Beyond the Boundaries

Going past self-imposed mental boundaries can be more difficult than physical boundaries.

And we are off to a new year!

“Hey Dan, guess what?”

“What?”

“You are going to retire from the fire department, and move to Florida with the desire to play your trumpet full time, but, instead of playing your trumpet full time, you are going to be teaching middle school band full time. Pretty cool huh?” “Yeah, pretty cool. I mean, if I had to teach, I would much rather teach middle school than any other grade.”

“That’s cool because that is what you are going to be doing. Guess what else?”

“Ummm, what?”

“You are going to have over 80 beginning band students. They will have no band experience and will be broken up into 6th, 7th, and 8th grade bands.”

“Okay, I am up for that challenge. It will be a good way to start them right and I will only have myself to blame if something is taught wrong. I will have them ready to play a winter concert and a spring concert.”

“Did I mention that your music library will have music that is in complete chaos and every piece of music, with a few exceptions, will be too advanced for beginners? Also, the pieces of music that would be playable for beginners will only have parts for the Eb clarinet, alto clarinet, and Baritone TC.”

“I will do what I have to do.”

I never thought that doing what I had to do would include arranging and writing all of the music for the winter concert. In all honesty, I didn’t have to arrange and write all of the music. I could have had all three bands play exercises out of the Essential Elements Book for the concert. That may have worked if I had one beginning band, but, all three bands were beginners.

The school day consists of 5 classes. I teach 8th-grade first period, Prep second, 7th-grade third period, 7th-grade fourth period, and 6th-grade 5th period. It was a little challenging rehearsing two 7th grade band classes for a combined 7th grade band for the concert, but, they did very well as a combined group. The day after I accepted the position as band director I decided to start organizing the music library before I began an instrument inventory. Once I dove into the music, I soon realized none of the music was in score order, had been cataloged, or updated with new charts in several years.

Fortunately, I enjoy sorting, organizing, and creating processes so things will run efficiently.

I located every piece of music I could find and began the task of creating a working music catalog.

During the sorting of secondary-level sheets of scores, I made a list of possible tunes we would be able to play in our winter concert and later at the spring concert.

When the school year started, I realized very quickly that I had total beginners in all three grades. Only 7 students, in total, had any music experience. Zero of the other 80-ish students signed up for the band class. I was surprised when I asked the students to raise their hands if they had signed up for band 5 hands raised in the 8th-grade class and only 1 hand raised in each of the two 7th-grade classes. I realized, very quickly, that my list of possible tunes for the bands would need to be put on the back burner. I also realized that I would need to start all of the bands at the beginning of a beginning band method book. Another thing I realized was, that there is no one I can blame, other than myself if the students did not learn how to play their instruments, read music, and perform with proper concert etiquette.

The school year started, and the grunting, moaning, squeaking, squawking, banging, dropping, and breaking of the musical instruments began. Teaching middle school students is a blast. I enjoy teaching that age of students. They are at the age where they need clear boundaries yet enough leniency when they do something stupid that they receive the proper punishment, correction, and grace. Grace is so important in my opinion. Sometimes the students have no idea why they did or said what they did or said. Many times they do, but there are always the sometimes’s.

Anyway, back to the music.

When I taught middle school band, over 23 years ago, I had never thought about including exercises from the band method book as part of the winter concert. Instead, sheet music was presented and the band method lessons were continued and incorporated into learning the new sheet music.

I have seen quite a few directors have their beginning band play band method exercises on their winter concert program. I will admit that I thought about doing that for the winter concert but soon realized that all of my bands were beginning bands. I also noticed that there was a distinct level of playing ability.

The 8th grade band started pulling away from the other bands. Even though the 5 students had prior musical knowledge in the 8th-grade band, they had very minimal knowledge of how to read music. The two 7th-grade band classes began to improve a little faster than the 6th-grade band, so, in my mind, age and maturity can play a role in learning.

The 6th grade band was learning at their own pace and they seemed to be hungry to learn more. So, by the time I began compiling ideas for the winter concert, the 6th-grade band was almost a month past playing hot cross buns and other concert repertoire that is used for a concert out of the band method book. They were tweeners to the extreme. The band method music was too easy for them to spend another month of rehearsal and the sheet music in the library was too difficult for them to be able to have a good experience at their first concert. They were stuck in between too easy and too difficult.

I decided to do what any band director has zero time, zero experience, and zero copywriting permission to do. I started writing music for the bands.

A could of the pieces were arrangements of tunes that were public domain. Other pieces were original pieces that consisted of rhythms with a simple melody. We added jungle bells to them and I told the students that they had to name the pieces. I also informed them that they were going to perform world premiers of new pieces written specifically for them.

They were not impressed with the world premier concept, but, naming the pieces was taken as a serious matter.

The names they chose were Desoto December, Snowman, and Hot Cocoa. A few of the most valuable lessons I learned when I began my career with the fire department were, don’t express emotions, don’t let them know if someone or something means something special to you, and never let your crew mates know you play music professionally. Except if you learned how to play guitar off of YouTube then you are the best guitar player in the world in their eyes.

Anyway, I almost allowed the 7th grade band to see me care about something. That would have been a disaster. If any of my firefighter brothers or sisters read this blog, let me warn you that middle school kids are almost as ruthless as those in the firehouse. Middle school kids are awesome!

Since the 7th-grade band consists of two separate classes that consist of 24 or 25 students each, it was the band that had full instrumentation. So, I decided to write an original composition for the band that would incorporate rhythms, notes, and timbre I wanted them to work through to play the music.

Needless to say, I ended up falling in love with the sounds I created. The music sounded so much better coming out of beginning middle school students, with wrong notes, bad intonation, and unintended hemiolas being played in a 4/4 piece than it was out of my computer.

Remember, all of the students in the 7th grade band were beginners except two. One of the baritone players, a very beginner, was excelling at note reading, sound, and range. The more we worked out of the method book in class, the more he improved. I had started writing the composition and had completed the opening “fanfare” section when I had a single-line melody continually buzzed through my brain. I could hear it being performed by a baritone, bassoon, or baritone singer. So, I pulled the student aside and told him that I was writing a piece of music for the winter concert and would like for him to play a solo.

“Would you be interested?”, I asked, “I will guarantee you that you will be able to play it well by the time we reach the concert date.”

“Sure,” he replied without hesitation, “You want me to play it today?”

I knew, at that point, he was going to play that solo and make it his own. And he did. Bravo, Abel, I am proud of you.

Getting back to the intent of this writing.

I had told the students that they would name the composition. Some of the names were very thoughtful and really cool.

Christmas Mist

Snow Dust

Christmas Morning

I really, really, really, like the title, Christmas Mist.

When the voting ended, the majority of the students chose, “Hot Cocoa”.

“Christmas Mist” was a close second, but, when a group of middle school boys decide to unify and choose something, other students comply because they want to be a part of the, “cool crowd”.

Let me be clear, there was no bullying, coercing, or any other type of strong-arm tactics that made the other students choose the name of the tune. I stood by and watched students place self-imposed peer pressure upon themselves. It was a sad situation and I addressed it to the class afterward. I told them to be strong in their decisions and not follow the trends of others if they desire something else. On that day, at that time, and in those classes, my declaration of wise counsel fell upon deaf ears. However, there is the chance that one or more of the students will remember to stand up for themselves, their convictions, and the student’s decisions later in life because I planted that seed. They may not remember where they were encouraged to do so, but, maybe they will go against the flow when they had no desire to test the current.

Naming my grand masterpiece composition, Hot Cocoa had been a huge surprise and a bit of a disappointment to me. Well, being a realist, I do know that the composition is not a grand masterpiece and the students taking ownership in naming the piece was not a disappointment.

But, I didn’t like the name, “Hot Cocoa.”

The concert day was approaching and the students were prepared to wow the audience. I was pleased with their progress and excited for them to show the school, parents, and themselves that they were able to essentially learn a new language, how to communicate with that language, and how to manipulate an instrument to speak that language in a way that would be pleasing to the ear. I pointed out to the audience and students that all of this was accomplished in approximately three months.

But, I didn’t like the name, “Hot Cocoa.”

Abel played the baritone solo very well and all three bands played a fantastic concert. The next day in the band classes the students turned the music in so it could get filed away and we had a short discussion about the concert. They were happy with the performance and admitted that they were a lot less nervous or anxious than they anticipated. Some of the students asked about the spring concert and what music they were going to play.

But, I didn’t like the name, “Hot Cocoa.”

Post-concert days consisted of students getting their instruments out and playing the concert music by memory as they returned to their seats, introducing another scale, and teaching lip slurs, fingering techniques, and rudiments. Post-concert days included searching through the music library to find sight-reading music as well as possible tunes for the spring concert. Post-concert days also included me not liking the name, “Hot Cocoa” so much that I decided to rewrite the composition and give it a new name.

Let me be clear.

“Hot Cocoa” is the name of the composition the 7th grade band played and it is in the music library. However, I decided to use the skeleton of the composition and create a piece of music that I could go beyond the boundaries of middle school beginning band and give it a name that I wanted.

I decided to name the composition Beyond the Boundaries and have realized, just like the students who could not break free from their self-imposed peer pressure, I had a difficult time breaking through my self-imposed boundaries. The composition is a work in progress and is approximately 85%-87% complete.

The self-imposed boundaries account for the 15%-13% of the unfinished composition.

What are some of the boundaries, you may ask? I am not writing for a middle school band. I am not limited by rhythms, notes, and range. I am not limited by dynamics Even though I have a couple of bands in mind that I would like to hear play my composition, I am not writing it for a specific band, so, I can write things past the limitations of those groups.

I had Fernando 1 take a look at my new composition and sat next to him as he critiqued and gave suggestions. I highly recommend everyone have someone, you trust, that can sit next to you and give you critiques and suggestions. I have died to myself and have had my wife and my friend Greg critique me and give me suggestions. Once again, I highly recommend you do that with people you trust. Fernando 1 is a musical genius and we ended up spending 5 hours talking, editing, and creating music. It was an incredible time and it felt like we had only been working on it for 30 minutes.

Through his encouragement and critique, I have been able to go beyond my boundaries and write the music I hear in my head. I can write the parts for the instruments I want to hear play the music rather than what instruments I have available. It is a fun process and has become a great escape from reality at times. As a realist, I know my composition will not be desired by concert bands all over the world. I know that I am no Tyler Arcari, Randall Standridge, Carol Brittin-Chambers, or a myriad of marvelous magical music makers.

But, a small spark that began as a desire to make sure my middle school band students get to experience making music, performing a concert, learning a new way to express themselves, and forgetting about life for a while, has ignited a small fire of creativity in me that I am willing to feed fuel into and fan the flames see how big this fire will grow.

I am pushing past boundaries in my trumpet playing, my teaching, and writing (both words and music) and it is a lot of fun. So, using the fire tetrahedron that I learned back in fire school, I will encourage this fire to grow and refine my art and creativity.

Here’s to going Beyond the Boundaries in 2024.