Concert Band

Through most of my childhood I wanted to learn to play an instrument. I had friends who took piano lessons and I was always impressed when the school music teacher had them occasionally play pieces for the class. The little bit of instrumental music I learned in elementary school music class - playing the xylophone and recorder - intrigued me. It felt like a foreign language that I'd been given a taste of and I was anxious to learn more. But soon I would get my chance to learn. At the end of 4th grade the band teachers from the 5th/6th grade school in my hometown came to visit our school to do presentations on the band program and help interested students choose an instrument to learn. There was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to learn an instrument. Now it was just a matter of choosing one. In the end I chose the flute - it was elegant, feminine... and I had the easiest time making a sound on it.

When I moved on to the 5th/6th grade school the following year there were a lot of new things to adjust to, but band was something I immediately enjoyed and felt like I belonged in. I loved learning to play the flute and I was excited to finally learn the language of musical notation that translated into beautiful music from the instrument. I worked hard to practice almost every day, working through our music exercise book and trying my best to master the skills we learned in class. Early on it was just about learning our individual instruments - finger placements, pitches, embouchure, and reading the notes.

In the second half of the year we began preparing for our end of the year concert and I was exposed to full band arrangements for the first time. All year we had only been playing short exercises where all instruments played the same rhythms and pitches at the same time. Now we were playing longer and more developed pieces of music where each instrument played different parts and the music was a blending of several rhythms, harmonies, and melodies. These were the kinds of band pieces that I would play for the rest of my school band experiences (increasing in difficulty obviously) and I loved them. I loved the combination of different sounds and melodies when the whole band came together. I loved the feeling that stirred within me when the whole band played together and the journey the music took me on. I remember that first band concert in 5th grade had a Broadway theme, which was even more fun because I recognized several of the songs. I had listened to plenty of band and orchestra music in my life and it was exciting to be on my way to learning how to play that kind of music.

I stuck with concert band and the flute all the way up to senior year of high school. Some of the commitment to practicing every day eventually wore off a bit as I got older and the music became more challenging, but I still persevered and worked hard so I could get reasonably good chair placements and make it into the highest level band before the end of high school. (I just barely made it. I was third to last chair my senior year.) I played countless band pieces through middle school and high school, each one challenging me with new rhythms, pitch ranges, tempos, dynamics, and styles. I took private lessons for a little while too and worked on solos and duets for Solo & Ensemble festival. (I learned quickly that solo flute wasn't going to work very well for me and I wasn't really that motivated for it.)

I knew that I wasn't going to be a professional musician in an orchestra or a music teacher, but I still loved playing music and all the skills I learned from it. Looking back on my instrumental music experience I realize now just how many math skills are embedded in music - fractions, powers of 2, adding and subtracting while counting beats, multiplying and dividing to get beats per measure, and estimations for beats per minute, just to name a few. My understanding and confidence in math definitely improved after I started learning music in 5th grade and I went on to take AP Calculus and pursue a math endorsement with my teaching degree. Playing music requires intense concentration to follow complicated rhythms with your fingers and embouchure, remember which finger placements correspond to which notes, sustain crescendos and decrescendos for just the right amount of time, wait for just the right second to take a breath, count note values carefully to be exactly in sync with everyone else, and count even more carefully to make sure you enter at exactly the right time after a rest.

Through band I came to appreciate how extremely technical music is, but also how emotional and powerful it can be as well. As I mentioned before I often felt that each band piece was somehow taking me on a journey from the beginning of the piece to the end. As I played and listened to the sound of the band around me I used to let my imagination form pictures in my mind related to the music, sometimes inspired by the title of the piece and sometimes not. I loved letting the music carry me through an emotional journey based on the tone of the piece - joy, excitement, anger, sadness, loneliness, conflict, triumph, and more. I have recordings of several band pieces I played in high school and I still listen to them often and enjoy playing them for my students. This kind of music can still take me on a powerful journey today. And even though I don't play the flute anymore (except for fun occasionally) when the situation arises I'm amazed at how much musical terminology I still remember. I could find some use for that in the classroom...