To borrow from a Facebook status type, my relationship with my dad was “complicated”. I devoted a chapter to him in my “Stories Throughout My Ages” book. Read it HERE: Philip Lawrence Gardner
Happy Birthday Dad 7/20/1927 – 12/14/1996 Read More »
July
One director started his band camp number (upper 30’s), but talked about it being “Day 1” for many members. The start of Band Camp is challenging because, in some ways, it is the hardest part of the season. At Band Camp, when the weather can be bright sunny and super hot, bandsters spend uncomfortable amounts of time learning how to stand up, stand still, hold a horn (the difference between playing position and “to the box”, for example), or when and how to do horns up/down. The questions are; When do you want to have your fun? Pay now or pay later?
Because they are in hot heat so much, marching ensembles must always have water with them.
One challenge at the beginning of Band Camp is to prevent “newbies” from quitting after the first hard, hot, long day of rehearsals.
I tried to have the following conversation with the band on the first rehearsal. On at least one year when I did not, someone quit after rehearsal #1 — so the conversation happened during rehearsal #2.
Veterans, some of you share with us what you think is one of the better parts of marching band? Why do you do this?
Answers might include:
Newbies, I want YOU to notice some things. Every veteran here has been through what you are about to begin. And they all came back. But also, note that all those things mentioned as the best parts of the band happen, mostly, in the Fall….long after Band Camp. And….did you notice that none of the veterans mentioned that camp is their favorite part of marching band? Do you know why?
Because band is hard. Band Camp is hard. Marching Band is hard work. The fun will come, but before the fun you have to pay the price. There is no shortcut. There is no cheap way.
We want to give you some fun times, even during band camp and the summer….but make no mistake, you can either have all your fun now (laugh, talk, put in minimum effort) and pay the price later (bad experiences / results in competition) … or you can pay the price now (hard work) and enjoy the results of your work when you hear the crowds and what the judges have to say.
The fun will come, but only after you pay the price. You’re going to hear from Seniors, Section Leaders, Drum Majors, Staff Members and Directors that you are not doing something right. Listen to them because they know what it is going to take.
For those of you coming from Middle School where you’ve been on the top of the heap, you’re now the Newbie. You need to learn and that can be hard and frustrating.
Do it anyway.
You’ll experience the best parts of marching band, but only after you get through band camp and the summer rehearsals. One day of camp is worth a week’s rehearsals… and by the time you go home at the end of the day you’re going to be exhausted, sweaty, stinky and sore.
Do it anyway.
Don’t go home after your first day and tell your parentals that you can’t do this. There are very few people who really cannot do this, and we can find a job for them too.
You CAN memorize drill, and music, and marching in step because you’re going to march and play every set and phrase hundreds, if not thousands, of times. That is the price.
I’m going to ask you to stay — and pay.
Stay — and play.
Stay — and work hard, and pay day will come.
And now….let’s go to work and get better than you were yesterday.
All first-year participants in Marching Band are Newbies. Consider the terms rookie, freshman, and newbie to be interchangeable. The following is an abbreviated marching band Freshman and Newbie Survival Guide.
The biggest challenge is for newbies to grasp the concept. Some come to us after being big, bossy 8th graders in Middle School…and now they are….rookies, with little to no marching band experience and at the bottom of the chain-of-command.
In some cases, there may be a freshman who is musically more proficient than an upperclassman, but the one thing freshmen and newbies don’t have is experience. You need to listen and learn and experience Marching Band.
Some advice for newbies to enhance their rookie year experience:
When do you want to have your fun? Read More »
This info about my grandmother is from her ancestry file. A couple of things to note. Her father spelled his name Phillip (2 L’s), but she named her son Philip with only one. Not sure why. Also note that she outlived her husband and both her sons before moving in with us. More about her in my “Stories Through My Ages” book. To read more about her CLICK HERE. Warning — there are childhood pics of ME in the story.
This is her engagement picture at age 18.
Happy Birthday Grandma Mary 7/18/1906 – 11/13/2004 Read More »
By John Gardner
In my first summer of teaching, I was only 3-4 years older than the seniors in the band. Just before school started we spent a week at Camp Crescendo Band Camp. There were normally 6-10 bands in the camp any given week. Directors were responsible for ensuring all their students were in the proper dorms at the appointed time in the evening. When I would approach the girls’ dorm, they would tease me by calling me ‘dad’.
The ‘dad’ thing continued because they could tell it embarrassed me. It was not disrespectful, in fact, the opposite.
I was concerned that I’d get to school for the first week on the job on site and get called into the office because my students were calling me dad. But no, it seemed to be a “for band’s ears only” kind of thing.
This picture was taken at one of my first parades. With all the fun and games that we had, I do like to point out that they are all in step…..all….of….them.
Band Dad is in step – and so is the band Read More »
Today is the 45th Anniversary for wife Joan and me. Tomorrow is Father’s Day, which was mentioned in today’s podcast from Morning Wire. They mentioned the difficulty of those growing up without a father in the house, especially when it comes to later maintaining a marriage and family. I come from a broken home. So does Joan. We talked about that during college as we had heard the statistics of what sounded like our marriage would be doomed. And yet, here we are. I attribute our 45yr marriage success to three main things.
We were committed Christians and stayed active in the church, raising our family in the church.
Because we both experienced parents divorcing and the devastating effects that has on the children, we were committed to never letting that happen to our children. We were both at nearly every swim meet, baseball game, theater performance and concerts. There were a few times where we had to split because both boys would have something going on at the same time and sometimes in different cities. But we never just sent them off. We were there.
That we spent so much time working together in small office environments, the types of temptations that seem to creep into a lot of marriages were never present in ours. Neither of us ever considered anyone else. In our first three years of marriage, we taught at the same school and shared an office. Later, after John left education, we shared a business office for over two decades at QDP Corporation.
And we never let anyone tell us how to raise our children. We left education to start our family. Joan wanted to be a stay at home mom. My freedom of schedule allowed me to be at almost every t-ball, baseball, swim meet, and concert that either of our sons was in. I’ll never say we did everything right, but our sons are both successful in what they are doing. They have always, as have we, self-sufficient.
Are we experts? No. But ours has been a successful family for 45 years.
Here’s to 50 years and beyond.
I attribute our 45yr marriage success to three main things Read More »
It is Flag Day. Enjoy some quiet, patriotic music…. “America the Beautiful” played on one of the two (this is the 7000 pipes organ) chapel organs at Duke University. Both the organ and the pictures of the inside of the chapel are stunning. There is some crescendo toward the end, but it never opens up the power that is there. Be quiet for 7 minutes and enjoy.
America the Beautiful on Flag Day Read More »
By John Gardner
UPDATE: Be sure to read the parent comments at the end of this article.
Over a decade after high school graduation, he told his parents he was bullied as a high school freshman, not telling them at the time because he feared they’d make a big deal of it.
He DID go to a teacher who ignored or brushed aside his emotional plea. In his valedictorian speech at graduation three years later, when he listed the “Top 10 Things I Learned in High School”, one of them was…..
“….that my head really does fit in a gym locker.”
Still no response. This was before all the more recent publicity of the terribly negative lifetime impact that bullying can have….but
…there is no excuse for inaction. EVER!
Fortunately, this story doesn’t end tragically…. but that doesn’t make it right.
Bullying, Band and Best Practices Read More »
My wife posted on her social media this story about young guys with goals, initiative, and work ethic. People were amazed. Impressed, yes….but wasn’t there a time when this was more the norm?
A couple of young boys (pre-teen, perhaps early teen) asked me for a drink of water yesterday. They had been raking the next door neighbor’s yard and saw me out working in mine. They then asked if I had any work they could do. They were trying to raise money to buy their mother a birthday present. I had been planning on expanding my canna bed this year, so I put them to work. The orange handle shows where the edge of the bed had been. I still have some cleaning out to do, but you can see they did a nice job of getting the edge even, and they shook the dirt out of the pieces they dug up and placed the grass clods in lawn bags for me. I was very impressed by their work ethic and their willingness to work for something they wanted. They had a goal in mind and intended to work until they reached it.
Young guys with goals, initiative, and work ethic Read More »
By John Gardner
For a short time during my earliest teen years, without concern about walking to and into his home, I studied piano with a single guy who lived a few blocks away. During high school freshman year, I took lessons with a college girl who came to our school and went with me into a sound-proofed practice room. Later in high school, I would travel weekly to an area band director’s home for instruction. Concerns about safety transparency and reputation never came up.
But times are different now. Priests, coaches, and teachers are convicted of having inappropriate relationships with children and students, creating a sensitive and suspicious society that dissuades good teachers and students from participating in the time-tested tradition of individualized instruction.
The concept of innocent until proven guilty does not apply. No one can afford even an accusation. A School of Performing Arts that provides private lessons for area children put windows in all the classroom doors, instituted a parental sign-in/out procedure, and has a staff member walk in on every lesson every time. Band directors schedule lessons in busy offices or in large ensemble rooms full of distractions. College students video lessons with middle/high school students, not only for critique but also for security.
One band director told me that
…you don’t have to be guilty….an accusation can destroy a reputation and/or cost your job. And unfortunately, even after proven innocent, the doubts, questions and hesitations can continue to damage a reputation that took decades to build. Teachers have to be soooo careful.
The very nature of individualized music instruction almost mandates that student and teacher be alone in a room with a closed door. How do we take the legitimate safety concerns that student, parent, and teacher share along with the teacher’s concern for reputation (and employment) and still provide specialized, accelerated training?
TEACHERS…
PARENTS…
STUDENTS…
Sometimes there is a drop off in parental involvement and in student/parent communication during high school. Teens want more responsibility and independence and both parent and teacher should strive to help them in those areas. Assumptions often cause problems, however, and most issues I’ve ever experienced in the triangular relationship with parent and student elevate because somebody “assumed”. Several years ago, I gave each of my business office employees a personalized, engraved magnet that said, simply:
Assume Nothing!
TEACHERS…provide a list of expectations and policies.
Students and parents need to realize how important that is to the teacher, especially when their very livelihood depends on it. Younger or single teachers need to be hyper-aware, but no one is too old, fat, bald or ugly for legitimate concern and caution.
Without an element of TRUST, this simply cannot work. Hopefully, the teacher has ‘earned’ some trust from both the student and the parental. It is unfortunate that we hear via national news when trust has been abused. That is horrible. But it is also a very, VERY small percentage of people. My advice to all…. in a nutshell:
Be Aware & Take Care!
Thanks for reading.
Safety, Transparency and Reputation when Coaching Students Read More »
