Sarah Dodge - School Visit #3

Because of struggles with scheduling on my part, the band director at BHS gave me

permission to come and observe her early morning Jazz Band rehearsal instead of her late

morning piano class. The group rehearses from 7:30am to 8am, which isn’t a long amount of

time, but it’s enough that they get a chance to do some playing and learning in the style. Today

was my first time visiting this particular class, although it was my third time visiting this teacher.

In terms of particular observations of the students, as well as a little context provided by

the teacher, many of the students are enthusiastic about playing jazz. The band director takes

those who want to play, and it is a class that they get credit for, primarily based on attendance

and arriving on time - at this point in time, it isn’t an auditioned group because student interest

hasn’t necessitated it, yet. Two of the four trombone players regularly play euphonium, and a

few of the rhythm section guitarists are primarily singers. However, most people are playing on

their primary instrument. That being said, the playing levels of each student differ within

sections. For example, one of the trombone students struggles with playing in the correct partial,

but plays the rhythms correctly. Some of the trumpet players struggle with tone quality (and

partial issues) but can mostly move their fingers quickly. If I were regularly teaching a group like

this, a question I would have is how to attend to regular playing fundamentals while trying to put

together a concert program in half hour meetings twice a week. Time is always of the essence!

I think the students’ levels of passion for playing and learning is what does it. Most of

them are attentive and put forward their best effort to incorporate the ideas that their teacher

gives them into their music. Since this isn’t a required ensemble, I have a feeling that many of

the students are the ones similarly put forth a lot of effort in their day-to-day band classes.
 It entertained me to no end how easy it was to tell when students liked or disliked the

pieces they were learning. For example, they’re playing a medley of music from the musical

Chicago​, which they absolutely loved. They asked stylistic questions and made decisions about

what the music called for. However, when she asked them to pull out ​Sir Duke, ​one of their other

pieces, there were distinct moans and groans. I think it’ll be entertaining to see how they prepare

for their concert in the upcoming weeks.