September 2023 Southwestern Musician

Woohoo!

Get kids performance-ready in no time, with Breezin’ Thru Theory and now with Fingerings too! The super-fun Breezin’ Thru Fingerings are timed-response drills for beginning and intermediate players. Kids simply pick their band or orchestra instrument and try to beat the clock matching notes to correct finger positions. As they progress through the levels, students build rapid response and mastery. Level the playing field and accelerate your performance programs by integrating Breezin’ Thru Theory, now with Fingerings too.

and College Divisions.

by timothy edward gonzalez

Learn from experience what you can do as a music program’s sole director to meet the inherent challenges and enjoy success.

When students are empowered to build their program, they will be more invested in its success and will lead others to join this rewarding community.

by mark eastin

With the school year underway, take a moment to reflect on what success means and how to avoid the unwinnable game of comparison.

Undergraduate and Graduate Scholarships

Editor-in-Chief: Robert Floyd rfloyd@tmea.org | 512-452-0710, ext. 101

Managing Editor: Karen Cross kcross @tmea.org | 512-452-0710, ext. 107

TMEA Executive Board

President: Dana Pradervand-Sedatole, University of Houston president@tmea.org | 713-743-3627

3606 Glenwood Springs Drive, Kingwood, 77345

President-Elect: Jesse Cannon II, Fort Worth ISD presidentelect@tmea.org | 817-814-2635

1407 I.M. Terrell Circle South, Suite 2203-Room 02, Fort Worth, 76102

Past-President: Michael Stringer, Mesquite ISD pastpresident@tmea.org | 972-882-7300

3511 Lake Champlain Drive, Arlington, 76016

Band Vice-President: Shane Goforth, North Shore Senior HS bandvp@tmea.org | 713-516-7158

14122 Wadebridge Way, Houston, 77015

Orchestra Vice-President: Jennifer Martin, Fort Worth ISD orchestravp@tmea.org | 817-814-2640

4207 Crossgate Court, Arlington, 76016

Vocal Vice-President: Joshua McGuire, Rock Hill HS vocalvp@tmea.org | 469-219-2300 x 81201

16061 Coit Road, Frisco, 75035

Elementary Vice-President: Christopher Giles, Mireles Elementary elementaryvp@tmea.org | 210-394-0289

12260 Rockwall Mill, San Antonio, 78254

College Vice-President: Matthew McInturf, Sam Houston State University collegevp@tmea.org | 832-515-8724

17 Hornsilver Place, The Woodlands, 77381

TMEA Staff

Executive Director: Robert Floyd | rfloyd@tmea.org

Deputy Director: Frank Coachman | fcoachman@tmea.org

Administrative Director: Kay Vanlandingham | kvanlandingham@tmea.org

Advertising/Exhibits Manager: Zachary Gersch | zgersch@tmea.org

Membership Manager: Susan Daugherty | susand@tmea.org

Communications Manager: Karen Cross | kcross @tmea.org

Financial Manager: Cristin Gaffney | cgaffney@tmea.org

Information Technologist: Andrew Denman-Tidline | adenman@tmea.org

TMEA Office

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 140465, Austin, 78714-0465

Physical Address: 7900 Centre Park Drive, Austin, 78754

Website: www.tmea.org | Phone: 512-452-0710

Office Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:30 a m –4:30 p m

TMEA is pleased to offer scholarships each year for undergraduate and graduate study in Texas. Last year, TMEA awarded $207,000 in scholarships to 82 students!

Graduating High School Senior Scholarships

• Bill Cormack Scholarship: $3,000/year for up to five years.

• Past-Presidents Memorial Scholarship: $2,500/year for up to five years.

• Past-Presidents Scholarship: $2,500/year for up to five years.

• Executive Board Scholarship: $2,500/year for up to five years.

• One-year scholarships: $2,500 for one year only.

One-Year Undergraduate Scholarships

• TMEA awards one-year, $2,500 scholarships to current undergraduate students enrolled in a music degree program at a Texas college or university leading to teacher certification.

One-Semester Student-Teacher Scholarships

• TMEA awards one-semester, $2,500 scholarships to current college student members scheduled to student-teach within the two semesters following the application.

One-Year Graduate Study Scholarships

• TMEA awards a one-year, $1,250-to-$2,500 scholarship to students pursuing a music-related graduate degree at a Texas university.

and given to the Texas Music Educators Association, whose official publication it has been since 1938. In 1954, the two magazines were merged using the name Southwestern Musician combined with the Texas Music Educator under the editorship of D.O. Wiley, who continued to serve as editor until his retirement in 1963. At that time ownership of both magazines was assumed by TMEA.

Southwestern Musician.

Help Students Envision a Future in Music Education

CREATE A TEXAS FUTURE MUSIC

EDUCATORS CHAPTER THIS FALL!

TFME MEMBERS:

• prepare for entry into college music programs

• provide service to their school music programs

• preview the benefits of association membership

tmea.org/tfme

TFME @ THE CONVENTION

In addition to a special TFME keynote address, members attend clinics and performances and peruse the exhibit hall at no cost. College Night offers a prime opportunity to connect with college and university music programs.

Texas Future Music Educators boasts a statewide membership of more than 1,000 students. Campus and district chapters provide students who are interested in a music education career a network of support and information to help them be better prepared to pursue their passion.

President

DANA PRADERVAND-SEDATOLE

Creating Musical Depth

Any moment where we experience beauty in our world is part of our journey to greater depth in our musical understanding.

The beginning of a new school year is always a time of excitement, anticipation, and stress. I hope you had an opportunity to recharge and reset over the summer and that you are now in the classroom reinforcing procedures, teaching your curriculum, and preparing for the activities of the year. Perhaps you attended some summer training and are excited to bring new teaching strategies or new technologies to your students and your classroom. All of that is well and good and will certainly impact your students, but what did you do for your own musical growth? What have you done to build your own musical depth? Why is that important? And how do we go about building it?

Consider what drew you to music in the first place. Maybe you heard a stunning performance by a symphony orchestra, a Broadway musical, a gospel choir, or a marching band. I vividly recall times as a child watching Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic and thinking I want to do that. I also remember biking down to my junior high school in July and watching the Blue Devils drum corps rehearse. Again, I found myself thinking I want to do that.

Something lit a spark in you to become a student of music and ultimately a teacher of music. That was the beginning of your musicianship, and all the experiences that have followed throughout your life have expanded your musical depth. Those experiences ultimately influence the way you interpret, experience, and teach music. That is why continually building musical depth is vital to the quality of musician and teacher you are.

September—Renew your membership and register for the convention.

October 5, 6 a.m. CT—TMEA convention housing reservation system opens online.

November 1 —TMEA scholarship online application deadline.

January 18 —TMEA convention early registration deadline.

February 7–10 —TMEA Clinic/Convention in San Antonio.

TMEA

So how do you build musical depth? The answer is simple. Seek experiences and beauty outside your day-to-day music educator life. For me, I love to travel and have been fortunate to be in some of the most beautiful places in the world. I enjoy exploring and immersing myself in the culture. I visit the museums, I see the sights, I eat the food, and I meet the people. I find beauty and awe-inspiring moments in every trip, and all these nonmusical experiences have contributed to my growth as a musician. I have a deeper understanding of what beauty is for me and it shows up in my performances as well as in my teaching.

What do you do when you are not working as a music educator or studying to become one? Where do you go, or what do you do that inspires you? You might be inspired by the masterful technique and artistry of a chef at a great restaurant. You may find beauty in the precision and gracefulness of a golf swing, or you might be inspired by the stillness of a sunset or the beauty of nature. Whatever it is, I encourage you to dedicate time outside your daily routine to find something that will culti-

vate your spirit and give you inspiration. Then find ways to help your students learn to do the same and expand their musical depth.

As music educators, a large part of our curriculum is centered around teaching our students the technical and constructive skills required to be musical. But often the expressive element of musicality is not given equal attention. Building musical depth in your student musicians is as important as it is to you as a music educator. Teaching your students to understand the impact of musical quality and creativity will motivate them and give them an appreciation for the skills it takes to create music.

We can help students understand how to experience beauty by intentionally seeking it, putting down their phone long enough to notice it. Any moment where we experience beauty in our world is part of our journey to greater depth in our musical understanding. These are a few ways we can help our students in that journey:

• Take a beginner band or orchestra class across the hall to observe a beginning choir class.

• Attend the dress rehearsal of a high school musical or one-act play.

• Go to a children’s concert given by a professional symphony.

• Visit a museum with works from the same era of the composers who wrote the pieces you are rehearsing.

• Plan a field trip to a university on a date when you can attend a concert.

• Take band students to an opera.

• Take orchestra and choir students to a marching band festival.

Online TMEA Member Directory

The TMEA directory requires a member login to view. Help TMEA members connect with you by including the information of your choice in the online directory. Log in and go to Security & Privacy settings to update your selections: my.tmea.org/update

• Have students select music that reflects a famous painting or sculpture.

• Go to a park and have students describe the experience through music.

• Play a YouTube performance of a professional ensemble playing the piece that the theme from a line in your beginning method book is based on.

Swerve outside your classroom lane. Give up a class period of formal instruction. It doesn’t have to cost anything but time. Experiences are priceless and the reward is instilling a deeper understanding of what it means to create—no matter your skill level!

TMEA Membership

If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to renew your membership today at www.tmea.org/renew. Don’t wait for a deadline to renew, because being a member should be about something bigger than any audition or program. We belong to the largest state music educators association in the nation, and our leaders are constant advocates for our profession and our students. Your membership matters.

Also take the time to register for the

2024 Clinic/Convention. TMEA VicePresidents are creating an amazing program you simply can’t afford to miss! Learn more about this extraordinary event at www.tmea.org/convention.

Here to Help TMEA Members

The TMEA Executive Board are elected

leaders, and we are here to help. If you have ideas, questions, or concerns, please reach out. You can learn more about us and find our contact information at www.tmea.org/ about/executive-board.

I hope you had a great start to the school year and are looking forward to many moments of beauty along your journey! 0

TMEA Convention Registration and Hotel Reservations

Register early to pay the lowest fee to attend!

www.tmea.org/register

TMEA’s official hotel reservation system will open October 5 at 6 a.m. CT.

Note! Early in the first week of October, TMEA will email members the reservation URL to utilize for best performance on opening day.

Music scholarships available to non-music majors

■ Faculty who focus on undergraduates

■ 16 ensembles, with national and international ensemble touring opportunities

■ Degrees in music education, performance, and composition

■ Master of Arts in Teaching, a 5th year program with a full year of student teaching and 100% job placement (25 consecutive years)

■ Located in culturally vibrant San Antonio

■ Study Abroad opportunities

trinity.edu/music

The Trinity University Music Department is recognized as an ALL-STEINWAY SCHOOL by Steinway and Sons, for its commitment to excellence

TMEA Executive Director

ROBERT FLOYD

What the Future Holds

As we respond to TMEA members’ suggestions for improvement and anticipate growing our staff, these are exciting times for our association.

Iam sure you may know by now that I have announced my retirement as TMEA Executive Director, effective June 2024. The following from my retirement statement to our Executive Board sums up my feelings:

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve TMEA, our members, and the students they teach throughout the past 30 years as Executive Director. There is no greater calling than the opportunity to shape children’s lives through music. The decision to leave the classroom in 1993 to assume this position was a difficult one, but I rationalized that through it, I could serve millions of students in the public and private schools of Texas, especially via the political and policy arena. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to remarkably dedicated staff members and Executive Boards who have supported me through the years in this role. It has been a rewarding journey with memories I will always cherish.

Admittedly, making the decision to retire at this time was a difficult one, but I am so pleased that the Executive Board supported a phasedin timeline to allow me to be a part of the exciting times ahead as we

September—Renew your membership and register for the convention.

October 5, 6 a.m. CT—TMEA convention housing reservation system opens online.

November 1 —TMEA scholarship online application deadline.

January 18 —TMEA convention early registration deadline.

February 7–10 —TMEA Clinic/Convention in San Antonio.

approach the second quarter of the 21st century.

Most importantly, I must share my heartfelt thanks for the Facebook comments, notes, emails, texts, and personal phone calls I have received recognizing my work throughout my TMEA career.

TMEA Is Membership Driven

ADMISSION

SCHOLARSHIP AUDITIONS

Woodwinds/Brass/ Percussion/Piano/Jazz

February 17 and March 2

Strings

February 17

Voice

February 24 and March 23

TMEA staff and Board did the same this past semester. In April, TMEA invited members to complete a comprehensive and in-depth survey about TMEA member resources, with a special emphasis on Southwestern Musician. We wanted to better understand how our members utilize the magazine as a resource and how we could improve it. Similarly, we intended

With more time-sensitive data offered via email and the website, the magazine progressed to include more pedagogical feature content.

In this survey, we learned that the feature content is of greatest interest to most readers, while they still value the inclusion of our monthly divisional columns. We were pleased that over 80% of survey

Study and Perform in the heart of Dallas-Fort Worth

issue rather than August, and we changed the binding style of the magazine to this saddle-stitched version (center stapled and folded).

The survey data underscored how each magazine issue should contain relevant content for members in each division. While our divisional columns provide division-specific updates and valuable insights from Board members, our goal is to include additional concise and targeted pedagogical content in each issue.

This month, we met that goal with five Q&A one-pagers, where you can learn great ideas from fellow TMEA members (with more responses hosted online). If you have ideas that would be especially helpful for those in your division, I welcome you to submit a short article for consideration (800 words max). We will continue to publish in-depth features each month and will work with those authors to encourage online extensions of their content where you can go for a deeper dive or to download helpful materials.

Another change spurred by the survey is the Ad Index you’ll find on the final page of each issue. Now you can quickly find music industry partners and higher education institutions who are promoting their opportunities in each issue. We are grateful to our advertisers for their support, and we want this magazine to continue to be their resource as well, allowing them to connect with you and inform you of their new products, services, and opportunities.

Other Resources

Other resources on which we received valuable input were advocacy, professional development, career support, mentoring, and 26 other programs or offerings that serve the membership on a regular basis.

We learned that we must better inform members, especially less experienced teachers and college students, about existing resources through our print and digital spaces. In terms of improved communication, we will be working toward more effective means of communicating digitally, through emails, our website, and social media.

A high priority in these times of teacher shortage, we must evaluate the TExES preparation pages, replacing outdated information, redesigning the practice exam, and offering exam preparation advice. This project has already begun.

In response to the question about new resources that would add significant value to your membership, we received a variety of ideas. From the predefined answer options, the one gaining the highest interest was a TMEA app (not just for the convention). This could extend to analyzing the value of creating a podcast and online lesson plans. Adding significant resources like this requires long-term study, including research into best practices and more detailed feedback from members.

Finally, your answers to the prompt “Tell us anything we didn’t ask you about” gave us other valuable insights. This

feedback will continue to inform future improvements in many areas, including convention preparation. I invite you to continue to share your ideas for ways that TMEA can improve existing resources and prioritize new ones.

Staff Expansion

I am pleased to announce that TMEA is growing its staff, and with that we will be better equipped to serve the membership and further TMEA’s mission. We are in the process of hiring a Digital Communications Specialist who will work collaboratively with the TMEA Communications Manager and lead the development and execution of a comprehensive digital communications strategy designed to support TMEA’s mission and goals. This will ensure consistent and effective messaging across all digital platforms and will optimize TMEA’s presence to reach and engage with our target audiences.

We are also in the planning stages of hiring a full-time Information Technologist Assistant. Working with our Information Technologist and Deputy Director, this staff person will help implement projects that improve TMEA’s ever-growing use of technology to support our programs and staff needs.

With this summer’s retirement of Administrative Assistant Rita Ellinger, TMEA is in the process of hiring an administrative assistant to support all staff members and the business of the association.

We thank Rita for her 13 years of loyal service to our association and wish her well in her retirement days. She and her husband are already on the road traveling!

Executive Director Designate

Finally, as mentioned above, an exciting time is ahead as the Executive Board moves forward with the selection and contracting of an Executive Director Designate who will bring a progressive, forwardthinking, and fresh vision for the future to our association. The next decade indeed looks bright. I’m excited to be a part of the transition as the future Executive Director moves into the role full time at the conclusion of this school year. 0

Photo by Scott Newton

Taking Care of You

As the school year gets underway, “Achieving the Balance We Need” by Nathan Langfitt, LPC, is a must-read. Scan this code or find the article in the Teaching Resources section of our website, along with the following helpful information and much more!

• Music TEKS

• Music Teacher Q&A

• Advocacy Materials

• Online Resources Repository

• Recruitment & Retention Guidance

tmea.org/achieving-balance WWW.TMEA.ORG/TEACHING-RESOURCES

“I strongly believe there are shifts to our routines and to our thinking that can help us be more balanced individuals and forge more sustainable careers in music education.”

—Nathan Langfitt, LPC

William (Bill) Woods In Memoriam 1931–2023

William (Bill) Woods,

TMEA

Past-President and past Band Division Vice-President, passed away on June 12, 2023. Bill was born in Denton County on November 20, 1931, and grew up in Plainview, Texas.

Bill was a versatile musician, performing on piano, clarinet, tenor sax, and tuba while serving as drum major and student conductor of both band and choir.

He was featured twirler of the Plainview band, and his twirling ability earned him seventh place in the 1950 VFW national in Chicago. He graduated from HardinSimmons University, where he was a member and drum major of the “World Famous” Cowboy Band, and a member of the A Capella Choir.

He also played dance jobs with local bands to pay his way through college. Receiving an emergency teaching certificate after two years in college, he accepted a job in Anson, Texas. He also served as band director in public schools in Seagraves and Levelland, where under his leadership, both bands grew in numbers and were awarded multiple Sweepstakes awards in UIL competitions.

While in Levelland, Bill also earned his master’s degree at Texas Tech University. Bill returned to Hardin-Simmons in 1981

as director of the Cowboy Band. During his three years as director, the band performed twice in Los Angeles and in the Cotton Bowl Parade and toured Europe for 18 days.

In 1984, Bill accepted a position at Merkel ISD, where he taught until he retired in 1989 after 37 years of teaching.

Executive Director Robert Floyd offered this remembrance:

I’m not sure I know anyone who has loved TMEA more than Bill, and he was without question the greatest fan of our amazing staff. Through the years, no member has sent more bouquets of flowers of appreciation than Bill. He served as Band Vice-President when I was President in 1981–1982, and he made me look good on numerous occasions. I do not believe, unless they were a part of the West Texas band director crowd, that the membership and even fellow Board colleagues fully grasped his talents as a musician who played so many instruments and his brilliant pedagogical skills as such a high-quality music educator.

I always loved that Bill represented the Band Division so well as an Executive Board member, but much more than that, he was such a global

thinker in his decision-making, ensuring Board decisions took to heart the interests of all TMEA members. That has been the key to TMEA’s success for over 100 years, and Bill exemplified such leadership.

Woods’s legacy as a musician, educator, and leader in the Texas music community will not be forgotten. He touched the lives of countless students and colleagues throughout his career, and his contributions to TMEA will continue to inspire future generations of music educators. 0

The Texas Music Educators Association has been an important part of my life since my first day in school. This association brought together my teachers, and later, my friends, and molded the state into a powerful force that touches so many lives in one way or another. TMEA influenced the musical training we received and, through its teacher education program, made every director a better teacher. I can still recall “Chief” Davidson leaving on the train for Galveston or driving to Mineral Wells to attend TMEA. Finally, two of us got to accompany him as members of an All-State group. It was a real experience for a small-town kid to experience music conducted by John Finley Williamson, Henry Fillmore, and Rusty Bainum. This was what music was all about. This had to be the most exciting time in my life.

1983–1984 TMEA President

—Bill Woods, from the February 1983 issue of Southwestern Musician–Texas Music Educator

BOOST SUPPORT with a Dynamic Brand Identity

By Colin Varville and

Most music educators can likely recall a time when it seemed like district or campus administrators— or other key groups like parents or campus colleagues—simply didn’t get it. If that’s you, perhaps a specific moment comes to mind—one when your efforts went unnoticed, and a top-down decision was made by someone who didn’t fully understand your music program’s value to the school and students.

The Importance of Advocacy

We often hear the word advocacy in the music education profession. We listen to remarks at every Region concert about the value of what we do. We receive materials to share that tout higher test scores by music students. We attend sessions at TMEA about the life-changing effects of music education. While these are worthy efforts, the problem is that we’re preaching to the choir—literally

Meanwhile, the people making decisions that impact our programs have only small snapshots to guide their evaluation, such as a once-a-year walkthrough or observation, or whatever performance they happen to attend, if any. Couple that with declining statewide music enrollment numbers that get our administrators’ attention, and advocating for music education becomes challenging at best. TEA data reveals that enrollment in high school band, orchestra, and choir courses dropped 12% over five years (ending in the 2021–2022 year). With data like that, we must actively work to share the right information about our specific programs, or decision-makers won’t have the framework necessary to understand what we do and why it matters.

We need to help our administrators and other key stakeholders understand the value of our programs in a way that makes sense to them. With our combined experience as a high school choir director (Colin) and a communications and marketing professional (Victoria), we worked together to develop specific strategies to accomplish this at Warren HS. We hope by offering our experi-

ence, you will gain information and tactics to help you build an informed community of support.

Three Necessary Steps

To effectively build this community of advocates, we need to evaluate our programs through the eyes of a marketer, with the goal of creating and promoting a brand. This process can be broken down into three simple steps:

1. Determine your program’s brand identity. It’s important to have a firm grasp on what your program stands for, what makes it valuable, and what you want people to know about it.

2. Identify target audiences (your key stakeholders). Once your brand identity is solidified, you need to know which key groups, or stakeholders, to communicate those things to.

3. Communicate and reinforce that brand identity to those target audiences. This last step is when you determine how to communicate to them in the most effective way possible, without adding too much to your workload.

Step 1: Determine Your Brand Identity

In our context as music educators, our programs’ brands are simply the beliefs and ideas that come to mind when people think about them. The great news is that you have a lot of control over what those are. Your program’s brand identity should be an extension of the best things about it. Think about a few of your favorite music program memories—moments like being awarded Sweepstakes at UIL, watching a student learn they made a Region ensemble, or even just singing karaoke together in the music room. Whatever these positive memories are, what do they say about your program? Do they say that your program is one in which students achieve greatness? Or that students have fun in your program? These themes that emerge, like achievement and fun, will help you determine your program’s core values, which will

Victoria Reyna Varville

ultimately become its brand identity.

For example, Warren HS Choir in San Antonio’s Northside ISD determined that its core values are excellence, fun, inclusion, and student growth. The program utilized these values to develop a simple

program, and your program’s brand identity should do the same.

Step 2: Identify Target Audiences (Key Stakeholders)

Once your program has its brand iden

campus and district leaders top the list. This group includes central office staff, district fine arts office staff, and campus leadership and administrators. This group is made up of those people who make top-down decisions that affect you in the classroom, so ensuring they see your program’s value is crucial.

• Next is your campus community. This group includes all other school staff members, including counselors, colleagues, teachers, coaches, and other program and club sponsors. They can advocate for your program among students and work with you when conflicts arise regarding schoolwork, eligibility, scheduling, and more.

• Your feeder pattern community includes administrators and staff in the programs and schools that feed you and the ones you feed. Sharing all the wonderful things you are doing with this group keeps them updated on your program and contributes to a collaborative relationship between the programs for better vertical alignment and recruitment efforts.

• A stakeholder group not to be ignored is current and prospective parents Parents can make or break a student’s decision to join or stay in your program. They can also be great advocates for your program in the community and to your administrators.

• Finally, don’t forget about current and prospective students. In addition to students in your program, this group includes those in your feeder programs, as well as students at your current school who are not in your program. That last group can be more challenging to engage, but the more you build your public presence and a positive perception in your school and district communities, the more likely you are to reach them.

Step 3: Communicate and Reinforce Your Brand

Once you determine the most important stakeholder groups for your program, follow these primary strategies to effectively communicate your brand to them:

• Meet your key stakeholder groups where they are with your communications.

• Ensure every communication regarding your program supports and reinforces its brand identity.

The following tactics have improved awareness, recognition, and perception of Warren HS Choir among its key stakeholders, and we believe they can do the same for your program:

• Community newsletters have proven to be the most effective tool for keeping adult stakeholders—particularly administrators and parents—updated on the amazing things happening within the program. Keep in mind, your newsletter shouldn’t just be a bulletin of parent reminders and upcoming events. Rather, it should share success stories, photos from social events, concert video links, student features, and anything else that shows how your program is thriving. (Canva is a fantastic tool to create newsletters!)

Learn More & Download Resources

• Brand identity guidance and worksheet

• Newsletter and social media tips

• Canva newsletter template and video guide

shop where anyone who is interested in your program can learn more about it, particularly prospective parents and students. Tailor your homepage to meet their needs, with recruitment materials, basic program information, and contact details. There are many free options for website creation like Google Sites, Wix, and more.

• Strategically timed email blasts are a simple yet highly effective way to reach stakeholders who aren’t already receiving other communications from your program. The key to this tactic is to employ it sparingly and use mass email blasts only to share information that benefits the recipient. The Warren Choir sends email blasts to all campus staff in December with holiday concert footage (this group does not receive the regular newsletter). Rather than asking them to like and share the concert video for more brand awareness, the email offers the gift of holiday music for them to enjoy.

tmea.org/brand-identity

afraid to say no to events that don’t serve this need).

These six tactics come together to form a strong brand presence, ensuring the value of your program is regularly being communicated to all the necessary stakeholders. Keep in mind that quality is always more important than quantity. Start small with one or two of the tactics and work your way up from there.

Positive Outcomes

The Warren Choir has enjoyed amazing results after implementing these branding and marketing strategies. The program’s most important stakeholders now understand the value that the program brings to students and the community. The school’s choir program is now seen as an integral part of the school culture.

• A cohesive social media presence across platforms will help reinforce your brand presence and messaging. Be consistent in things like your program’s social media username and profile picture so that your brand is instantly recognizable across platforms. While social media can be used to reach all stakeholder groups, keep in mind that not all audiences are on every platform. For instance, you’ll likely find more parents than prospective students on Facebook. Choose which social media platforms to focus your presence on based on which stakeholder group is most urgent for you to reach.

• Your website should be a one-stop

• Order extra swag and merchandise at the beginning of each year so your supporters amplify your brand Placing a T-shirt order? Purchase a few dozen extra and give them away to strategically selected stakeholders like administrators, counselors, and coaches. Not only will they appreciate it, but every time they wear it, they’ll be helping with brand awareness and recognition.

• Finally, ample and selective community involvement is crucial not just for telling your value but also for showing it. The more your program is involved in local community and school events, the more it will be recognized and appreciated. When planning your schedules, look for events that will not only be fun and enriching for students but will also be a great opportunity to make community connections and raise awareness of your program among the right people (and don’t be

Administrators, counselors, teachers, and parents all have a more informed perception of the choir, and this perception is now, in part, what drives their decisions regarding the program. This has led to more support at allotment discussions from administration, more positive working relationships among campus colleagues, and increased enrollment advocacy from all stakeholders, particularly school counselors, teachers, and parents.

This brings us back to the beginning— advocacy. By utilizing these simplified branding and marketing tactics, you can effectively show all the good your program brings. Not only will your stakeholders have a more favorable view of your program, but they may also become your biggest advocates, too. 0

is the

Director at Earl Warren HS (San Antonio’s Northside ISD).

Victoria Reyna Varville is a Content Strategy Manager at the University of the Incarnate Word.

Colin Varville

Head Choir

TMEA Band Vice-President

What Is Your Ikigai?

During my undergraduate studies, one of my professors was Dr. Forest Rollins. I have been thinking of Dr. Rollins a lot lately because he was the first to introduce me to etymology, the study of the origins of words and their resulting definitions. He often despaired about the state of the English language and the corruption of words he held dear that were now ruined by our society’s need to colloquialize seemingly every word in the lexicon. Dr. Rollins was not just being pedantic; he truly believed the continual addition of meanings to words caused our communicative abilities to lose efficacy and efficiency. Some examples of his frustration are hilariously obvious, like the English words cool and up, for which Dictionary.com lists 26 and 66 definitions respectively. Many others are obviously more nuanced and evolve in context and when acted upon by social cues. The word that has been troubling me and motivating my memories of Dr. Rollins as of late is work.

What Is Work?

In many of my conversations, when the word work comes into play my counterpart often gives it a negative connotation and at best defines work as a job. This seems strange to me, as I have always associated work with the positive concepts of purpose and motivation. Since I was just a boy, I

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

September—Renew your membership and register for the convention.

September 1 —All-State etude errata submission deadline.

October 5, 6 a.m. CT—TMEA convention housing reservation system opens online.

November 1 —TMEA scholarship online application deadline.

January 6 —Area Band auditions.

January 18 —TMEA convention early registration deadline.

February 7–10 —TMEA Clinic/Convention in San Antonio.

People who are seemingly different in every way can be almost instantaneously connected in incredible ways by the power of music.

can remember looking at successful musicians, entrepreneurs, artists, architects, engineers, athletes, and others and having a desire to find and pursue my life’s work as they had theirs. With my feelings on the subject being so regularly challenged, I decided to spend some time thinking about and researching the concept of work as purpose.

There is a large body of research that shows humans are socially programmed and hardwired to connect with other groups of human beings for protection and productivity. Throughout the animal world we see examples of groups of individuals working together for the success of the whole. Separation from the group often results in the part of the nature documentary where you cover your eyes and the narrator reminds us about the circle of life.

With our advanced cognitive abilities, human beings have developed societies that have long separated the obvious connections of work to the acquisition of fundamental resources (water, food, and shelter) and to our safety and survival. That separation can result, and perhaps in some cases has resulted, in people no longer Discover

seeing work as purposeful and rewarding, but rather as a nuisance that must be endured. As advanced as our societies have become, the isolation of the pandemic reminded us that connection, interaction, and purpose still play a fundamental role in the mental and physical well-being of modern humanity.

The cultures of the world have struggled with and thought about this concept throughout history, but a unique synthesis of the elements to the problem began to emerge in Japan during the Heian period (794–1185 CE) in a philosophy known as ikigai. Ikigai (pronounced ee-key-guy) compounds two Japanese words: iki , meaning life and gai, meaning value or worth.

Your ikigai is then the thing that gives your life purpose and provides you with joy and motivation. In the ikigai philosophy you are asked to view your life through the following four qualities:

1. W hat you love

2. W hat you are good at

3. W hat you can be paid for

4. W hat the world needs

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When you combine 1 and 2, you have found your passion

When you combine 2 and 3, you have found your profession.

When you combine 3 and 4, you have found your vocation

And when you combine 4 and 1, you have found your mission

The final goal is to combine your passion, profession, vocation, and mission, all of which can stand alone as lifelong pursuits, into a single purpose. It is only in this singularity that you find your true ikigai.

Now I know that my summation of ikigai is a woefully inadequate description of a dearly held and complicated philosophy, but even a casual awareness of the concept motivates us to ask those four fundamental questions:

What do you love? I love people and I am so grateful to people who have helped me throughout my life. I’m not sure if I was born with a love of helping others or if it was instilled in me by all those who helped me, but I love people and I love helping people. Second to people, I love music. There are so many things that I love about music, but one of the things I love most is

Paula

Crider Professor Emerita, University of Texas

“For the lifelong benefit of yourself and your students, read this book and spread this knowledge to every musician you know.”

— C. Callan Freelance musician

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Author, Dr. Nancy Taylor is a professional musician, educator, and Board-Certified Occupational Therapist. She combines her expertise to provide a practical and scientifically sound guide for teaching injury prevention to musicians. A former member of “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band, Dr. Taylor is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, Principal Trumpet with the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, and an internationally recognized clinician for her work in musician’s wellness.

New in 2024! Band Division Program Spotlights

the way it brings people together. People who are seemingly different in every way can be almost instantaneously connected in incredible ways by the power of music. All that to say that teaching music to people is one of the truest expressions of my love.

What are you good at? I am good at music, and I am good at relating to people, especially young people. I think I’m good at teaching kids music, and the longer I’ve worked at it the better I’ve gotten.

What can you be paid for? I can be paid to teach music to kids.

What does the world need? The world needs generations of students leaving our schools who have the love, compassion, empathy, understanding, grit, focus, work ethic, determination, integrity, and desire to make something perfect even though they know it can never be. Nothing offers that better than high-quality music education.

I would wager good money that if you and I turned in our answers to these questions to my beloved Dr. Rollins, he would likely want to have a discussion with us regarding plagiarism. When I speak with music educators from across the state and around the country, I hear repeatedly how much they love their students, how much they love music, and how much they love this genre that we call band.

So, as you continue to dive into this new school year I would ask you to examine the why that drives what you do. There will

certainly be distractions and frustrations along the way, but please don’t lose sight of why you are in the band hall and the incredible impact you have on students’ lives every day. It would be a tragedy for you to possess the thing that so many people are searching for, your ikigai, and never even know you had it.

Honor Band

Thanks and congratulations go to the bands that completed this year’s Honor Band process. The music you made and your dedication to excellence had a

profound effect on your students, directors, and audiences alike.

Below is a list of our Honor Bands and finalists. I’m sure you are already looking forward to their outstanding performances in February! I want to offer our thanks to the Region, Area, and State Honor Band Chairs, site hosts, playback operators, and everyone who made our Honor Band process such a success this year. Year two of our new process was a resounding success and I am so thankful to all of those who made it happen.

Invited Program Spotlight

I am incredibly excited about the addition of our Invited Band Program Spotlights to the 2024 convention. These outstanding programs were selected through a two-stage process by some of the best educators in the state and I know they are going to present incredible performance clinics that will educate and motivate us all. I would like to thank everyone involved in our inaugural process and congratulate the Invited Programs listed on the adjacent page. Be sure to look for their clinics in the program (the preview will be in the December magazine). 0

Congratulations, Honor Bands and Finalists

Join TMEA in congratulating the directors and students of the following outstanding programs!

Class 5A

Rank School/ISD ................................................. Directors

1 Lone Star HS/Frisco ISD ........................................

Class 3A

ISD ........................ Grady Haffner

4 Westwood HS/Westwood ISD ............................ Shayla Skief

5 Commerce HS/Commerce ISD Kara Wallace 6 Tarkington HS/Tarkington ISD ............................ Jeff Parma 7 Iowa Park HS/Iowa Park CISD ............... Charlie Bradberry 8 New Diana HS/New Diana ISD Gary Fort

Class 3C

Rank School/ISD .................................................

Yoe HS/Cameron ISD

Schriver 10 Holliday HS/Holliday ISD .........................Dane Richardson

Class 1C

Rank School/ISD ................................................ Directors

1 Anahuac MS/Anahuac ISD Morgan Contreras

2 William B. Travis Academy/Dallas ISD ... Donald Kitchens

3 West Rusk JH/West Rusk ISD Stephanie Haffner

4 Mauriceville MS/Little Cypress-Mauriceville CISD Jesse Winecoff

5 Santa Gertrudis MS/Santa Gertrudis ISD ........ Sandra Mae Trevino-Mendez

6 Blanco MS/Blanco ISD .....................................Brian Pranger

7 Howe MS/Howe ISD

8 Commerce MS/Commerce ISD Jason Wallace

BAND

What do you do during your warmups to help develop tone quality and accurate intonation?

• The first step is making sure students are sitting correctly. Poor setup before warming up can negate its purpose. Next, you have to be sure students are breathing deeply. Insufficient air in leads to insufficient air out. Finally, don’t be in a hurry to get elaborate in your warmups. Good ol’ long tones accomplish a lot for tone and should precede more complex exercises and scales. If your students cannot make good sounds moving slowly, they won’t while moving faster. —Carolyn Ireland, Folks

MS

• Using a keyboard, students sing to match pitch, and then they play to match pitch. I use the Remington patterns extensively. Students sing and play along with keyboard to target the center of pitch as interval changes. Once students consistently center the pitch at forte, I begin to introduce the same concept at mezzo and piano volumes, reminding the students that air pressure does not change because it is softer. —Dwight

Dodd, Fort Stockton MS

• This development starts first in the mind and the inner (musical) ear. Exercises: Hum, sing, listen/watch. This teaches them the tones and sounds we are striving for. Next we focus on closing the gap between what is in our minds and what we actually sound like. Exercises: Breathing, buzzing, long-tones, lip slurs, harmonic exercises, scales and chromatics—all at varied tempos and volumes and related to our musical literature. We rely heavily on use of models, chamber groups (mini bands), and recordings for ear-training. Great tuning comes first from great tone. —Kevin Knight, Crosby HS

• With beginners, we do a lot of call and response. Even if it isn’t your primary instrument, hearing a proper tone in person can make a world of difference. For non-primary instruments, find recordings of what the goal tone should be or ask some of your band director friends to come hold a masterclass.

Austin Nestler, Whitesboro MS

• As a private lesson clarinet teacher, I play with the students in long tones descending from open G. This establishes good embouchure with no biting and good air support. Once the sound is clear and the student feels confident, we play the full G scale and proceed from there. —James Marshall, Mesquite

• To reinforce a fast and full airstream, breathing exercises should be an initial part of the daily routine. I use an abbreviated sequence of what is taught in the Breathing Gym. It helps establish a quality breath that is transferred to the instrument to support a quality tone. Starting with woodwinds, followed

by brass buzzing, students match a drone Concert F, with mallet percussion echoing the pitch. This reinforces listening, full-quality breathing, and matching each other from the start. Insist on a high-quality sound before changing notes in the rest of the warmup. Correct tone quality leads to accurate intonation. —Chris Pulley, Belton MS

• We begin rehearsal with air only, without and then with instruments. With a formed embouchure, students breathe in for two counts and out for five counts. We repeat this multiple times, and with each repetition, we lengthen the breathing out time. Next, we “air band” with instruments for the same number of counts. Then we repeat the exercise playing a concert F or B-flat. First-chair players set the tone; then we go down the row and everyone has to match them. —Anonymous

• Someone with good tone quality demonstrates and the class echoes. Students discuss differences in sound and what can be done to improve it. With brass, we do an air-to-sound exercise. They begin with their embouchure too open for sound, and then slowly increasing air speed, they bring their lips together to the point that a sound is made. On the horn, I believe lip slurs can do a lot to help relax the embouchure. I’m also a big fan of a Brass Gym exercise called Shawarma, where you bend into and out of a note’s center to internalize the sensation of playing in the center of the note. —Ryan Farris, Krum HS

• I like using four-part chorales and changing the parts they play so they are listening to the other parts while playing. This teaches students good listening skills, and good listeners improve intonation and tone quality. Students have good, young ears; they just need to be trained to use them. I almost never use electronic tuners, because tuning one note doesn’t tune all others, and a student’s ear is the best tuner. I might tune the concertmaster, and then everyone tunes to them, within their instrument family. —Russell Brown, Retired

• We spend time in daily rehearsal listening and matching. Each student must play with the same volume, same energy, and same sound as their neighbor. To help further with intonation, the woodwinds use clip-on tuners on Monday and Wednesday, and the brass use them Tuesday and Thursday. They learn their individual tuning tendencies but don’t become tuner-dependent. —Sam Pugh, Watkins MS 0

For more answers, go to www.tmea.org/q&a.

Success Strategies for Sole Directors

By Timothy Edward Gonzalez

My first job directly out of college was in 2014 as the sole director of a Title I middle school band program on the south side of San Antonio. When I began, there were only 79 students in the entire program. Most eighth graders couldn’t name a note on the staff and thought Fridays were for playing basketball or volleyball in the gym. The high school band included no students from this middle school.

I wish I could tell you that I showed up as an amazing teacher who inspired and educated those students so effectively that the entire situation quickly transformed. I wish I could tell you that by the spring we pulled it together and those students earned a Sweepstakes award at concert and sightreading.

That did not happen.

My first few years included a lot of trial and error. I worked hard, but I still made mistakes and bad decisions. I attended TMEA conventions, hoping to attend clinics that could help me. But at that time, all the clinics I attended were presented by educators who spoke about how they utilized tutors and assistants. I didn’t have an assistant, nor did I have any budget for tutors. I felt alone in my work, yet I knew I needed to persevere to help these students succeed.

Fast-forward to 2020. I was still the sole director of this middle school band, but this year, the band earned its first UIL Sweepstakes award. This was also the first Superior rating the program had earned in 15 years and the first time in school history that all six judges had awarded the band ones. More importantly, in the 2021–2022 school year, 75% of the students in the high school band I mentioned earlier started in my middle school band.

My experience as a sole director is not unique, and I’m sure some reading this are starting their careers in a position like I did nine years ago. I hope what I offer here can help set you up for success. While teaching as a sole director has inherent challenges, it can also reward you in ways unlike any other teaching situation.

Spend Time Now to Save Time Later

It’s critical to implement time savers as soon as you can (that means now!). While each requires upfront investment, the longterm time savings will be worth it.

Student Data: Utilize spreadsheets to keep track of student information. You can use Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or if you have the budget, an application like Charms Office Assistant (now CutTime). Each has pros and cons, so take time to evaluate what best suits your needs. Regardless of what you use, tracking phone numbers, addresses, funds collected, and more will save you time.

I use Google Workspace because it’s free. I store everything from student roster information to instrument and uniform inventory in Sheets. A huge time saver is using the mail merge function to quickly send personalized letters. With phone numbers stored, you could easily set up an auto call or text utilizing an online system such as Call-Em-All or Remind.

Program Calendar: Input all important dates for the year into a calendar, share it, and keep it updated (I use Google Calendar). It’s too easy to lose track of time and forget to inform administrators about something important if you don’t do it right away. Save yourself the embarrassment by sending those dates out electronically and early.

Parent

and Student

Help: Utilize parents and students as proxy assistants. It took me a few years to establish a band parent organization, but when I did, fundraisers and field trips became so much easier. My advice is to organize this group as a Parent Organization not a Booster Club Booster clubs manage their funds and have specific IRS guidelines to follow. A parent organization assists you, and the money raised goes directly to the Student Activity Funds so you know it will always be spent on the students.

It is also imperative to establish student officers who will help you with daily tasks. They can help with keeping the band hall

You may be a sole director, but you are not alone.

clean, organizing the library, checking in/ out uniforms, and more. Remember, you may be a sole director, but you are not alone.

Heterogenous Class Strategies

Heterogeneous beginner classes can’t progress as fast as homogeneous ones, yet sole directors rarely teach all homogenous classes. Despite this inherent challenge, you can still help your beginners succeed in this situation.

ner percussion. The second year, we added an all-brass beginner class. By my third year, I was set up to request the classes I needed. Before the school year ended, I documented incoming beginners and their instrument choices on a spreadsheet. This allowed me to ask for a better class structure. I finally had separate classes for low brass, high brass, flutes, saxes and clarinets combined, and percussion. If it’s your first year on the job, you may not be able to change the class structure, but start

(or jazz band if you have one) to perform either for the fifth graders or the whole campus. In the spring, take current beginners to perform. It helps that most fifth graders remember these sixth graders who are performing for them.

In addition to playing as a group, sixth graders should talk about their instruments and play something on their own. Then have the beginners walk around with their instruments to talk with fifth graders about their band experience or middle school in general. Teachers often ask to take pictures with their former students. It’s a great activity for everyone, and it helps with retention as beginners experience pride in being in the band program.

When teaching a heterogeneous beginner class, or even with just two or three instruments, I found that distractions and behavior issues were minimized by approaching the time as a full rehearsal. To accomplish that, students who aren’t the focus of my attention are expected to finger or sizzle along or count aloud. It’s not easy and it can move slowly, so you must remain vigilant. You will have to repeat the same line many times to cover each instrument, but everyone always participates in some way, and this helps all students improve.

When I taught brass and woodwind beginners together, the brass buzzed to match pitch while the woodwinds played the line, or one group counted the rhythm aloud while the other played. Sometimes I had them say their pitch names, which could get a bit chaotic as five note letters were shouted at the same time. While that might sound crazy, if you explain what you’re doing up front, you could find yourself able to teach transposition in the process.

Regardless of instrument, everyone can do breathing exercises and rhythm reading together, so those can be effective to include in daily warmups.

While there are ways to make heterogenous classes work, it’s also important to work toward a more beneficial class structure for your students. My first year, I asked for one class to be homogenous—begin-

advocating for your program and ask for what your students need going forward.

Defining Program Success

When I started, I set a three-year goal that included the number of students in the program and the level of music each band could play. From there, I created shorter-term goals that in some way contributed to achieving that three-year goal.

One of the short-term goals was that by the end of the first semester, students would no longer ask for a free day every Friday. To accomplish that, I began changing the program’s culture. Older students fought the changes, but sixth graders bought in (so, within the three years, significant change was possible).

Your band’s culture is what you make it. Do you want students in the band hall before school starts? Consistently arrive early and make the band hall a welcoming place. Are students there only to hang out or are they practicing? That is up to you. How strict are you about afterschool rehearsal attendance? Are there consequences for absences? I can’t say what’s right for your program as every campus has its own unique circumstances, but whatever you decide, be consistent.

Recruiting & Retaining

I advise visiting each elementary school at least three times throughout the year. In the fall or winter, take your top group

Retention from the first to second year is both the most important and most difficult. Students can often end the year still not truly understanding the full band experience. It’s important to perform as a full band more than twice in that first year to give them that ensemble experience. And, while it should go without saying, band must be fun! These young musicians are, in fact, still kids. We may want them to be great and push them to the best of their abilities, but if we forget to remind them that playing an instrument is fun, we will lose their interest.

This brings me to Region auditions. I have nothing against them, and when I was a sole director, I usually encouraged a few students to audition each year (but we never took class time to prepare). It’s important, however, to discern whether preparing for these auditions is an effective way for your students to grow in their musical development.

I realize this is a challenge because we are often compelled to compete, and auditions have become a standard expectation in Texas band programs. In my first years, I found it was more important to focus on developing the fundamentals they needed—breathing, tone quality, articulations, ensemble sound, and scales. Then we performed a fun fall concert where the kids were excited to perform, and the parents witnessed their progress.

I believe the same idea applies to participation in UIL Concert and Sightreading evaluation. We tend to compare ourselves to other programs and assume that because another band is playing two grade 3s, we should too. Yet this has nothing to do with our students and their success. Only you know your stu-

Only you know your students, their capabilities, and what experiences will best support their musical development.

dents, their capabilities, and what experiences will best support their musical development. Focus on what your students need and ignore what is happening at other schools. This brings me to the next and very important point for sole directors.

Preserving Your Mental Health

It’s worth repeating that while you may be the only director in your band hall, you are not alone. There are directors everywhere who can help you. There are support groups on social media, and there are directors in your district or Region who I know are willing to help and offer advice. Seek them out.

Establishing a professional learning community is important, especially for sole directors. Mine consists of band, orchestra, and choir directors whom I text, call, and hang out with. We bounce ideas

off each other, ask for advice, and sometimes just vent about frustrations.

It doesn’t matter what you do with your learning community. What matters is that you have one.

One of the most important commitments that can support a sole director’s mental health is to not compare your program to others, especially to those with multiple directors. You can, however, compare your program to itself over time. In two or three years, the program should be getting better.

Keep track of what works and, more importantly, what does not work. Consider how beginners progressed this year compared to your first year. Are you improving? Record your ensembles at the beginning of the year, in December, and again in March or April. Are they improving? That is what really matters.

Lastly, enjoy every win, no matter how small. Your beginner clarinetist who took two weeks to remember how to put the ligature on correctly is now playing notes above the break. That’s a win. Your beginner percussion class goes an entire class period without dropping a drumstick. That’s a win. Eventually, you’ll experience something like the first time a parent tells you their kid is now a music education major because of how much they loved your class and how passionate you were about music. That’s a big win. That is success as a sole director. 0

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Timothy Edward Gonzalez is Director of Bands at McAuliffe MS (Southwest ISD, San Antonio).

ORCHESTRA

• I used to wait to introduce the bow, but they’re so excited, and I know they’ll attempt to play with it the first chance they get. So now I start from day one, teaching the parts of the bow and bow care along with the parts of the instrument and instrument care. I do some bow work every day with my students, always emphasizing bow care, so that when I am not there to help, they understand how to handle the bow. We may not put the bow to string each day, but I always make sure to incorporate some aspect of the bow and bow hold in every lesson. —

Cecilia Dixon, Pioneer Heritage MS

• We start learning the bow grip the first week, preferably with smoothie straws to ensure the grip isn’t so tight it bends the straw. We practice various movements and use speed games to get the students to form their bow hold quickly. Students first build their hold at the balance point and slowly move it to the frog over a couple of weeks. I add pinky strengthening, air bowing rhythms, and bowing in a tube (we attach paper towel tubes to the strings and bow in the tube). When students can pizzicato a D major scale in various rhythms, in tune, with exemplary posture, play “Twinkle,” and demonstrate a correct bow hold, they get their “bow license.” We go into position, find the “box” made by the arm, bow, and string and play single Taka Taka Stop Stop string crossings. Then we the relearn everything we’ve done, now with the bow.

Preston Patterson, Belton HS

• First, I have students shake out their hand and drop their relaxed hand to the side of their body. The hand goes to the right shape when students do this, and this works for both German and French bow grips. The thing is to stress curved fingers. The thumb as well as the middle and ring finger act as a fulcrum for the bow hand activity. With the French bow I remind students that the bow rests in the fingers. With older students who lack flexibility, I have them hold a pencil like they do when they write. I often have them draw circles on paper. —

Ricky Pringle, McCallum HS

• We start the bow within the first few weeks. I take a long time before teaching the right and left hands together. I start with a pencil hold, using washable marker on each kid’s hand where the contact parts are, then quickly to the “faux bow” (a special dowel rod with wood shaped frog attached). We play lots of games with the faux bow and then with the real bow. Then we move to bow Olympics with D string “duets” to practice open D string on “Twinkle” variations. —Barb Nelsen, Beck JH

• Whether a student has an instrument or not is sometimes out of our control, so starting everyone on a pencil or a thick straw is perfect while you sort out getting instruments. Take your time. The bow hold will be responsible for the sound and tone they produce. And don’t worry about where your colleagues are. Trust your experience and focus on the students you teach. —Roger Vasquez, Fort Settlement MS

• In general, keeping fingers relaxed so much that the resistance from the bow on the string can push them or pull them. For the double bass German bow, ask the kids to make Lego hands (or form the letter C) and place the bow in the pit between the thumb and index finger, placing the index and middle fingers slightly bent on the top part of the frog, the ring finger floating in the mouth of the frog, the pinky at the bottom of the frog, and thumb on the dot of the frog. The bow should have enough room to move in the palm of the hand, the fingers should be able to move like a jellyfish swimming in the water. —Anonymous

• For cello, I begin the year teaching basic fundamentals of posture and position, teaching simple open-string songs by rote. We begin introducing the bow hold during the first week of instruction, using pencil or drinking straw bow holds. A straw is beneficial because it’s easily seen if the student is squeezing too much with the right-hand thumb. Bow-hold activities can happen daily, or even multiple times per class period. Include individual finger strengthening exercises such as pinky taps, index finger taps, or middle and ring finger taps (together). It’s also easy with straw bow holds to have all students supinate their right arm and hand (forearm up) to show the curvature and placement of their thumb so you can quickly move about to check hand shapes. For violin, after body/instrument position and pencil bow holds are mastered, we move onto the actual bow. For the first week using the bow, we keep it separated from the instrument. We will usually spend about 10–15 minutes of a daily lesson transferring pencil bow-hold exercises to the bow. This is challenging for many, as the full-sized bow will be unwieldy without mindful strengthening exercises. I have the students do several daily exercises before trying to combine the bow with the instrument, including pinky/finger taps, tick-tocks, rocket bows, and varying levels of circles and spider crawls. For video examples, go to www.tmea.org/bowholds.

Ragan Whatley, Canyon Vista MS 0

For more answers, go to www.tmea.org/q&a.

When do you introduce the bow and what steps do you take to prepare the bow hold?

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Aud iti on Days

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Saturday, March 2, 2024

Recorded and remote auditions are available for select instruments.

Vis it Days

Monday, October 9, 2023

Monday, February 19, 2024

1948 –2023

here a re so ma ny resou rces beyond f u ndi ng requ ired to r u n ou r prog ra ms: i nst r ument s , mu sic st a nd s , ba ss stools , st r i ngs , sheet music, t u ners, sou nd equ ipment, a nd one of t he most va luable resou rces time Ti me is

sleep, work, play, a nd rehearse no more a nd no less We ca n appea l to ou r d ist ric ts a nd t he state leg islat u re, apply for g ra nts, a nd f u nd ra ise, but not hi ng w i l l get us more t ha n t hose 1,4 40 mi nutes a day. St i l l, it ’ s f u n to env ision what a g ra nt applicat ion for more mi nutes mig ht requ ire!

I’m su re ever y d irec tor has ex perienced t he cr u nch t i me as a per forma nce nears a nd we w ish we had just a lit t le more rehearsa l time Our class time is our oppor tunit y to ma ke music w it h our students a nd bui ld relationships w it h t hem We tune, ma ke a nnouncements, col lect paperwork a nd money, teach f unda menta ls, introduce new techniques, learn reper toire, rehea rse reper toire, a nd more. Time is exact, yet t he sa me

hour hav ing dinner w it h great f riends

my students to wa l k into rehearsa l look ing for ward to class, a nd I wa nt t hem wa l k ing out feeling accomplished, inspired, a nd joy f u l. I wa nt t hem to be t he “good tired ” t hat comes f rom k now ing you worked hard Music a nd time are intrinsica l ly lin ked Music div ides time up into

ing graduate-level courses in educationa l leadership Ma ny assignments include watching v ideos of teachers instructing various subjects. W hi le none have sun k to t he level of t he tiresome educator in Fer ris Bueller’s

Nothing is more motivating than get ting bet ter quickly!

Day Off repeating “Bueller,” some seem quite close! From that scene, we learn that slow tempo = disengagement = ineffective learning (with the “bonus” of a torturously slow passage of time)!

If you want to invigorate and inspire your rehearsals, increase the tempo and keep things moving! In the words of one of my mentors: talk less, play more. When implemented skillfully, it moves orchestras forward quickly. Students want to suc ceed and do well (even when they say they don’t care, or even that they don’t want to do well). Nothing is more motivating than getting better quickly!

What if your students can’t move that quickly, or they are behind and need reme diation, or they arrive lethargic and don’t respond well. Don’t worry—these groups may benefit the most from this type of rehearsal pacing! To be clear, this pac ing doesn’t mean rushing through mate rial in a brief period, skipping important technique steps, or leaving any students behind. Many teachers have fallen into the trap of cutting corners or not insisting on quality or mastery to save time or meet a goal. This pacing is about maximizing how much you can accomplish in a rehearsal.

TMEA Clinic/Convention ORCHESTRA DIVISION

40 Orchestra Division Clinics & Concerts

New in 2024! Orchestra Division Program Spotlights

Featuring clinic presentations by these programs: SJA Southwest HS (Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD), Joseph Bonura, Director entral JH (Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD), Tara Truex, Director

WWW.TMEA.ORG/CONVENTION

Texas Association for Symphony Orchestras

Presents

27th Annual-Juanita Miller Concerto Competition

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Southern Methodist University

Piano

Rachel Heard

Millsaps Conservatory of Music

Strings

Emily Ondracek-Peterson

Diehn School of Music

Prizes per division:

Winds-Brass

Mark Kellogg

Eastman School of Music

First Place $750 - Second Place $400 - Third Place $200

Grand Prize Winner awarded performance opportunities TBD

Entry Deadline: October 31, 2023

Information: www.tasovolunteers.com

Entries are accepted On-Line Only.

Kirt Mosier Featured Clinician Learn more at tmea.org/clinicians

We humans are creatures of habit. If you want to increase the rehearsal pace, you need to train your students to function at that pace. Talk less, play more. When you stop the group, offer brief and meaningful feedback. Then get back to playing. Here is where the training comes in. This won’t be effective if the students don’t hear and process the information. Be in tune with your students and monitor for understanding. Repeat as needed at first. Have students repeat and explain it back to you.

Seek out those who struggle more with focus and ask them what they heard. Don’t call them out or shame them if they missed the information. Instead, support and encourage them and give them opportunities to practice this skill. Rotating seating can help by giving some students an opportunity to sit closer to the front of the orchestra or to sit with a leader. Lead and direct with energy—the energy you exhibit can boost their mood and yours.

Wait time is still important as you implement a faster paced rehearsal. Eventually, your students will become accustomed to being alert and ready for feedback as soon as you stop the group. Then you’ll have ample time to implement and practice on that feedback and build in consistency. Over time you will need to repeat yourself less and when you do it will be more meaningful.

Rather than saying it again because the students didn’t listen, you might find that they heard you but just need more information or need it explained in a different way. Remember to take cues from your students. If you push and try to fast-track this process, student comprehension will diminish and so will engagement and success. It’s always important to build rapport with your students and foster a sense of community across the group.

This works with all ages and levels of students. Keep in mind that a sub-nonvarsity orchestra will not likely be able to keep up with the same pacing as a varsity orchestra. Making fast-paced rehearsals the norm also creates many opportunities for flexibility. Music would be dull if all compositions utilized the same tempo!

Convention Updates

I hope you have registered to attend the TMEA Clinic/Convention, February 7–10 (www.tmea.org/register). Internationally known composer and conductor Kirt Mosier is this year’s Orchestra Division

Featured Clinician. He will be presenting clinics helping expand your skills and tools in working with winds and percussion in full orchestra, as well as inspiring us all with timely and relevant strategies on building leadership and developing relationships in today’s world.

Honor Orchestra, Invited Mariachi & Invited Orchestra Program Spotlight

Thanks and congratulations go to all groups that entered Honor Orchestra and Invited HS Mariachi processes! The dedi-

cation, hard work, and passion these directors and their students put into the music is immeasurable. I am also so encouraged and excited about the inaugural year of the Invited Orchestra Program Spotlight. Thanks go to the wonderful directors and orchestras that applied. This program exists to feature and celebrate highquality teaching among a diverse range of programs across the state. The selected orchestra programs will present clinics that will combine performance and teaching methods (see page 33). 0

Honor Orchestras and Finalists

High School Full

Rank School/ISD ..............................................................................Directors

Middle School/Junior High Full

Middle School/Junior High String

Orchestraat OklahomaState University

Undergraduate Degrees

Music Education

Music Performance

Music Industry

Music Composition

BA in Music

Graduate Degrees Offered

Applied Music

Conducting

Undergraduate Minors

Applied Music

Music Composition & Theory

General Music

Funding Opportunities

Scholarships

Graduate Assistantships

Out-of-State Tuition Waivers

Faculty

Dr. Thomas Dickey, Director of Orchestral Studies

Dr. Laura Talbott-Clark, Violin

Ashley Cooper, Violin

Dr. Jacqueline Skara, Viola

Dr. Meredith Blecha-Wells, Cello

Glenn Dewey, Double Bass

Visit

VOCAL

• Warmups should include modeling, cues, and tips about subglottal engagement, breath management, soft palate lift, and balanced onset. These often include lip trills, humming, or hissing first, then vowels, then incorporating diction (which allows for additional diction guidance and modeling of vowels and consonant concepts). Consistent reminders help build good habits. While going through repertoire, those technique reminders are given, especially if pitch is unstable or tone sounds vulnerable. —

Rosana Eckert, Univ of North Texas

• I play a song of the week during passing periods. Sometimes it’s a movement from a large work or an opera chorus. I have featured barbershop quartets, musical theater solos, and pop music—anything with good tone and technique. I add them to a YouTube playlist for students to access. This casually exposes students to varied tone quality and genres, and it builds interest in performing songs they might otherwise dismiss. —

Elizabeth VanOrden, Athens HS

• It begins with great breath support. Teaching your students to be great solo singers carries over into the choral program. Choose warmups that teach good vowel production and tone. The consistent practice of good breath support and good choral tone leads to choirs of exceptional choral tone. Practice the way you want to perform, and don’t settle for less than the tone you desire. —

Cindy Starcher, Shallowater HS/MS

• We use a series of exercises that focus on three- and fivenote descending and ascending scales, incorporated with some arpeggio work. In my experience, vocalises that are overly virtuosic or tongue twisters have diminishing returns. Simpler exercises allow the chorus members to concentrate on their vowel sounds and not the difficulty of the vocalise.

Tod Fish, Stephen F. Austin State Univ

• I try to focus on whatever the choir needs in terms of current repertoire. We work on resonance, phonation, and vowel alignment. I have students first sing nasally to feel and hear the forward sound, and then we transition this to a healthier tone. —Eradio Martinez, San Benito HS

• Practice blending during warmups and solfeggio. We continue to keep our tall vowels in our solfeggio practice. We record rehearsals and listen to them, analyzing issues together as a class or section. Students are first asked to give a few positive comments before criticizing their recorded performance.

Anonymous

• Students begin with stretches and attention to posture as I take them through warmups that focus on breath support, open throat, tall vowels, frontal placement, mixing registers, and extending range. During rehearsal I refer to the tone that was achieved and isolate a section of the music to get the connection across. Students fall in love with their new tone, greater vocal freedom, and power. Good tone also mitigates many other choral challenges. —Karen Mabry Lewis, Retired

• It’s our job to expose our students to a variety of choral ensembles whose tone matches our vocal philosophy to assist them in identifying, emulating, and consistently producing great choral tone. So, we must understand our choral philosophy. Do you prefer a darker or lighter timbre? Forward or rear placement? Fuller or thinner texture? More or less vibrato? When highlighting ensembles, it’s important to ensure the recordings and clips are relevant to both the repertoire you are working on and the age of the singers you are working with. —Timothy Brendler, I.M. Terrell Academy

• One of the best ways students can experience great vocal tone is through peer modeling. I ask students who would like to sing for the class, and I choose a resonant singer. They sing a passage and I praise what they did great. Then I ask them to try something new to increase resonance. They demonstrate again, and the class immediately hears the difference, and the singer feels it. —Jennifer Logan, Trinity Meadows IS

• We develop good choral tone through listening and matching choral vowel shapes, emphasizing forward mask tone placement and deep belly breath support. I like to use the “straw” method with young singers. We hum our warmups through a straw, then without the straw. The air pushed through the straw is more focused and forward. This exercise also helps them engage their core support. They are always surprised by the clarity of their sound after we remove the straws and sing with that same focus used with the straw.

Tiffany Hammock, Jacksonville HS

• Within the warmup, we find a coherent sound that is brilliant, sustainable, and flexible. I use recordings of other groups and demonstrations to help develop an ear for good choral tone. It’s helpful to have students make a variety of sounds, discuss the qualities of each, and evaluate how these sounds were made. —Anonymous

For more answers, go to www.tmea.org/q&a.

What strategies or routines do you utilize to introduce your choirs to vocal models and exceptional choral tone?

TMEA Vocal Vice-President

JOSHUA MCGUIRE

Second Place Is Not First Loser

Knock me down nine times but I get up ten. — Cardi B

For almost two years, those in our professional circle have been discussing the numerous pandemic waves impacting our students and classrooms. From teachers in the K–5 elementary music room to conductors of college/university choirs, the story is the same. We all continue to experience the long-term effects of virtual learning, students being introduced to important concepts through a screen or while wearing a mask, and interruptions of social and emotional learning for those students who need it most.

Perhaps you are tired of talking about SEL in a post-pandemic world. My intent for discussing SEL isn’t political or in any way intended to inspire fellow teachers through fluff. It’s an acknowledgement that we sometimes didn’t engage in these ways before the pandemic. Some students now lack the grit that is built through the experience of safely learning through failure.

Like most of my peers, I’ve seen the varied impacts the past three years have had on my students. The campus grading and grouping policies of not failing any student and providing easy paths to remediation have abruptly been replaced by a business-as-usual attitude. Failing test grades lead to students remaining at home in bed rather than searching for extra help from their teachers. When a student doesn’t receive the solo for the pop show they wanted, they become emotionally distant in rehearsal and do not engage in the fun of the process. Students seem to value learning less than receiving the prize or achieving the goal at the conclusion. Too often we see them quit rather than continue and learn from the experience.

If you perform a quick internet search on “teaching kids to fail” or

September—Renew your membership and register for the convention.

October 5, 6 a.m. CT—TMEA convention housing reservation system opens online.

November 1 —TMEA scholarship online application deadline.

January 6 —Area Vocal auditions.

January 18 —TMEA convention early registration deadline.

February 7–10 —TMEA Clinic/Convention in San Antonio.

“learning through failure,” you will find many variations on the theme. My favorite is a series on resilience published by The New York Times. The focus is on what we can learn during troubled times and personal experience. In this wellness series, Rachel Simmons, writer and director of the Phoebe Lewis Leadership program at Smith College, discusses how to thrive despite the most epic of mistakes. In her article “Everyone Fails. Here’s How to Pick Yourself Back Up,” Simmons cites Carol Dweck, an American psychologist known for her work on motivation and mindset.

After studying the behavior of thousands of children, Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth mindset. One with a fixed mindset has the belief that failure is a dead end instead of a stop along the road to improvement. In our work, we have the opportunity to help our stu-

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dents develop a growth mindset instead— the ability to see failure as part of learning. Simmons advises her students to ask themselves the following questions when they assess risk and failure:

• What’s the worst that can happen?

• Can you handle the outcome?

• What resources do you have to handle it?

• What are some of the possible benefits of your failure, even if the situation doesn’t work out?

As teachers and ensemble directors, we play a critical role in the lifelong success of our students, as well as their foundation to tolerate imperfection and learn from disappointment. How do adults teach kids to accept failure? Dr. Amanda Mintzer, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute, offers this multistep process:

1. Show empathy: “I see you’re really disappointed, I know you really wanted to do better.” Phrases such as “You’ll do better next time” only serve as invalidation of the student’s disappointment.

2. Model behavior: Adults can model how to handle disappointment.

3. Make it a teachable moment: This is where we as teachers can guide our students toward a growth mindset.

4. Step back and allow kids to fail.

Last spring, Cynthia Douglas, choral director at Cypress Ranch HS (CypressFairbanks ISD), shared a powerful story about a student of hers. In grades nine and ten, Lynette had auditioned and missed her goal of advancing through the All-State process. As an eleventh grader, she missed an entrance during the pre-Area round, ending her advancement to Area. As a senior, Lynette applied for a booster club scholarship. Through her essay, it’s clear that Cynthia has created a safe space in which students feel valued for their growth as much as their successes and learn valuable life skills:

One of the most impactful lessons

I’ve learned in a choir was how to fail. I had one more opportunity in my senior year to prove to myself I could do it. The result of the first round was a total shock to me. I had done worse than the year before, but I still made it

read

“Everyone Fails. Here’s How to Pick Yourself Back Up”

by Rachel Simmons.

to the second round. Around this time, I got sick, but I was still determined to audition. When I received the news I didn’t advance, I was devastated; my last opportunity to reach a goal I had been trying to conquer for four years had vanished.

The essay continued with Lynette sharing her experience of celebrating her friend’s victory while learning to deal with her personal disappointment.

I had to learn how to take failure and overcome it. The experience taught me that we may only sometimes have the outcomes we want and expect. Life is about making mistakes and failing, learning from them, and learning how to get back up again and overcome. And if I had the opportunity, I would fail all over again.

As we enter this season of Region choir audition process, senior college auditions, fall concerts, and more, let’s examine our involvement in the success of our students. Remember that to many, their music participation is what motivates them to get out of bed and go to school each day. You will inspire your choir members to be present in a community greater than themselves, and to give back through their successes and failures.

May our personal failures continue to allow each of us to learn and grow, just as we inspire our students each day.

Thanks go to Cynthia and Lynette for allowing us to share this story.

2024 Clinic/Convention Updates

We are just five months away from our amazing annual convention! You can learn more at www.tmea.org/convention and in future issues of the magazine, but rest assured we have an incredible lineup of clinicians and choirs who will inform and inspire us during our four days in San Antonio!

2024 TMEA Invited Choirs

Congratulations go to the choral ensembles and their directors selected to perform during the 2024 TMEA Clinic/Convention. Thanks go to all who applied—the recordings underscore how strong Texas choral education is! Go to www.tmea.org/2024concerts to see the impressive list of all Invited and Honor Ensembles that will perform.

We Can’t Do It Without You

It’s only with a long list of Vocal Division volunteers that we can all enjoy our treasured annual convention. We have so many opportunities for you to amp up your involvement and make a difference, so take a moment and register as a Vocal

Division volunteer at www.tmea.org/ vocalvolunteer. In addition to specific tasks for our division, TMEA needs volunteers to be the first faces at our convention, welcoming attendees in the registration area. Be sure to check that box when you volunteer! 0

I’m always amazed by the number of music educators who flock to our musical mecca year after year, seeking to become more effective in our classrooms and to be inspired by sitting shoulder to shoulder with people sharing our life’s mission. TMEA is medicine for the music educator’s soul! —2023 convention attendee

Technology

STUDENTS CAN BE THE BUILDERS OF THEIR PROGRAM

BY COLTON BLAKE

One of the goals we all strive for in our programs is to create an environment where students are engaged and invested and ultimately look forward to coming back year after year. We work and collaborate around the clock to devise creative and innovative strategies to inspire our students and our programs to be as successful as they can be. What if, instead, we could:

• exponentially grow student engagement within our programs more quickly;

• double the return of our recruitment and retention efforts without doubling the amount of time required; and

• focus on the aspects of our programs that need us the most while our programs become a flagship of our campus and community?

At this point, you might be thinking this sounds too good to be true. And you wouldn’t be alone, because I also thought that before implementing an idea that completely transformed my program for the better: student leadership.

It is no secret that our students are the lifeblood of our programs. If we think about our programs as grand structures, then our students should be the builders. They should be found at the center of it all helping to build and grow their program to greatness.

So how do we hand over the hammer and nails to our students and empower them to take the lead? As you think about how this might work for you, I’m pleased to share some strategies I have found effective in leveraging student leadership to maximize our program’s success. Whether you implement them or devise your own strategies, I hope this year you can find ways to equip and engage the builders of your program.

Create the Blueprint

Before we expect our students to take on responsibilities to build, we must first know what we are building. We must be able to clearly articulate to student leaders the goal of what building our program looks like.

One way to start drafting this blueprint is by answering the following:

• What is the program’s mission? What do I want every student who comes through the program to feel, know, learn, and experience? (I.e., the mission statement.)

• What impact should the program have on the students, the school, and the community at large?

• What are the program’s goals? Consider the musical goals, academic goals, and social and emotional goals (I suggest no more than 3–4 primary goals, based on your program’s mission).

• What do I want students to accomplish in my program?

Note: I encourage including your students in this process by having them answer these questions as well. This will help infuse as much student thought into your student-centered, programfocused blueprint as possible.

Set the Foundation and Structure

Once the blueprint is complete, it’s time to set expectations and parameters (the structure) for what student leadership will look like within your program. This is also the stage where you begin creating the plan for how to select your student leaders (the builders) and what leadership roles they will fill. The expectations you set will be the foundation that determines how wide and how

high you can build your program toward success. Give yourself permission to be as specific and detailed as you’d like.

When considering how you want to utilize student leadership roles, ask yourself what the program needs to accomplish the goals of its blueprint and how students can help with those needs.

Here are quick steps I’ve followed to begin creating student leadership positions:

• Make a list of everything you do in a day for your program. In addition to the components of a rehearsal, this list could include things like taking attendance, distributing new music, emailing parents, and answering questions about upcoming activities.

• Once your list is created, identify which tasks only you can do (e.g. receiving and depositing money, entering grades).

• With the remaining tasks, consider what and how you could delegate to student leaders.

Choosing Student Leaders

If you haven’t already selected student leaders, this is the step where you will determine how that selection process will function. I have found it best to start by defining the qualities and characteristics you believe are important for students leading this program.

The following are top qualities I look for in a student leader:

• K ind and empathetic

• Creative thinker and problem solver

• Passionate interest in their specific arts discipline

Once you identify the qualities that are important for your program’s success, I suggest creating a leadership application process tailored to help you gauge the degree to which a student demonstrates each quality (while allowing room to discover other qualities and characteristics).

For example, to assess creative thinking and problem solving, I identified two reallife problems we were experiencing in our program, and I asked applicants to share how they would address those problems as a leader.

Keep your application process thorough enough to discern the most qualified candidates yet succinct enough to get things decided according to your timeline.

Assign and Define

You are almost ready to let your student leaders begin building, but it is important to ensure you have the right student leaders assigned the roles that best suit their strengths and the goals of the program. Take time with each appointed leader to discuss their new position and help them define the impact they will have on the success of their program.

The next critical step is ensuring your student leaders receive training that can cultivate and enhance the leadership qualities you prioritized. These are leadership development ideas that my student leaders have loved over the years:

• #WeLead Weekend: leaders spend a weekend participating in a series of teambuilding activities, problemsolving simulations, real-world conversations, and more at an off-campus facility.

• Student Leadership Development Day: bring in a motivating and inspiring local leadership consultant to facilitate activities, discussions, and targeted mini workshops on leadership. Bonus idea: invite local college music education majors to lead the group through teambuilding, games, and other activities that will help build and strengthen the cohesiveness of your leadership core.

Let Them Build

Once you select student leaders and train them, it is time to let them build. This process is exciting to witness, but it can also be a bit nerve-wracking in the early stages.

As you begin to release your builders to hammer away, here are some ideas that have helped me keep this process on track:

• Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will our programs be. Letting students take the lead sometimes means yielding to their approach on a task—even when we know our approach would be quicker and perhaps even more efficient. Resist the urge to jump in. Be patient. There is a reason we chose them to lead.

In moments when our patience gets tested, lean into those reasons.

• Embrace mistakes. We make mistakes in our daily tasks, so it is inevitable that our student leaders will do the same (and even more frequently). Embrace the mistake-making process and teach your student leaders to embrace it as well. We are not just guiding our student leaders to be better musicians. We are teaching them how to be the best human beings they can be. With that comes a lifetime ahead of making mistakes, learning to adjust, and getting better.

• Celebrate growth. As you embark on this journey of empowering students to take the lead, you will see your program grow, and you will see your students grow in the process. Celebrate that! Frequently find moments to celebrate, praise, and encourage the courageous work your student leaders are doing as they collaborate with you to build something great.

Experience the Rewards

When we create a space where students are empowered to lead, it becomes a space in which students know they belong, are valued, and are heard. They are engaged because they are at the helm of that engagement.

In this space, students not only want to stay, but they also want to bring others to join them

In this space, students are invested. This leads to your campus being invested and, ultimately, the community being invested.

In this space, students’ voices and ideas are at the center and they’ll want to give everything they can to make their program as successful as it can be.

When we create a space that builds the builders, they help build our programs, our profession, and our world. 0

Colton Blake is a music educator and Creative Connection Consultant in Fort Worth.

Once you select student leaders and train them, it is time to let them build.

who defines YOUR SUCCESS?

BY MARK EASTIN

The beginning of the school year can find us experiencing a duality of feelings. We pine for more of the muchneeded summer rest that already seems like a distant memory, and concurrently, we revel in the excitement of unfolding opportunities.

This may be your first year in the classroom. Your fear of this transition from student to teacher is very real, tempered only by the anticipation of becoming that music educator you’ve always dreamed of. It could be your first year at a different school, getting to know new students and their traditions and making adjustments. You may instead be a confident veteran, putting in place the actions learned through years of experience.

Regardless of where we stand in our journey, we must always remember that the success of our school year, and thus the success of our students, is in our hands, and our hands only. It’s for this reason that you—not a stranger, not a judge—must be the one who defines the meaning of success for you and your students.

Comparison is the thief of joy.

Don’t Play an Unwinnable Game

The saying that comparison is the thief of joy rings true for music educators and their students. We must avoid looking to other programs to determine what success means for the students in our rehearsals. While aspiring to be like award-winning programs in our state can be admirable, we should never seek our music educator self-worth through an unwinnable game of comparison.

The inherent public nature of music programs affords many opportunities for praise, disapproval, and everything in between. We attend festivals and contests for the valuable evaluation and critique that will help our programs grow, but if we let it, comparison can easily take center stage. We must, instead, stay focused on

our plan for achieving what success means for our students.

Define your wins and take the validation of the work you and your students do every day out of the hands of others and place it where it belongs—with you and your students.

Set Goals and Celebrate Success

Everyone experiences challenges and roadblocks to the plans they map out for the year. We all must adapt, adjust, and ask for help. If you establish early in the school year your definition of success for your students, it will make setting and reaching goals a more tangible and self-rewarding experience.

Set goals for each day, week, and month and celebrate accordingly—even if only in private. Celebrate the survival of the first day, the success of that first full rehearsal, that first performance. Your definition of success, and that of your students, is what really matters.

We must continually remind ourselves that our internal perception of our program’s growth, improvement, and success is more important than the perspective of another who doesn’t stand on our podium every day. In anticipation of an adjudicated performance, I have often spoken to band members about defining our success. I tell them our success is not determined by the people recording their comments: “We determine our success for today. If we perform at a level that makes us happy, we have done our job. Love what you do and who you do it with—that is our goal.”

As you journey through this school year, when you meet your goals and personal definition of success, you have done your job. You need look no further than to the faces of those you teach for the validation you seek as an educator.

To all who have taken on the challenge of being a music educator in our great state, please accept my sincerest wish for a successful school year. You are truly my heroes, and I am forever at your service. 0

Mark Eastin retired in 2022. He served as Director of Bands for Granbury HS (Granbury ISD).

SCHOLARSHIP AUDITIONS

TLU SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Scholarships are available for both music and non-music majors. These awards are intended to provide recognition for scholarship and talent in the study of music.

SCHOLARSHIP AUDITION DATES:

Saturday, November 18th, 2023 1 - 3 p.m.

Friday, February 16th, 2024 1 - 3 p.m.

Saturday, March 23rd, 2024 1 - 3 p.m.

Saturday, April 20th, 2024 1 - 3 p.m.

Individual audition dates may be requested if necessary.

For specific qualifications for each award, visit www.tlu.edu/music-scholarships.

BACHELOR OF MUSIC IN ALL-LEVEL MUSIC EDUCATION

BACHELOR OF MUSIC IN PERFORMANCE

BACHELOR OF ARTS IN MUSIC

DEPARTMENT HEADS

Douglas R. Boyer Director, School of Music and Director of Choral Activities dboyer@tlu.edu 830-372-6869 or 800-771-8521

Eric Daub Director of Piano Studies edaub@tlu.edu

Eliza Jeffords Director of Strings ejeffords@tlu.edu

Zoe Chunghui Kim Interim Director of Vocal Studies

Brett A. Richardson Director of Bands brichardson@tlu.edu

FACULTY

Adam Bedell

Instructor, Percussion

Carol Brittin Chambers

Composer in Residence & Composition

Lauren Casey-Clyde

Asst. Professor, Trombone & Euphonium

Sean Holmes

Asst. Professor, Horn & Music History

Michael Keplinger Instructor, Guitar

Elizabeth Lee Asst. Professor, Cello

Deborah Mayes

Choral Accompanist

Scott McDonald

Instructor, Saxophone, Jazz Band & Music Education

Carla McElhaney

Asst. Professor, General Music

David Milburn

Instructor, Double Bass

Nicole Narboni Asst. Professor, Piano

Daniel Orban

Instructor, Trumpet

Sung-Eun Park

Asst. Professor, Collaborative Pianist

Keith Robinson

Instructor, Tuba & Music Education

Jill Rodriguez

Instructor, General Music

Eric Siu

Asst. Professor, Violin

Yu-Hsin Teng

Asst. Professor, Collaborative Pianist

Shareen Vader

Instructor, Piano & Music Education

Mika Allison Valenzuela Instructor, Oboe

Yvonne Vasquez

Instructor, Mariachi

Tyler Webster

Asst. Professor, Clarinet & Music History

Sarah Wildey-Richmond

Asst. Professor, Bassoon www.tlu.edu/music

ELEMENTARY

• At the beginning of the year, a meeting with the teacher and instructional assistants is scheduled. The teacher demonstrates expectations during class instruction, center/station activities, etc., with the guiding principle of assisting the student in meeting individual and classroom objectives. Unless there are learning disabilities, where the student has individual learning objectives, the student is expected to meet the general expectations. When students are not meeting objectives, the assistant sits beside the student demonstrating how to meet them or redirecting the student’s attention. Most often, special education students are successful at meeting, and many times exceeding, the general classroom objectives.

Jess Buice, Natalia Elementary

• I read every student’s paperwork to know their target behaviors, their challenges, and what supports they get in the classroom. Then I meet before school with the Special Education team and discuss the best ways to apply those accommodations in music as well as build plans to help nonverbal and sensory sensitive students. Most importantly, I treat the assistants and aides as the professionals they are in their field. I trust their judgment and opinions. —

Lindsey Coffman, Lagway Elementary

• First, we make sure students are in a good area where they can learn best. I use the paraprofessional’s judgment on where that should be. Our paras were really good at jumping in and assisting the students as needed. When partners were needed for an activity, sometimes the assistant or I was the partner, but most times we partnered them with a student who would be a good fit. We taught a wide range of special education students. Some needed no extra attention from the paras, and for others, the para spent one-on-one time with the student while I taught the rest. I was so fortunate to have such great assistants—I appreciated them every day! —

Linda Davis, Online music educator

• I talk with special education teachers and the paraprofessionals who work with the students daily for ways to include their students in music. We work together to find the students’ abilities and comfort levels. I share music materials for students to have daily practice outside the music room. I see students once a week, so the best thing I can do is talk and plan with the people who see the students every day, and then we can find the best and most appropriate way for everyone to be included. —Anonymous

• The instructional assistants help special education students by using manipulatives I provide or that they bring with them. They sometimes assist by providing extra help or time for those students with IEPs who require this. Paraprofessionals are invaluable to help the students on IEPs get as much as their classmates from the music lessons and participation.

—Linda Cauthen, Yarbro Elementary/Lovington MS

• The Specials team created a Google Doc we reviewed with each of the 16 paraprofessionals on our campus, explaining the needs for support in each area. This was immensely helpful. During the year the paras helped my students succeed in music because of a continual dialogue between us. Before an activity I let them know how much support I wanted them to offer. If I was anticipating frustration, they stayed nearby to preempt issues. From a practical standpoint, support can be hand-over-hand help while playing Orff instruments or quiet verbal reminders of movement instructions. Another accommodation that has worked well with support is putting stickers over the holes on a student’s recorder so that it plays only one note. That note is highlighted, and the para tracks the music for the student so that they can simply blow on the highlighted note. —

Emily Brackney, Forest Vista Elementary

• We have high turnover with education assistants, so this is something I review every year. In the past we have also had quick meetings before school starts to talk about the needs of each student. I also teach my essential academics class one day a week during my planning period. I get to know the students faster and can form a strong bond with them in a small setting. I have been doing this for about 12 years and have seen nonverbal students become verbal and join the choir. I would say constant collaboration with their teacher and EAs is the key. —

Tricia Moore, Parmer Lane Elementary

• To fully include special education students in music, I carefully review their IEPs. If I’m not 100% sure how to include them without pushing too far, I speak with the paras before class. I try to read their emotions before they come in (as I do with all other students). Often, these students are left out. I put them right in the middle of the group and make sure they have a job. It may be as simple as keeping the beat on an instrument, but it includes them! They are different, not less than. —

Taylor Davis, Turner Elementary School 0

For more answers, go to www.tmea.org/q&a.

How do you collaborate with instructional assistants and paraprofessionals to fully include special education students?

TMEA Elementary Vice-President CHRISTOPHER GILES

The Power of a Name

Taking the time to learn your students’ names and how to pronounce them correctly can help with classroom management and, more importantly, can help you build stronger relationships with them.

Many of us learn in our colleges and universities that the beginning of the year is paramount for setting up classroom rules and procedures with your students. We are told that establishing clear expectations and consequences will set us up for success for our year. Over time, I have come to realize this is only a small part of my overall classroom management. I believe the most impactful thing you can do is to build relationships with your students. This starts with something that is central to each student’s identity—their name

The Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning website includes a section on classroom management. One of the webpages is dedicated to the importance of learning student names and offers the following: “One of the most effective ways to establish a productive classroom environment is learning what your students want to be called in the classroom.” It goes on to summarize research on the topic with, “Use of student names has been shown to build classroom community, increase student engagement by helping them feel more comfortable, make students feel more accountable to the instructor, ensure students are comfortable seeking help, and increase student satisfaction with a course.”

As educators, we owe it to our students to invest the time to learn not only their names but also how to say them correctly. I work at a campus with about 1,000 students. My school is about 30% military, and I teach around 130 new kindergartners each year. Given the community’s mobility rate, I constantly learn new names throughout the school year.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

check www.tmea .org for updates

September—Renew your membership and register for the convention.

October 5, 6 a.m. CT—TMEA convention housing reservation system opens online.

November 1 —TMEA scholarship online application deadline.

January 18 —TMEA convention early registration deadline.

February 7–10 —TMEA Clinic/Convention in San Antonio.

Rhona Morris Brink 1952–2023

Technology Can Help

I would like to share how I utilize an app to help me learn names as well as two books I plan to introduce to my students this year to help them understand the value in learning names and getting to know each other better.

For decades, seating charts have been a trusted tool to help us learn student names. I don’t implement seating charts until the second class time with students. Since I am on a six-day rotation with my students, this takes place at the beginning of September. During the first rotation I start right away with musical communitybuilding activities to see how well students work with one another. Doing this helps me learn a lot about the class climate and decide which students I need to place closest to me in the seating chart.

For many years I have used the app iDoceo. It is a planner, gradebook, and seating chart in one. My favorite feature is the incredibly flexible seating chart. You can create and title a class, add the number of students in it, and then place students in rows, circles, small groups, or any other configuration. In addition to placing students’ names in the preferred format, you can click on their name and attach a picture of them as you show them their assigned spot. Students can easily be moved by dragging and dropping them somewhere else on the screen.

Once I have all classes established and students seated in the app, I can export and print them to place in a binder. Having seating charts printed with student faces has proven invaluable for substitutes, and they are so appreciative of the extra effort. The printout includes space to handwrite phonetic spellings of any you need to make note of. Updating charts to add, remove, or move students in the seating chart is incredibly quick and easy. If you haven’t used an app like iDoceo before, I highly recommend looking into what will work best for you. Incorporating technology like this can help you build community.

Sharing Stories About Names

Books are another way to learn about

names and discover the meaning behind some in your classroom. One book I plan to use with my kindergarten through second grade students is That’s Not My Name! by Anoosha Syed. Being someone with a last name people often mispronounce, I love this book.

The main character is Mirha who is starting her first day of school.

When she introduces herself, she quickly discovers that people struggle to say her name. The emphasis is on the wrong syllable, they pronounce the vowels wrong, and one student even offers to rename her because it would be easier for everyone else to say.

Mirha wants to make friends, so she is reluctant to correct the students and too shy to correct her teacher who also had

difficulty pronouncing her name. She goes home feeling defeated. After talking with her mom about the situation, Mirha learns that her name has a special meaning in Arabic— happiness. My favorite line in the book is from Mirha’s mother who says, “If people can remember names like Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo, they can remember Mirha.”

The next day when Mirha returns to school, she has a new sense of confidence and shares with her classmates what her name means and how to say it. In the process, she learns other students have names with special meanings, too. This book is a fantastic way to incorporate social and emotional learning in the classroom, and it’s a bonus that it includes a nod to music composers.

The second book I plan to start with my third- through fifth-grade students is one that has been widely circulated over

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the past few years, Your Name Is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow. Like in the previous book, characters in Your Name Is a Song have difficulty pronouncing the main character’s name. In this book, the mom shares with her daughter how she can turn names into melodies to learn how to say them.

This colorful book has phonetic spelling of names throughout, and I have seen it presented in multiple ways. Some composed a simple original name song and used it as a transition between pages as the book is read. Others had workshop participants group up and create pentatonic word chains to sing, using their names over an eight-beat phrase.

I plan to create a short original song to transition between pages with my third graders, and I’ll utilize the pentatonic word chain composition activity with my fourth and fifth graders.

Mispronunciations and nicknames can lower students’ self-esteem and wear down trust that has been built. Our names are personal and have meaning or stories behind them. Taking the time to learn your students’ names and how to pronounce them correctly can help with classroom management and, more importantly, can help you build stronger relationships with them.

2024 Clinic/Convention Update

I’m looking forward to seeing you in San Antonio for our 2024 Clinic/ Convention February 7–10! We will continue to publish updates about this incredible event in the magazine and at

TMEA Clinic/Convention ELEMENTARY DIVISION

63 Elementary Division Clinics & Concerts

www.tmea.org/convention. Be sure to discuss this professional development opportunity with your administrator soon.

If you haven’t yet, register to attend at www.tmea.org/register and mark your calendar for October 5, as our housing reservation system opens that day at 6 a.m. CT.

Thanks to all who applied to present clinics and to perform at our convention. This event will be full of elementary music pedagogy, inspiring performances, and the best deals on all the materials that will help us deliver high-quality instruction! 0

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• When you observe, focus on the students as they play/sing. Think about what you would do in response and then notice how your cooperating teacher responds. If their response differs from yours (and often it will), note it and ask them about it later to learn why they responded as they did. This is more beneficial than observing passively or only logging the sequence of events in the classroom. How that teacher gathered information and formulated their response is a huge part of how effective teachers do what they do.

John Parsons, Texas Tech Univ

• Ask to take on simple office tasks so you aren’t caught off guard when you have them as a full-time teacher. Embrace the hours. Leave when your mentor leaves or when they don’t need your services for the rest of that day. Seek multiple pedagogical sources—students are complex and unique, so knowing more than one way to teach the same concept will benefit you. Observe how your mentor communicates with parents and other non-music colleagues. —Anonymous

• Ask your school supervisor for as much constructive criticism as possible. You can leap forward years in expertise by taking advantage of their experience. Hold regular planning meetings with your supervisor to assess your classes’ performance and your role in their learning. Engage fully. Show initiative, good judgment, and positive contributions to the classroom. Thoroughly document your accomplishments in a log. Ask your principal to observe you and conduct a mock interview.

Floyd Richmond, Tarleton State Univ

• Change your mindset from student to future music teacher. Doing so will keep you more mindful of several areas, including language and its impact on teaching, professional demeanor and how our actions impact others, attitude, teaching area and ensemble pedagogy, and more. Develop teaching and playing experience through a private lesson studio and performing in as many types of ensembles as possible.

Jennifer Ratchford Sholtis, Texas A&M Univ Kingsville

• Being in front of students is job one. After that, ask your mentor teacher about working with a budget, how they select music, and how they sequence long-range lessons and rehearsal planning. These conversations could save you much time and effort. —Michael Alexander, Baylor Univ

• Gather and organize research and class materials. The hardest part of the first year of teaching is the constant building of lesson plans. Having organized materials at the ready will be a big help.

—Steven Sodders,

Austin Community College

• Conduct yourself as a professional authority and establish that demeanor up front. Avoid the temptation you may have to fit in with the students. Ask for and be open to criticism from the directors and your supervising teacher. Notice the routines that the directors have in place. —Anonymous

• Concentrate on your observational skills, networking skills, and teaching practices. Creating specific goals for your observations will help you apply what you observe to your teaching. Seek out many ways to serve the program. Video-record and review many teaching sessions. Remember that you are on a journey and will continue learning, growing, and developing your own teaching style, network, and powers of observation.

Whitney Crowley, Concordia Univ Texas

• You will experience a new level of tiredness during student teaching, and it can worsen during your first year teaching. Start caring for your physical health and your mental health.

—Eddie Vandewalker, Lamar State College Port Arthur

• When not serving as lead teacher, regularly sit in the ensemble and play a different secondary instrument. This is the time to review your skills on each instrument and place your ears in the environment where tone quality is developed to gain awareness of technical challenges and specific advice for individuals, not sweeping generalities. Students will also admire you for showing your commitment to learning.

Thomas Keck, Southern Methodist Univ

• I suggest that any teaching position includes four pillars: teaching, administration, service, and professional development. Take the time, effort, and extra steps to learn as much as you can about the three pillars in addition to teaching. The more organized and informed you are with budgeting, scheduling, planning (administration), the more time you will have to focus on the most important pillar—teaching. Shadow your mentor teacher at faculty meetings. Ask to sit on a campuswide committee. Engage yourself in the life of your campus.

Eric Branscome, Texas A&M Univ Commerce

• After completing a month or so, if the supervising and cooperating teachers agree, observe another program for a day—you can gain valuable empathy and insight as you observe something different. My cooperating teacher set this up and I learned a tremendous amount from it.

Gene Dowdy, Schreiner Univ

For more answers, go to www.tmea.org/q&a.

Beyond teaching, what should student teachers do during this preservice time to best prepare for their first job?

TMEA College Vice-President

Doing What We Love

Renewing our sense of the importance and value of our work allows us to approach our students with the idealism that first attracted us to the inexhaustible joy of music-making.

The part of teaching we love is fundamentally idealistic. We believe in the power of education to effect change. We trust in our students’ ability to grow. We seek to empower the next generation to pursue excellence and professional responsibility. We hope to cultivate the spark of creativity and appreciation that leads to art.

After 40 years of teaching, I have come to believe in the value of our seasonal calendar. The restorative value of a summer break, even for those of us with summer teaching responsibilities, is an unquestioned and deeply experiential part of our lives. Many times, we find ourselves closing the spring semester focused on the minutia of the mechanical part of being a faculty member. Very often, we are consumed with managing conditions that we cannot change and navigating our least favorite waters.

The summer break gives us the opportunity to move from the pragmatic close of the semester to the optimism of the beginning. We always want to start the fall semester with the highest hopes and aspirations— we believe our students do as well. Renewing our sense of the importance and value of our work allows us to approach our students with the idealism that first attracted us to the inexhaustible joy of music-making.

We are now into the flow of the fall semester. As the journey through our seasonal cycle continues, I will strive to retain the optimism from the beginning of the term. I’m encouraged by the enthusiasm of our students and the commitment of my colleagues. I continue to hope that our work will bring creativity and art to the world through the next generation. Together, we will find the joy of music-making and the satisfaction of seeing our students’ success.

September—Renew your membership and register for the convention.

September 1–October 15— Online submission of research poster session proposals.

October 1 —TMEA College research proposal grant application deadline.

October 5, 6 a.m. CT—TMEA convention housing reservation system opens online.

October 6 —TMEA College Fall Conference in Austin.

November 1 —Collegiate Music Educator Award nomination deadline.

December 15 —College Student Essay submission deadline.

January 18 —TMEA convention early registration deadline.

February 7–10 —TMEA Clinic/Convention in San Antonio.

College Division Fall Conference

Please mark your calendar for the annual College Division Fall Conference on Friday, October 6. The conference is held at the TMEA Office in Austin. All College Division members are welcome and there is no fee. The conference includes lunch, during which is a great opportunity to engage with colleagues from across the state. A full schedule will be emailed to the College Division membership before the event, with a request to RSVP.

This year’s constitutional revisions have elevated the importance of the Fall Conference for College Division members. Recognizing that more of the business of the College Division is conducted during our Fall Conference than at Region meetings, we have the opportunity during this conference to nominate a candidate for the College Division Vice-President election.

As usual, we will be able to discuss legislative issues and conduct meetings with our committees. I’m pleased to report that our committees are doing much important work and I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

College Division Region Chairs

The office of Region Chair remains important for the College Division. Notwithstanding the constitutional requirements for the work of the individual Regions, the College Division Region Chair serves as the point person for administering TMEA programs (such as grants) and communication. Communication should work both from the Region to TMEA and TMEA to the Region.

Our annual meeting of the College Division Region Chairs at the convention in February was excellent and produced many strong suggestions. One of the discussion items involved communication and procedures. This is an ongoing process and I expect to see some change and improvement as we move forward.

We still have some openings for Region Chairs. If your Region lacks a chair and you are interested in serving in this capacity, please contact me (you can view officers at www.tmea.org/regionofficers).

College Student Essay Contest

The renewed College Division Essay Contest begins the submission process this fall. I believe this is a tremendous opportunity to encourage research and writing for both our undergraduate and graduate

students. Please encourage your students to participate. In addition to the inherent value of the process, the undergraduate and graduate winners will receive $2,000 awards. Go to www.tmea.org/essaycontest.

Membership and Scholarships

If you haven’t renewed your membership in TMEA, now is the time! Even if you aren’t required to renew to access a TMEA program, maintaining your membership is critical to TMEA’s success. It also brings tremendous benefit and value to you. From the professional perspective,

TMEA is engaged with state law and policy that directly affects our students and our certification curriculum. From a personal perspective, the opportunities to serve as a participant and presenter are an important part of an engaged professional life. If you are unsure of your membership status, just go to www.tmea.org/renew.

When you renew your membership (and anytime later), you can contribute to the TMEA scholarship fund. TMEA annually invests in generous scholarships for undergraduates, graduates, and student teachers. This is made possible by the generous

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TMEA Clinic/Convention COLLEGE DIVISION

51 College Division Clinics & Research Poster Session

contributions of the membership. As college faculty, we observe daily the opportunities created by TMEA for our students. Please support this important work and set a goal to increase your contributions any time it’s financially possible!

Student Teaching Scholarships

An especially valuable program for music education students nearing the completion of their undergraduate degree is the TMEA Student Teaching Scholarship. TMEA College Student members who will be student teaching in spring 2024 and fall 2024 need to apply before the deadline on November 1, 2023. Make sure your students are aware of this incredible opportunity!

Finally, I want to thank Carter Biggers, Crystal Gerrard-Ramirez, and the members of the committees who worked diligently on the clinic review for the 2024 convention. We had excellent proposals, and I am confident that the program next February will be enlightening and enjoyable. A preview of clinicians and their clinic titles will be public on September 1 at www.tmea.org/2024clinics. 0

Carlos Abril Nicole Robinson

Learn more at www.tmea.org/clinicians

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