Some observations and thoughts about the unit from my perspective as teacher that was interesting to consider:

1) Leaders lead.  I was surprised and impressed by the leadership qualities and skills that were brought out of students in these settings.  During each rehearsal period, I tried to touch base and schedule “face-time” with as many groups as I could while giving them a good session full of feedback.  After providing critiques and visiting with the same group a few days later, many of the adjustments and suggestions were made.  Students took the lead to make adjustments and improve their group’s performance.  Some of the students would have stepped forward because of who they are – others stepped forward because they were given an opportunity.  Assessing all of this, there are plenty of students within the program who need more opportunities to lead.

2) Making musical decisions involves risk and courage.  As often as we may be right in our interpretation, we could be wrong – wrong for the style, wrong for the time, wrong for the setting, wrong for the composer’s intentions.  Artists face incredible risk in making musical decisions in this way, and without courage we end up being mezzo-nothing.  If a quintet of 7^th grade alto saxophones can make musical decisions regarding the articulation and dynamics for a transcription of Schumann’s Soldier’s March, do I have the courage to tap that resource during a rehearsal with the full ensemble? We often say that the performing arts is a venue for students to be creative and interpret music – but who really does the musical interpretation? While it is our responsibility as a trained musician, educator, and leader, perhaps we need the courage to give them opportunities to risk and hear the results.  Having gone through this process, they may better understand our vision for a piece for the ensemble, why we choose to interpret things a certain way, and what might be a better possible alternative to the interpretation in front of them.

3) Building relationships takes time and trust. Sitting down with groups of 4-7 students at a time allows for more individual attention and differentiated instruction, and afforded me the opportunity to build a student to teacher relationship that is based upon mutual respect, common goals (improve as a musician), and esprit de corp among the students.  The hardest thing about being successful? That’s easy – keep being successful.  The more success a program and their director experience, the harder it sometimes becomes to maintain a good, open relationship.  The bar is continually raised.  We have more demands on our time.  We have more pressure on the students, the ensemble, and on ourselves.  I have enjoyed these past weeks for the connections I was able to make with the students musically and socially.  I believe we are in a better place now in terms of our trust, communication, and vision for improvement.

4) Chamber music opens doors for musical opportunities.  The program of music was very diverse in terms of style and time period.  It was interesting to hear the transcriptions of Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical music played by a 20^th century group.  The classical tradition was kept alive through the study of this music – and at the end of the day, that is not a bad thing at all.  The beauty of this ensemble is that while it connects these kids to music of a time period from the past, it can also connect them to musical opportunities involving ANY musical time period.  The make-up of the ensembles didn’t necessarily matter – the connection to different music does. The next step in this evolution is for us to seek more music of different styles that students can make a connection with and present for public performance.  Maybe they cannot see themselves playing in a large ensemble past high school, but small ensembles are more realistic for students to envision how they might look as a future musician.

 More to come in the weeks ahead as the students complete the survey and I compile data.  My thanks to many of you who have sent Tweets, emails, and comments of support for this endeavor.

Another guy that has really given me a shot in the arm of late is Drew Fennell.  Many thanks again to Drew who this afternoon debuted “Shine!” with the Carnegie Mellon Pre-College Summer Wind Ensemble!!! My respect and appreciation for Drew as a musician, conductor, and composer continues to grow.  The performance was great, and I really appreciate those students bringing this music to life!!!  Bump on over to myspace and check out the live recording from the July 18th concert – it even still has that new recording smell to it…I think!

More to come in the months ahead, so stay tuned! And if not, Korg makes a very affordable model (that’s free advertising you can’t buy anywhere!)….