Hello Friends,

Had a dear friend ask a couple of weeks ago how I write my ‘love letters to my future self’ (to try to only make mistakes once - if you want to see the whole thing, I’ll drop it below the signature).  

I do two things to help cement those ideas to future me:

1. I write a real email to myself and schedule send it for about 49 weeks in the future. 😂

   1. Ok…I know this is an inefficient way (see bullet 2), but I find it cathartic and amusing on both the writing and receiving ends.  Sometimes I copy the staff so they can a) see how weird I really am, and b) help my future self not forget.

2. We keep a GSheet of all major and minor projects - I call it the Annual Timeline (spent quite a bit of time workshopping that one).  While this is the real, long-term solution, #1 helps get my attention next year and ensure something happens.

Hello Friends,

After working the last 26 of 31 days, most would struggle with the ‘why’ behind providing live music at graduation, but I love it.  Full disclosure: My amazing colleagues handled Grad Band this year, so I could focus on announcing the first 395 graduates. (What can I say…I’m a glutton for punishment).  Not only is graduation band an exciting opportunity to stand with our graduates one last time, it is a subtle way of remaining relevant.  We must remain forever vigilant about remaining relevant to the broader community.  While it is certainly ‘one more ask’ after a marathon of May, the truth is that most of our community has no idea what our day-to-day is like; they just know when we’re not there.  In a world where sending an mp3 is the simple solution, we must guard against exchanging relevance for convenience. 

Thanks for your continued support of the weekly email - if you’ll indulge me, I plan to just muse regularly based on what's on my mind during the summer as opposed to specific in/out of the classroom ideas.  

What I’m thinking about this week: QUIT

As a rule, public school teachers are set on hyperdrive and always moving at 1,000 mph.  Personally, I’m wound so tight that I make coffee nervous. ;) When summer finally arrives (a couple more weeks for me), I struggle to shut it down.  If I’m not careful, I find myself tossing and turning in every ‘free’ moment thinking about all the things I should have done or need to do, and before I know it, school is back in session, and I’m already stressed!

While my job is way more fun than working, I have to remind myself that it is OK to quit. 

In the classroom - Shut My Mouth: The last week of school brings a myriad of emotions and a significant number of logistical challenges.  Couple that with an environment where both students (and some staff) have a casual (at best) relationship with school expectations, and things are bound to get weird.  Even the best kids can push our buttons. 

More often than I’d like to admit, the first thing I want to say is NOT the last thing I want them to remember about me or their experience in our program.  

Here is a quick Sunday night musing about what I’m focusing on this week.

In the classroom - a Commercial Success: Our final concert is Tuesday night.  We’re playing a lot of new music and (like always) we could certainly use a few more rehearsals.  For years, I would get extremely stressed and (more often than I’d like to admit) I would take it out on the ensemble.  We could play easier rep, and it would certainly be tighter, but I’d rather do it this way.  

A colleague once taught me that we’re not searching for a squeaky clean performance this week, but rather a Commercial Success.  If the kids and their families leave on Tuesday night humming a tune or two, with big smiles on their faces from the moving experience of a night of inspired music-making, then we’ve won.  Will there be a couple of moments that don’t live up to my expectations?  Could be, but the cost of getting it there isn’t worth it to me anymore.  

Please don’t misunderstand;

In the classroom - Varied Fundamentals: In a continued effort to embrace the chaos that the end of the year brings, I try to vary the fundamental activities multiple times a week to test out new concepts for possible future use and attempt to keep kids from ‘going on auto pilot.’  

Here are a couple I’ve used recently:

• Long tone exercises based around a new tonic - try Bb or Eb instead of F for a change

• Flow studies utilizing flutter articulation - flutter a flow study at the softest volume you can control a resonant sound then after a couple of reps, return to ‘straight’ tone and see if there is a more open/resonate core to their sound

• As & Bs / Odds & Evens: break the group into two segments and have them do call and response or handoffs of phrases

Behind the scenes - Sometimes I don’t want to…