parent/guardian names and information in an area without computers and connections? How do they sign out from a remote location? Parents were frustrated as everyone was trying to do the right thing in a setting we had never before experienced. I should note that the communication and information issues of that day were addressed.

My uncovered bald head was significantly sunburned in those nearly three hours. By the time I got home, my head hurt and I was angry, especially after learning all that was the result of one student’s prank. I made an ill-advised comment on personal social media that punishment should include affixing the offender to the schoolyard flag pole and allowing all who spent those 2-3 hours in the stadium sun file by to express thoughts of the experience.

I should not have said that and I deleted the post, but not before someone shared it with the building boss, who called me to his office the next day. With a copy of my post in his hand, he not-quite laughingly said that, although he might feel the same way, “you can’t say that”.

I wasn’t fired.

 

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Loud music in church

Leave a Comment / College Prep, Family, Personal experience, Repost, Teaching Music /

This is one of my favorite pieces I’ve heard at Duke Chapel, played as a postlude as and after the auditorium has emptied at the end of a service.

Click on a pic to enlarge

Organ Symphony No. 5 in F Minor, Op. 42 No. 1: V. Toccata

Best if you listen with your volume turned up. There is a section in the middle that gets so soft you can barely hear it, and then it comes roaring back again. There is a several second reverb after the release of the last chord. Enjoy.

Here is an Easter Service in the Chapel. It begins using the rear organ. You’ll see the keyboard for the front organ during the processional. Be sure to skip to the Postlude if you don’t want to listen to everything in between. Here are some recommended stops to make:

9:46 Introit (Rear Organ)

13:40 Processional Hymn (Both Organs, ending with front organ)

24:00 Antiphon (Choir, organ, ensemble)

1:06:46 Choir (Offertory)

1:22:07 Postlude

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First Place National Trumpet Competition Small Ensemble Division

College Prep, News and Happenings, Respect /

 

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