Critical listening and the ability to give answers in an educated way is learned through music.
“I love this song! It’s an oldie and I listen to it with my dad!”
In my new life as a Middle School Band Director, I try to look at the positive and stay away from negativity. However, when one of my students calls “Don’t Stop Belivin’” by Journey an Oldie, the klaxons in my head begin to sound and the desire to defensively reply, “I am not old and Don’t Stop Belivin’ isn’t an Oldie!”
Instead, I stop and realize that my student’s parents are close to my own children’s ages and they grew up listening to the song with their parents. Therefore, I am old but, I will not agree that anything from Journey, Queen, REO, Styxx, VanHalen, or a myriad of ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s music could be considered Oldies.
For those of you who have no clue who I am or why you have decided to read my writing, I will take a few minutes to introduce myself.
I went to Indiana State University on a music scholarship and decided to study music education. I enjoyed studying and learning new things about music, but, my real love was playing my trumpet. While attending college, I had the opportunity to play my trumpet in every ensemble that needed a willing trumpet player.
The lessons I learned about style, articulation, and overall execution of a piece of music were invaluable. Plus, it was a blast! My desire, going into college, was to get my music education degree and then become a studio player. The ed degree was going to be my fallback career.
Little did I know at the time, that the plans we make for our future can either change instantly or so slowly we hardly notice.
Something I did notice was, I enjoyed and did a pretty good job teaching middle school kids. The messed-up munchkins mulling a myriad of mundane musings were the kinds of kids I wanted to teach.
By the way, if this is the first time you are reading one of my blogs, you need to get used to seeing at least one alliterative sentence.
After graduating with my music ed degree, I accepted a teaching job in Texas. I was the middle and high school band director. It was a great learning experience and I had some fantastic students.
My next teaching adventure took me to LaPorte, Indiana. We had a family illness that brought us back home again in Indiana and I became the general music teacher at the two middle schools in LaPorte. I was also assisting with the Marching band and was able to help out with the high school jazz band too.
Once again, I enjoyed the students, had a great learning experience, and really enjoyed working with the high school directors.
The last Indiana teaching experience I had was as a middle school assistant band director in the Indianapolis area. I had mentioned in a previous blog that the head band director was amazing and I still believe she was one of the best middle school band directors in the business.
After teaching in Indianapolis for three years, I switched careers and became a career firefighter. I still enjoyed teaching, but, the pull to become a firefighter was stronger than my pull to teach.
I played my trumpet the entire time I taught and also during my time in the fire department. The desire to play my horn never left me and the passion to play grew exponentially.
Approximately two years ago, I retired from the fire department. My family and I decided that moving to Florida, a life-long dream, was where we were going to live after I retired.
Here we are in Florida, our paradise on earth. We have survived 3 hurricanes, one being Ian, as well as love bugs, and understanding that we have two seasons. Wet season and dry season.
We love it here.
Last year I introduced myself to the high school band director, Fernando Frank…aka Fernando Band…aka F 1. (You will need to read a former blog to understand all of that)
Fernando introduced me to the High School Principal, Dr. White…Aka Fernando 4, who in turn introduced me to the job of being a music teacher once again. I taught guitar, ukulele, and general music for the first semester at the high school. I enjoyed teaching some great kids, but, I decided I needed to stop teaching so I could see what it would feel like to be someone that is retired. I also had auditions as well as rehearsals in groups that would take place during the school day.
One morning, this past summer, I received a phone call. I looked at my phone and the caller ID said, Dr. White.
I answered and soon thereafter was told that the middle school band director left and I was asked if I was interested in filling the position.
“Awww man,” I whined, “I have no idea what it feels like to be retired. You know what, if I take the position, I will be able to make sure the kids read music and experience what it feels like to be in a real band class. Sure, I am interested, but, I hope they are ready for me.”
About 30 minutes later I was meeting with the middle school principal, was offered the job, and was told that he had a few wishes he hoped I would fulfill.
His wishes were, “It would be great if they played instruments and if you could get them to play a concert this year.”
There were times in my life when I would have felt the need to tell him all of my goals and expectations. My desire to prove that I could do the job and exceed the previous director’s level of performance was no longer a priority. I simply stated, “Well, you will be very happy with me. I will guarantee that we will be playing instruments within the second week of school and we will have a winter concert as well as a spring concert.
He just looked at me and asked if I was serious. “I don’t remember the last time we had a concert.” He said.
Needless to say, after consulting with the high school band director about the date of their winter concert, I was able to schedule our winter concert and had the students blatting sounds through their bells by the second week of school.
They had no idea what they were doing when they hired a former middle school band director, a retired firefighter with over 22 years of experience seeing people at their worst, a trumpet player who is looking for gigs and willing to go on tour, with an attitude of you don’t pull kids out of band class to work on other classes because band is not the reason they are failing those classes and if you pull them out of band, they will then fail band and hate you because you have taken something away from them that they love.
So, here I am teaching middle school band for a while and having a blast watching middle school kids discover music.
It has been 23 years since I taught middle school band. The only difference I have noticed from being out of the classroom for over two decades is, um, well, errrrrr, in all honesty, I haven’t really noticed any differences.
Kids are still kids and have a lot of the same pressures and challenges they did 20, 25, and 30 years ago.
I guess there is one difference I have noticed. Social media. In the days before social media, kids were still emotional and had issues, but, they didn’t plaster it on social media. In my opinion, (remember, I can have it because this is my blog) when people expose their insecurities, opinions, and thoughts on the internet, the potential to be soothed, ignored, or bullied grows exponentially.
When middle school kids post on social media, they often receive a barrage of comments, many of which are made by people who couldn’t care less if they are being mean and hurting the individual who posted. Actually, it is the same for adults.
Think about that for a second. The way many adults respond to posts and comments on social media is embarrassing and childish. If adults refuse to show restraint in what they post or ignore the trolling buzzards that vomit their vitriol at people they barely know, how could we expect middle school kids to act differently? Middle school kids are experiencing a time in their lives where they are between being kids, and young adults, while still having the desire to be little children.
One of the best things that has happened is that students are not allowed to have their phones with them. They are not tempted to be distracted and do not have the influence of social media during class.
Hearing criticism about yourself or about something you do can be educational or detrimental. It all depends on your mindset. Learning how to listen to someone who may give constructive criticism could help propel you to greater heights than you could have ever imagined. However, if you decide to listen to those who criticize you in a mean and destructive manner could fester inside of you and drain your desire to achieve greatness.
In our school district we do something that is called, bell work. It is part of the lesson plan template from Marzano.
Bell work is to be done as the students enter and before class starts. Bell work in my band program consists of a listening exercise I call, “Love It, It’s Okay, Throw It Away.”
I came up with the idea of Love it, It’s okay, Throw it away while I was teaching general music in LaPorte, Indiana. I came up with the idea in order to see how the students reacted to different types of music.
Love it, It’s okay, Throw it away was experienced three times a year. Before Thanksgiving break, after the students returned from winter break, and after spring break. I found they had gained a little more respect for, “boring band music with no words”, throughout the year.
The students would rank their opinion of the music with a thumbs up if they loved it, a thumbs sideways if they thought it was okay, and a thumbs down if I should throw it away. I would ask a few of them why they ranked the music the way they did and would get answers like, “It was cool, it was okay, or it sucked.”
Now, over 2 decades later, Love it, It’s okay, Throw it away is completed every class period and is used as a critical listening and writing exercise.
Each student is given a simple pocket folder with a few sheets of lined paper.
They are to remain quiet as I play either an excerpt or piece of music, depending on the length of the music, through the sound system.
Once the music stops, they write down a 3 if they loved it, 2 if they thought it was okay, and 1 if I should throw the music away. Then, they have to write down why. The reason why they ranked it the way they did could be a few words to a sentence or two.
After they finish writing, I ask, “How many of you gave it a 3?” Hands raise and then I ask, “Who would like to say why you gave it a 3?” There are usually 2-3 students that want to answer. I then proceed to 2 and then 1.
The parameters I established for their answers are, “You cannot just say I love it if you gave it a 3 and you cannot say it is stupid or it sucks if you gave it a 1.” I require them to give the reasons why with answers by thinking and listening critically.
If a student gives the piece of music a 2, they have to say what they liked and didn’t like about the music.
One of my favorite answers a student gave happened on 9/11. I decided to play, “Summon the Heroes” by John Williams. When I asked the people who gave it a 3 to raise their hands, about 3/4 of the students in my 6th-grade band shot their hands in the air. About 3 students kept their hands in the air when I asked if they would like to give their reason why they loved it.
Justin said, “I liked how it sounded memorable. Plus it reminded me of Star Wars and Indiana Jones combined.”
The dude blew my mind, because, after discussing the reasons why they ranked the music the way they did, I asked them if they knew the artist, composer, or the name of the music. None of the kids knew who it was and none of them knew the name of John Williams or that he wrote all of that music.
Justin knows how to listen to music and express his thoughts very well.
Another part of Love it, It’s okay, Throw it away that I emphasize is that when we give our opinion, not everyone will agree and that is okay. We can have different opinions about something with the person next to us and still get along. Plus, we are learning to express our opinions in an educated way.
The assistant Principal entered my classroom for a walkthrough observation this past week in the middle of the music playing for Love it, It’s Okay, Throw it Away. He told me it was good to see that they wrote down and verbally expressed their opinions and no one got upset with one another.
The entire process only takes about 5 minutes and it is a good way to wrangle the students in and get them thinking about music.
On a few occasions, I will take more time to do this listening and show a video too. My favorite example of this was when I played, “Hand in Hand” by Phil Collins.
By the way, I have always had the desire to play in a horn section for Phil Collins so I could play all of his great horn charts.
Back to the listening in class.
After the students gave their rankings, a lot of them gave “Hand in Hand” a 2. I decided to show them the live version during the, “No Jacket Required” concert. After I shut the video off, about 3/4 of the student raised their hands and said they wanted to change their number to 3.
I let them know that they can change it to whatever they want just as long as they have a reason.
The music I choose varies in genre, style, and performers. I always finish by telling them the name of the music and the artist, just in case they enjoy it and want to discover more of their music.
Some examples they have listened to this year are:
Rush Tom Sawyer Beach Boys Sloop John B Phil Collins Hand in Hand DCI 2022 Blue Devils highlights Beatles Penny Lane Johan DeMaij Mvt1 Lord of the Rings (President’s own performance) Bob Marley Three Little Birds Harry Connick jr Blue Light, Red Light John Williams Summon the Heroes Johnny Clegg Dela Queen One Vision Stevie Wonder Sir Duke Tokyo Kosei Super Mario Bros
It is fun to watch their expressions and body movements when some of the tunes start. It is also interesting watching them have no reaction when I think the music would impact them.
Hopefully, the students will remember to think critically and speak intellectually in the world outside of band after they complete their years in school. But, while they are still with me, they will be encouraged to listen with a critical ear and speak with knowledge.