^^^thursdays are a day i like ahving stuff after school, because there's only one day coming up to have homework you MUST get done for.
and if i plan ahead, i can make sure i have no homework to do thursday night due to block scheduling, with half the classes each day. but that might not work so well for you if you have normal scheduling.

Welcome to "leave no child behind" unless your a music student. For a long time politicians have wanted to remove music from public education and they are slowly succeding unless you the younger generation start getting vocal and involved on this matter.

When I was in high school, we were having a similar problem. Depending on how large your school is, this could possibly work. What happened was that since our student population was only about 400, almost all of the band students threatened to leave the school and go to a neighboring community's public school. That made up enough of a percentage of the student body that it would have cost the school so much money that they were forced to start taking their music programs seriously. Since then, it has drastically improved.

I can honestly say I hate our music programs at my school. I'm in the jazz band (which is the top band) and it's terrible; our teacher has absolutly no spine!! He won't tell us practice, so we never get better!! I can think of two maybe three people (including myself) in the band who take lessons outside of school as well as do other music-related activities. My music teacher wasn't like this in the 1st year (our school is relatively new; this is it's 4th year running).

In the 1st year, the top band was our concert band (which I was in). He made us fill-out practice logs and have our parents sign-off on how long we practiced during that week outside of the class. It was pretty productive. After that year, he lost control of all his classes (band and choir). I got so fed-up that I quit concert band and joined yearbook (which I'm not regretting).

My teacher just got married about a month ago and I'm happy for him, but I'm afraid he's going to be even more of a "weenie" than before. For example, I'm looking to buy a tenor sax and it just so happens that our school's vice-principal is selling one in great condition. My music teacher is supposed to inform my mom about the sax, but we haven't gotten any real information about it (we're not even sure what brand it is). And it's not like this has been going on for a few weeks; this started within the 1st week of June!! I know he was preparing for the wedding, but he's still needs to keep his priorities in line. And though this was not at the top of his list, I think it kinda matters because we have only 1 tenor sax in the jazz band and I'd be the 2nd...

Do you guys have a similar teacher in your band??

my band director is great it is the students who are bad they don't care about band if our directer does something they don't like they all goof off or go tell the principal it is so dumb.he stress a lot on practicing but no noe cares it seems. i practic almost everyday and all the rest of the kids your lucky to get them to do it once a week. There is one kid that is taking private lesson and won't go to the school directer because the band director told him something wrong a few times. the band instructer paly the brass insrtument and he doesn't know everything and the kid acts as if the insructor should. I am so PO at my band they don't care and taknig band to a half hour won't help at all!!!! sorry to say it but i don't thikn our band will sound good at all this year. the thing on a music kids gonig to a different school is a good indea but it wouldn probably be only me and five other kids so it wouldn't matter

The kids are like that in the concert band at my school (another reason why I quit). I mean, some kids brought in wiffle balls and the older kids (who should know better) used the bass drum mallets to hit the balls like in baseball and they used the crash cymbals as bases. One of the older boys wouldn't give a yonger boy his "bat", so the younger boy used his soprano sax instead!! It was chaos!!


I'm really nevous about this year because this kid who really bugs me is going to be in the jazz band. He acts like he's all that and so much better than me at playing, and it really bugs me!! He soooooo obnoxious and thinks he's cool. Anyway, I'm afraid because that's another boy in the alto sax section. Our wenie of a band teacher doesn't assign chair numbers so we bicker over what parts we get. It might just be me, but I'm afraid he'll get the other boys to turn against me because I'm a girl (and, yes, I have had sexist comments from other people against me because I'm a girl). Even though one of the other boys is my good friend and another one is my boyfriend, I don't know what will happen since it will be 4 guys against 1 girl. If he pull any of that stuff with me I'll either quit the band and/or crack his skull against my sax. jk!! But something will be done either way...

Ooh no, Sweetie - don't hit him with your sax! You might damage it. Just give him a swift kick in the you-know-wheres instead. If all else fails, shove a conductor's baton where a conductor's baton ought never to be shoved.

To be blunt that is completely stupified. Our band has a 60-80 min rehearsal everyday. And a 3 hour after school session on certain days. There is no one in heck that 30 min of band will do it. Even the best of the best need more than that. Even if you know your parts perfectly, theres still balence, intunation, and other issues to be dealt with.

AKR~

i said the same thing to me band director he said a they mighgt change it halfway through and B it will change a band. In a good way or a bad way. He thinks it will make them be quite but all i was thinking no way. it is going to be terrible.

EllieM: I've never thought about using a baton...

OMG! THAT'S JUST CRAZY! At my middle school, one period of every grade (7 periods of the same classes every day) is set aside as an elective- band, choir, or "expressive arts". Therefore, band or choir are the same length as math- It's a requied part of the curriculum. Even our semi extracurricular jazz band is from 7:00 to 7:45- and school starts officially at 8:30.

I think you might need a new band instructor, too

our instructer wasn't the one that wanted it it was the choir teacher that wanted choir everyday and stuff like that. She wanted us to have a study hall because a lot of us said we need study hall when that was really all the reason we quit. It was our principal sorry for my spelling and choir teachr that changed it. heckt hey didn't even tell ym mom who works at the school that they were changing school time and stuff so she has having to go in on the weekend and fix things like bus times stuff because she didn't get told this. i think it is stupid.

My band teacher is good, he's a brass player but strongly encourages the woodwind players to take private lessons from an elementary school teacher (who, luckily for me, specializes in clarinet. She's an expert. I went to a summer music program and even the clarinet coach there didn't know half as much as her or play half as good as her). He even took conducting lessons from our high school conductor, just so that we could get better. We have a great music program at our school, but we barely get any time too. We get mondays and wednesdays (about an hour on each) in which a student can go to chorus or band. If the student is in both, they go monday to chorus, and wednesday to band. Luckily, he made us practice A LOT, so much that if we didn't practice one week it would severely affect our grade. Unfortunatly, there were alot of kids who didn't really care about band, but luckily, they quit, so our band sounded awesome. I hope that I can whip the clarinets in our band up to shape.. I'm one of three section leaders for the clarinets this year, and me and one of the other section leaders from the clarinets went to this summer music program, and we can't wait to teach some of the techinques we learned there.

if you took out everyone that hated band you would only have about 6 people. a lot of people say they hate band because our instructer is weird. I think he is cool i have learn a lot from him. Of course i am consider weird too. LOL!!!
i was surprised at how many people responed to this. sorry for my spelling again not really looking if i am spelling it wrong. LOL
jess