I attended a sixth grade band concert Tuesday night – the first and last time this year that these brand-new instrumentalists could share music with an audience.
My friend, the band director Ms. Kilgore, did a wonderful job teaching the students. And she did two things in the concert that I think I should get better at.
First, she took time to demonstrate the growth of the students. She had them play scales and warmups to demonstrate the kind of things they are learning on a day-to-day basis. As a fellow music educator, I anticipated and understood, but it was a great reminder for me and lesson for the other parents to hear the work they had done in skills development.
Second, she took lots of time to give a narrative to their year. She took at least five minutes to describe the weeks on Zoom, the classes held in tents and the cafeteria, the travails of this most difficult year. Even though we all lived through it, too, it helped to really gain some serious perspective on the year we just lived, and the impact it had on music education. It made it all the more remarkable to see the end product the band created.
Scales and narrative. How much time do you spend on these two topics in your concerts?