Quarter Two Week Two

This week we've started working on what will become standard warmups for the students as they progress through middle and high school band.  These exercises are on page 40, and comprise of slurs, lip slurs, and scales.  We have played through exercise 41 in the book, and are beginning to work on some Christmas selections for the winter concert.

Quarter Two Week One

This Friday the marching band is going to Indianapolis to perform at Lucas Oil Stadium for the Bands of America Super Regional.  We will leave from school at 8:30 and return by 3.  Field trip forms have been handed out for this and are due by Wednesday.

This week we continued to work through the beginning method book.  We went over numbers 30-40 in the book.  We learned about and discussed time signatures, key signatures, and ties.  We also discussed briefly some music history on Beethoven, Russia and Ukraine to go along with playing #39 - Russian Folk Song.

Quarter One Week Eight

This week we have continued to prepare for our upcoming contest this Tuesday, October 7th at 7:00 pm.  It will be outside of the middle school, weather permitting.  The beginning band has been practicing hard and working on a number of selections from their beginning books that they will play for the concert.

Quarter One Week Seven

This week we reviewed pages 8, 9, and 10 in the book.  We took a playing quiz on #12 Cuckoo on Thursday, which overall went very well.  We learned numbers 19-34 in the book, and will be performing a selection of them at our upcoming concert.

REMINDER - We have a concert next Tuesday - October 7th, at 7:00pm.  It will take place on the steps outside of the the middle school main entrance.  Please bring lawn chairs and/or blankets to sit on.
The beginning band will stay after school on that Tuesday so that we can rehearse both the beginning classes together.  The rehearsal will be from 3:45-6:00pm. The Band Boosters will offer pizza and a drink to any students that would like them after the rehearsal and before the concert.  The cost for this will be $5 for two slices of pizza and a drink.  An order form for this will be going home next week.

This week we took the Selmer Music Guidance Survey to get a baseline level for musical aptitude. Members took a quiz on the parts of their instruments and maintenance procedures. We will be using that information later to check on the progress of our members. We have been focusing on pages 7 and 8 in the book. We've reviewed half notes, have done some echoing (teacher plays, students mimic), and learned about quarter notes.

Next week we will be having a playing test on #12 Cuckoo on Thursday.
The marching band will have a community performance of this year's show on Saturday, September 20th at 11:00am at the OVHS Football stadium. Come a check it out before the Apple Butter parade!

Quarter One Week Two

This week we continued to work on learning the parts of our instrument. We also started to discuss maintaining our instrument using oils and greases. Everyone has a list of supplies that they should obtain for taking care of their instrument. We made sounds on mouthpieces to reinforce good tone and learned how to put together and hold our instruments. Finally we started to learn our first few notes. I've told the students that if they have their paper work in, that they will be able to take their instruments home for the first time on Friday, August 29th!

Quarter One Week One

Welcome to the Owen Valley Band. This week we passed out information about our program, discussed classroom expectations, and assigned instruments and storage lockers. Musically, we discussed the parts of our instrument and learned about rhythms.