Month of Thanksgiving 2018, Day 12

Today Mr. Sean is thankful for

His Clarinet and Band

Really, I should be thanking my dad for pushing me into trying a musical instrument for an ensemble. It all started in fifth grade with elementary school band, I managed to fit band class in somehow, I remember having to skip recess, but it was worth it and I made it through the entire method book that year. It was okay, but the band was small. Thankfully I'd get a taste of larger ensembles in middle school, high school, and college. I made some friends thanks to band and my clarinet. I also got to travel to many places, entertaining people I didn't know and hopefully inspiring students to play musical instruments. 

On a similar note, I still have three more posts relating to the Music and I series, I've set a deadline of posting them by November 30 as I've been delaying them too long.

A History of Music and I, Part Six

Welcome to part 6 of A History of Music and I, this post will focus on high school concert band between 10th and 12th grades and All County Band for those years also. So freshman year band was interesting, but there was more in store for me as an upperclassman. My sophomore year introduced to me what would become a regular fixture until I graduated: student teachers. Each student teacher was around for a semester and each student teacher had their own way of going about music. A few of them even got teaching gigs at schools in the county, most notably Mr. Scott who took over when Mr. Kilby took up the mantle of band director at Severna Park High right after I graduated from high school, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to my days in the band. Another year of band at Meade High meant another year of at least one John Philip Sousa march, which was fine by me as I enjoyed his sound. So I don't remember as much of the repertoire we performed during those three years (thankfully I kept all the concert programs, ha ha!), but I do remember Mr. Scott leading the band through Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, which was interesting because there were so many time signature changes, and not all of them were 4/4 to 3/4, there were measures of 6/4 and 5/4 to contend with, and I'm pretty sure there were some time signatures where the eight was in the musical "denominator". Band festivals were interesting as we performed to be judged, but that meant I was out of school for the day and eating not school food. I seem to remember events better than what I played, I'm not sure how I feel about not remembering everything though. Anyways, I was in All County Band each year. Sophomore year All County Band we got our chance to play A+, a piece in which a few mistakes are allowed and mathematically calculated to ensure that even with mistakes the band still performed at an A+ level. Junior year All County Band was held at my high school, which meant I missed school while at school, whoo! Meade High band tended to do well with the amount of musicians in the All County Band while I attended high school. I forgot to mention in my last post that at graduation, the band and the orchestra play the Pomp and Circumstance procession, the recession, and a performance piece. The procession always took the longest as the graduating seniors were told to walk in at a stately pace while I enjoyed the recession more as there was more fanfare in the music and everyone had a pep in their step. I played all three pieces between 9th and 11th grades while in 12th I played only the performance piece. I never made first chair, but that was okay, 2nd and 3rd chair was good in a section of 12-15 clarinets.

Stay tuned, I'll be trying to recall my jazz band career next.

A History of Music and I, Part Five

Welcome to the fifth part of a series of posts documenting my history with music. This will focus on ninth grade in 2009 and 2010.

After middle school, I was anticipating high school band and for the first time, I would be performing in marching band. I was told by Mr. Kilby the band director that there was need for low brass, so I borrowed a euphonium for a few weeks over the summer, but when it came time to start band camp, I was still playing the clarinet, which would prove to be a blessing physically. I got the music for the year's marching show and tried to tackle it before band camp started, but it proved to be an interesting mix of easy and challenging before I was told to memorize it. Memorize the entire show's music? That sounded like a tall order, yet I managed to eventually get there, but I'm getting ahead of myself. So the summer passed by quickly, and after a vacation that I may recall in a future post, I was off to band camp at Meade High School. I brought my clarinet, my music, and a pencil (always bring a pencil) with me, ready to learn.  I met the band and I saw many people who attended the other (Meade) middle school that feeds into the high school (I attended MacArthur Middle). The drum majors proceeded to enter the practice field and command the band into formation so that we'd get the day started right. We proceeded to learn the basics throughout the week and get started on the show. There was so much to learn such as drill, flanking, and of course marching. Often the instrument groups split up to do small group type stuff, so I got to spend time with the other clarinetists. If there was one thing I would change about Meade Marching Band, it would have been more self-discipline among the individuals in the band. Only if we were more self-disciplined, we wouldn't have been yelled at by the senior drum major as much, which in this case the senior drum major yelling for us to get to set is a mix of scary and funny at the same time. I'll just say a petite lady yelling with ferocity is to be taken seriously.

So band camp passed and we had a cookout where the band performed some stuff and then everyone feasted then school started shortly after that. The concert (or was it symphonic?) band was a lot larger than the marching band and I learned that the senior drum major played the clarinet just like me! Concert band for the most part was like band class in middle school, full band practice, clarinet practice, and some tests. Though before I go back to marching band, the repertoire for the concert band was very cool to me with pieces such as Sleigh Ride, the Liberty Bell March (or Monty Python theme as some people remember it), and Malagueña.

In Marching band, we participated in competitions where we were judged and graded on our performance. I won't reveal any scores though, my bad! We also participated in the Jessup Day Parade and played at home football games and showed off our work. The competitions had us traveling all over the place and me being a hungry 14 year old, I always sought out the food stands as soon as I was able to. I'll just say that Broadneck High School and Frawley Stadium would be stiff competition food wise. We managed to eke in to the ACCs (Atlantic Coast Championship, even though when I say ACC I mean the conference) and managed to score an 80 at our final competition of the year. Not bad!

Shortly after marching band ended, the band director Mr. Kilby passed out forms for interest in jazz band. I didn't act immediately upon the first offer, but when Mr. Kilby needed more sax, I was interested and he let me borrow a school instrument. I'll save jazz band for a future post.

Sorry for the wall of text, but there were so many memories made my freshman year. I'd also like to thank Mr. Kilby for giving me many opportunities to further myself, the clarinet section for the community and camaraderie, and Kaitlyn, the aforementioned Drum Major for being a great leader and eventually a great friend. Thank you y'all!

I have decided to split the next posts in this series as follows: One more post for marching band (high school and college), one post for jazz band, one post for my instruments, and one post for concert band. The jazz band post will be released first and the instruments post will be my final post in the series.

Also, I made it to All County Band for the third time.

A History of Music and I, Part Four

I apologize for a lack of a picture to go with this blog post, and I have changed my mind and this post will focus on 7th and 8th grade years. There were two developments in my music career, one regarding piano and one regarding clarinet. About the piano, my third piano teacher decided to go pro rather than be a teacher, so we parted ways. He taught me some easy and moderate piano classics and the book he got me to use is very cool. Denes Agay's Music for Millions Volume 17 contains a lot of classics that almost any intermediate level and up pianist can play. With regard to band, 7th grade I was still near the top of the clarinet food chain and I did something for the first out of six times, I auditioned and made it in the All County Band. For those who live outside of Maryland (and other states that have county school systems), the public schools are divided by counties and Baltimore city, so the All County band is full of the best of the best musicians in the county. As I get older, I remember less about it than I used to, but I still have the audition music and proof of performance. At the end of the 7th grade, MacArthur Middle School's music program went down to Williamsburg to perform in the morning (and I was the first chair for once) then we spent a fun day at Busch Gardens. I got to ride the Griffon roller coaster, where the main feature is a 3 second overhang before falling down at a 90 degree angle and the Alpengeist, a floorless coaster that was my first.

The 8th grade had me pretty much on top of the Clarinet food chain, well actually I think I was second chair, but close enough. I auditioned for and made it to All County band again, but another challenge was thrown at me. Ms. Nash found some challenging music for me to perform at the county Solo and Ensemble festival. I chose a piece and had to practice with an accompanist. The first and only time I did this, I got a grade of 2, which to me is impressive as I got a medal. If I tried harder, I would have earned a 1 and a chance to perform at the state level Solo and Ensemble festival. The end of the year band trip for 8th grade was to Hersheypark and I got to be the first chair for the second time.

I'm sorry that this post came way later than the first three parts of the history of music and I, but I will try to finish the series within the next two weeks. I'm also making a major change to the original plan, but I will stop at Freshman year of college rather than going to the present day. Thank you for waiting!

A History of Music and I, Part Three

My clarinet, circa 2008

As promised, the third part of this History of Music and I series will focus on my days of band in middle school. Turns out I wasn't the only new person on the block in middle school as so was the band/orchestra director Ms. Nash. Some middle schools in my county have separate band and orchestra teachers while other middle schools like mine had to make do with one teacher for both ensembles. My middle school did not have to worry as Ms. Nash's primary instruments covered both the band (alto sax) and the orchestra (the violin). So, despite me being merely a sixth grader who had only one year of clarinet under his belt, I managed to score a high ranking in terms of chair. I don't think I was quite first chair clarinet, but I managed to land me the first clarinet part, which meant I was more likely to get some melody, the high notes, and quicker note values. My 6th grade middle school band days had us students using a different method book than in elementary school, but it seemed to be around the same level of band pedagogy as the book I used in elementary school. It wasn't a problem as we tended to focus more on longer works rather than the short practice passages. Considering how long ago 6th grade is for me, it feels like a blur now, but the 6th graders performed separate from the 7th and 8th graders at my school, with 6th grade being called invariably the concert band while the 7th and 8th grade band tended to either be called the symphonic band or also the concert band (I guess the distinctions weren't as important in middle school?). The 6th graders were in awe at the talent of the 7th and 8th graders at the winter concert so we told ourselves we would strive to be as talented once we reached 7th grade, more pieces to play, and a few more concerts to perform and 6th grade band was a wrap. Things will get more exciting from here on out as I proceeded to greater things in 7th and 8th grade band. I'll probably end up deviating from my original plan so I can put 7th grade band as its own post and likewise with 8th grade and beyond. This may likely drag on the blog series as I kept on being in the band until sophomore year of college, but I like to try to keep these posts manageable.

A History of Music and I, Part Two

Piano Keys or Keys to Success?

Getting back to where I left off, I started my clarinet days back in the fifth grade, at first it was a wee bit challenging to eke out the notes but I got them down in due time. Unlike the piano lessons prior, there were concerts I was to participate in at my school and practices were during recess some days, not a problem as I kept improving and enjoying band. The winter concert came and went and the band did well, then the spring concert was coming up and I got hit with a surprise: I would be spending all day one day in May 2006 practicing music with a band that comprised of the best elementary school musicians from all the elementary schools that fed into Meade High School. I was one of the few students from my elementary school called up to perform with this special band. Other than a rainstorm after the concert ended, the event went well, and it left me in awe at the talent that was present at the middle and high school level bands. My elementary school band days came to a close with me finishing the method book assigned and instead of singing a song, I got to perform the song the graduating fifth graders were singing on my clarinet. I think I'll go about future posts in the following (tentative) order: Middle School band for part 3, Piano lesson days in depth for part 4, High School band for part 5, and the other various instruments for part(s) 6 and if needed beyond. I apologize in advance if any of the next blog posts are too long for reading.