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WES Band Program

Added Oct 02, 2020 •

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hello everybody my name is Mr lukander on the music teacher of Westminster Elementary School in the purpose of the video that you're about to see is to give you an overview of what's happening with our Band program how to join and all kinds of great things first of all I'm the music director here so that means I'm not away the general music teacher during the day but I happen to be the director of all the groups here as well as some the beginner band fan the Jazz Band wind ensembles and the real people have a bill choir here as well so a lot of opportunities to have some fun times here and awesome educational experiences for your child so first of all I'm going to talk about the band instrument choices so the band is from the choices we have our flute clarinet alto saxophone trumpet trombone the xylophone and snare drum I'll talk about the piano a little bit later on okay is that we allow students to start off on there are some possibilities of maybe doing a couple things perhaps like french horn if you have a child and your family is highly musical when you're already involved in some music we can go to talk and try to figure out if we can appeals work but as a rule of thumb I'm going to say the fuses are the basic instruments to start off kids off for good reason we've had 25 years of experience and the ones that I think truly allow kids to have some success so I would like to point out that I have an assistant director her name is Mrs Papik and she helped me a lot with the accounting the scheduling the information of materials and I have a whole staff of private inspectors here as well one of those instructors is dr. Papik and dr. Mike Papik happens to be a tremendous asset because he's on the board of health in Westminster so he's been a great asset in helping us making sure that we have all the great safety standards that we need including following the ones from the Department of Education Elementary secondary education and so we'd have been studying those things to make sure that your child will have a safe experience in this particular challenging year so the next step is lessons lessons are individual and normally they're half our school half hour one time for week either before school or after school depending your schedule and the lesson instructor schedule we can try to figure out what is working for you at one point the only exception that we're going to do is for the beginner now you can imagine going to try to hold a clarinet is going to be pretty tricky where do I put the fingers and things like that it's a live turkey for the online experience to have that happen so we're going to have the first two perhaps three weeks of a blessing where we can get the kids outside on the yard to be able to work with them really quickly to get there so they can learn how to put their instrument together what not and then we'll switch them over to school lessons the program has experience with online teaching in the springtime when covid-19 Tolliver instructors had to learn how to work with this so we're familiar with trying to figure out how to make children have a 6 Full Experience there are ensembles which other groups of kids playing at the same time and we have sort of a emotion where they go from beginner band to Advanced band to Jazz Band this wild we have a Wind Ensemble we have Bell choirs in those groups meet one time per week and usually we practice and doors this is a tricky year so we're going to have to have any Ensemble experience with outdoor which means that we're going to have to deal with only warm weather time so The Beginner's probably will not be able to have any Ensemble experience in springtime when when warm weather hits or until things are safe at that point so the only exception is going to be are a banned students which are Advanced kids from last year they will have a few weeks where they're going to take the music that they did from the spring concert and they will get to perform that on the grass they going to practice on the grass in front of the building and will get to let them have a little bit of time to show off some of the work that they did in the springtime I would like to point out that I try to pick up music that appropriate for their level beginner band music that's the stuff we're going to be playing Hot Cross Buns Merrily We Roll Along Old MacDonald stuff with every single instrument plays exactly at the same time the same Rhythm the same pictures that way they can have it on a bit of an idea of what it feel to put to play with other people but usually they start transmission transitioning over to the a band sometime after December in and then those kids that are really good start moving into the advanced band from that point into the front until everybody starts going into 8th Advanced band where people are playing walk the different parts at once for the trumpets have their own pitches and rhythms over here and then the trombones are playing a completely different part while the glutes are playing the melody over here in the clarinets are playing a different part so it's very it's the next step of concept where they get to play harder music in path we've been able to play at a very high level of elementary school for the level and we work on Wii the Middle School level pieces as well bar jazz band is flying really well to in both our Advanced ban in our jazz bands are award-winning swimmer groups were they performed at competitions and we've received great Cummins from judges who will help us become better musicians as well and I'm very proud of our kids for having what they did in the past few years and we're hoping to get that program right back up again the wind ensembles kind of like a super high advanced level for concert band don't fire you may remember those sort of bills that they playing with a person's playing g&f this one's got Indian you got like 15 people and they're playing we don't have actual bills we have the tone Chimes which are similar instruments and that's a beautiful group throughout the in as well this year because it's over The Ensemble experience is definitely different we are not allowed to play indoors at this time so any on some wasn't going to be playing outside so what does that mean for the beginner kind of kid well they're going to be playing along with recording so we have recordings of so the band while they play the melody at the same time to give him an idea and what's the performance going to be we're not going to do with giant concert like we do we're going to be doing more virtual for the recital throughout the year where your child turn the show off something digitally and then that can be shown to whoever you wish to show that to whether it's friends or family or posting it to social media things like that the ensembles will pick up in the springtime so we'll figure it will start to join us probably whatever it is late March April we start getting Outdoors again the next I'm not sure if I said this party. The only exception to that Ensemble France is going to be our current 8 p.m. members will I get to perform spring concert music on the lawn of the up school where they can perform there going to be rehearsing in cohorts by the way this is Papa cuz already sent out information and for the next 3 weeks old playing with a distance from cos renting instruments you're not lucky to have an instrument at your house you don't really want to buy one because you're not sure if the child is going to take to it because instruments are expensive and you can cost about $1,000 depending on the instrument and the quality so renting is a great idea and what are the best companies to rent from in my opinion of Massachusetts there's a company called French music and they actually work with so many schools throughout Massachusetts they are geared for working with concert band instruments they're not guitar oriented you know that they're not what you would see in a local certificate a music store in the area so these folks know about Contraband instruments they offer great quality they offer great programs in case your instrument gets broken and things like that they will give you a loaner and stress while they fix your instrument and of course that's for free so I can't find a better deal in the area to get your instrument felt so French music is Who We Are going to recommend in this is Papik video or miss the topic will have some forms online on the school website so you can learn how to rent it but you can also go on to the website of French music as well and directly go to them if you do have an instrument at home kicking around that could be a great thing for you because you don't have to learn how to rent anything which is obviously cheaper so if you have an old traffic ticket around your house might have an old Bluetooth somebody in your family play it at one point which is great recommend that you have myself or dr. popat look at it real quick and we can see going to be great you're all set to go maybe it's something where we saying you know what we just need a little bit of a repair on this and probably $10 or $15 or $25 thing and that could easily work or maybe it's something like like at this repair is going to cost you several hundred dollars and we don't recommend it so we can give you an idea if you're interested in good shape we're going to do that on October 1st we're going to be at the school from 3:30 to four I'm sorry that time is wrong it supposed to be for I'm sorry we're going to do with a 4 on and we also can meet the on another time if you can't make that time so you can email me you need to put in a range of time and we can look at it but this is going to be I put the wrong time you're so this is supposed to be for now you're not going to get all the in mission for me in this video so what are the best places to look up is the handbook which is also on the school website can I get everything we need to know about what we're going to be doing for the instrument what's the protocol for camping lessons when a kid is sick scheduling how to pay all that stuff is right in the handbook there's going to be a lesson to sign up sheet as well to figure out what time your kid is going to be doing lots of the person that is in charge of arranging all those lessons and scheduling is mrs. Jean hoppock and she is also right here you can see on West music at aol.com and you can contact her at any time I actually prefer you contact with the topic because there's a lot going on for me in my squad of teaching this year in covid-19 lot of extra time that I'm supposed I'm involved in so I've given a lot of Duties to mess with topic to make sure that she can get you scheduled never then also make sure you can look out for the videos of instrument I have a video where I'm playing open trombones near Drummond is Iowa phone for you so you can get an idea about how to work that as well as dr. Pathak is going to show off the flute the clarinet in the alto saxophone and lastly there is one other instrument which is Shadow which is an instrument that is not part of our Band program but kids can learn after school I would also like to point out that in our school music room I have a tremendous amount of keyboards that we teach our red so I'm already teaching them as part of their class during the day in grade 3 4 and 5 for the getting a certain amount of dose of that however there are sometimes cuz it want to take a second instrument or maybe a different name of the band ones what's your sign so we do have piano instructors here as well but I just want to point out that is not part of the on some books. I would like to think that you want to make sure that you have your kid involved in lessons and try to get them The Ensemble experience as well and on a normal year 95% of our kids do that and they get to higher levels conceptual I used to coach basketball for the number of years in her school district and it was fantastic and I have three kids and I know a lot of you folks are sport oriented as well so if you could think about why you want to have your kids involved in band and not just do lessons if you did just lessons you're not going to let them grow to a higher level thinking about that people when you are only having your kid work in the driveway playing basketball by self they're not they're never going to know what it what it feels like to work with other kids and be part of the team and work on Concepts where you have to work with other people in different the ideas so I can't say anything more about making sure that you have your kid get into The Ensemble experience and not just lesson but it's a good thing I mean they might feel a little anxiety you first but really it's something that we take them in and they'll be able to do I hope this video has been informative for you and if you do have more questions like I said my assistant director misses Papik who's looked at West music at AOL.com and she will definitely help you out. Thank you very much and I would like to say that music is something is very important for our kids it allows them to grow in a lot of different ways but they can't grow in outside of school is certainly a lot of choices that your kids can be involved in but I don't know if there's anything like music where it really allows them to swim connect in a lot of other ways education you've got the social piece you've got the kinesthetic piece you've got so many things that are that are working in Advantage for your kids at overall education music helps their reading skills and help the creative skills it helps so many things about them their physical skills that are just incredible to check out front and side there is a great video about what music does for the brain you can you can type that in YouTube so short little five minute video on what the brain is doing in music inside like an MRI machine so they can point are all the different great connections that are just wonderful it's a super things for your kids to be involved in I highly suggest it and we're going to try to make it happen this year thanks for listening

Uploaded by Natalie Breen.

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WES Band Program

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