"This magic moment"

I had this thought tonight while I was singing in Vespers in Austin at St. Martins, but it wasn't just any old thought. My thought was that my time here at TLU is almost over. I am a senior music education major at Texas Lutheran University. I finally know what I want to do with my life and life seems to be progressing faster than I'm ready for. I realized tonight that I would never have another moment of singing with this choir, the choir that performed at Vespers tonight. What a sad thought...

I'm not crying. My eyes are just sweating.

 

 

I have been blessed with the opportunity to sing with the TLU choirs and my only regret is that I haven't taken enough time to really step back and enjoy those small moments. There were several moments tonight where I really thought to myself, is this it? Will I ever be able to sing in another choir after I graduate? I don't want to stop singing and even though I'm teaching music to many different students, there will never be a feeling such as performing in a choir. Sharing one goal of telling a story through music. That "magic moment" when you get chills down your body or tears in your eyes because you realize that the music you are creating is so amazing and heartrending that only magic can be the cause. It's incredible to believe that a group of 60 people will all be thinking of completely different thoughts while singing but for some reason, if even for a split second...you all become one and the sound is heavenly. Purely heaven.

 

Here's a picture of the choir. It's from my freshman year in college. But some of the most important people I will ever meet are in this picture. It was taken during Vespers in Austin at St. Martins. It's an anniversary in some ways. It's the last time I will ever sing with my graduating class before everyone continues on their journey to the real world. 

 

 

I am feeling a little nostalgic right now as I feel that I am beginning to really comprehend the idea of moving forward. As of lately, I have tried to take one day at a time but still see the bigger picture. It's nice to sometimes stop though. Stop and smell the roses so to speak. Stop and look back at old pictures and remember the wonderful times you've had and all the moments you wish would freeze in time. I feel like music is magically since it touches a deep and secret part of your soul that no one will ever see. Music is the key that unlocks that room where you are afraid to let people into. By allowing music to seep into your soul, you can begin a new, a fresh start, and a new beginning by taking that time to release any bad part of your life in that particular moment.

 

There are so many songs that have affected my life in such a positive way that I would need an entire book to even begin to describe what those songs did for me. But one choral piece that I can think of that touched my heart is a piece called Ave Maria by Kevin Memley and I sang that song my freshman year of college. It's beautiful. That's just it. It's the first song I fell in love with in the TLU choir and it's funny now because this year, my senior year, we were given a CD of the recordings of songs the choir sang 3 years ago. My freshman year. I feel as if I have come full circle and I began my journey of touching music with Ave Maria and now I am listening to the product of that song in a CD capturing what we as a choir felt 3 years ago.

 

So now I'm asking, are there any songs that you just absolutely love? Have they ripped open your heart in a good way? What were they? Do these songs freeze a memory in your mind? I'm really curious and I would love to find out how you all feel about music. :)

 

 

 

 

 



 

I can't wait to be a music teacher!

I went to Vogel Elementary about two weeks ago to observe for one of my classes here at TLU. I walked into the classroom which was the 5th grade class and they were practicing for music memory.  I just love music memory as it is an UIL event for students who are interested in learning the information on past composers and what the songs sound like. The teacher that I was observing is Mrs. Sanchez and she's been teaching for about 6 years now but started out as a band director before she decided to teach elementary music. The first thing that I noticed while observing is Mrs. Sanchez started to talk to her 5^th graders about what the UIL music memory was all about. Mrs. Sanchez was introducing the song “In the hall of the mountain king” by Edvard Grieg and integrated many different ways of getting the students to really understand the song. Here's a video of the song in case you have no idea what I am talking about.

The first approach Mrs. Sanchez took was to show the students an interactive listening map that showed all of the different musical elements that were present in the song. The listening map included dynamics, what instruments were being played, the coda, ending and troll pictures that tied in the story of the troll king in Peer Gynt. The students followed the map along that was being presented on the projector and at the end of the listening map, Mrs. Sanchez reinforced the title and composer of the piece by having someone answer who wrote the piece and what the piece was called. Afterwards, Mrs. Sanchez moved on to the second approach to learning the song by showing the students the hand jive to use in the song to incorporate pulse as well as engage the body in the song. At the end of the song, again Mrs. Sanchez had two different students say what the title of the song was and who wrote the song.

Next, Mrs. Sanchez asked the students if they wanted to go on a “troll hunt” which consisted of a repeat-repeat song-speech that included physical movements. The adventure the students went on imaginatively speaking was very creative and required the students to use different motions and accents to help distinguish the different parts of the music. Different concepts were touched in this one activity that include dynamics, pitch (high/low), clapping (pulse), different accents that changed the pace and flow of the music. After the students learned the motions they were able to produce those motions again but no words this time and the music was turned on. I was completely amazed by this activity as the “troll hunt” matched up perfectly with in the hall of the mountain king. I really enjoyed the fact that Mrs. Sanchez used a listening map, basic movements in the hand jive, teaching the “troll hunt” motions, adding the music all together with the motions, etc. to help the students really grasp what the song was about and how to remember the song. All of those techniques as well as Mrs. Sanchez constantly asking the students what the title of the song were called and who wrote it will no doubt cause the students to never forget the song since the mind and body were engaged throughout the class period.

Yay! They understand the song!

I was very excited to see this class as I would like to be creative as Mrs. Sanchez was and give my students the opportunity to learn music history while still being engaged. This was definitely one of my favorite class periods to date that I had observed.

Do you ever feel that you really grasp a concept after repeating the information several times? I was really excited to see how many times Mrs. Sanchez repeated the song and the information on the song! Can you think of a time when you had to reinforce something to someone a million times until they really grasped the concept?

Well...this is awkward!

So this summer I was working at a private preschool and child care facility where I was an assistant teacher who taught school age students who attended this facility for the summer camp program. The theme  of the summer was time travel and teaching the students about the different eras that were most prominent in our society.  I worked with two other teachers and we taught anywhere from 40-50 students each week but we all left at different time of the day. I was the closure most of the time so I would work from around 9:30am and leave at 6:30pm. My two coworkers left around 3 or 4pm usually but sometimes they would come in later and therefore close the evening with me. Now that you know my basic schedule of the summer let me move on to the topic of this evening. Awkwardness. What do you do in this situation sort of thing.

Towards the end of the evening on a day I can't remember, my coworkers had left for the evening and I was with 26 students. I had to wait until the students were picked up by their parents and therefore I had no idea when the students would be picked up as the parents were never consistent. I remember that it was a Friday afternoon and the Gym instructor was going to be coming in the afternoon to play gym games with the students. As the students were lining up to play a game called jump the river, I noticed two of my kindergarten students poking at each other and appearing to be agitated with each other. I went over and asked them to be nice to one another or I was going to have to ask them to sit out of the game. The two students moved away from each other and started to play jump the river. It was about 90 degrees outside and so I asked the students to take a water break since it was so hot outside. The gym teacher went inside with the students and I was in between the door to the outside and inside as I wanted to make sure I could keep an eye on my students. I asked my students to wait against the brick wall on the outside once they were done getting water so they wouldn't run around inside. The two students who were fighting earlier went to stand against the brick wall along with the other students and they were standing really close to each other. I turned my head to look inside for a second and when I turned my eyes in the direction of the students against the wall I noticed those two students kissing. KISSING.

And yes kissing isn't really that big of a deal...but when you're talking about two kindergarten students who are the same gender. They were boys. It puts me as their teacher in a very awkward situation! I will state right now that I am for homosexuality and I do not see a problem with a person loving who they want to. But as  teacher and my profession I was at a loss of words on what to do. I witnessed two of my students kissing which caused all of the other students to make remarks and gross comments. I did not like the comments as I know the boys were embarrassed but at the same time I did not think that the boys should have kissed period. It was not the time nor place and quite frankly they were just too young. I was in a panic since I did really know what to do in this situation.
So I ended up talking to the parents afterwards and my coworkers to let them know what I had seen. I was in a pickle since I felt bad as a person that these students might get in trouble with their parents since they were just kids and didn't know what they were doing. But as a teacher, they should not have kissed in front of their peers and I have no other words to describe this besides calling it awkward.

Which brings me straight to that point. What should have I done in that situation?! I did not know how to feel since I was a teacher and on the clock at that point. I was confused about what to do and I felt that this was such a weird situation to be in! I never thought that I would encounter sexuality issues with students. I did not feel comfortable dealing with that situation. So what would you have done in my position??? Get upset with the students, ignore the situation, distract the other students from the situation? I just did not know what I should have done. This basically how I felt in that situation.

I know there is not a manual or class on what to do in awkward sexuality issues with your students. But I hope if there is a next time, I will feel more prepared. Yikes!

Something quite new!

I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to start off this blog but I'll start off with this. Let's talk about the lessons I taught at Marion ISD a week and a half ago. Oh yeah, I'm a private french horn instructor by the way and I absolutely LOVE IT because it helps me learn how to teach middle and high school students. But back to what I was going to talk about, I teach lessons at Marion ISD every other week. This last week that I worked, I found myself in a completely new situation as there were no french horn players to teach that day so instead...the instructor asked me to teach a flute and saxophone player.

Whoa.

 



This was definitely going to be a bit of a challenge for me. First of all, I do not play those instruments and was really unfamiliar with how they work.  At this point in time, I was barely learning how to play the flute in my woodwind methods class that I take at TLU. And saxophone...I am a french horn player and reeds are a completely different ball park! I asked the director, Mr. Burhts, if he was serious and he remarked that "yes, I should try teaching a different instrument". I was reluctant but I ended up saying yes.

 

All I kept thinking was "Oh Geez. What am I getting myself into?"

 

So I started with the flute player, Raven, who was in the 6th grade beginning band and true to the definition of "beginner". I only had my french horn to model different notes or my voice...so I chose to just use my voice instead. For those of you who don't know, I am majoring in music education with an emphasis on voice so I felt very comfortable just singing the notes versus the latter. The lesson was only about thirty minutes long but I felt that I had accomplished a lot. I helped Raven learn how to play her notes more legato by using more air to support her sound. I even (thanks to woodwind methods) realized what notes she was playing and was capable of helping her learn how to finger some new notes. A part of me was reluctant to introduce her to new notes on the flute since I wasn't her band director but she was excited to be able to play new songs that required those notes. So the lesson ended and I did not completely mess up!

Yes! That's a relief.

Now onto saxophone which is an instrument I have never played before. This should be interesting...

The student, I found out during the lesson, had never been in band before and was on day four of playing the saxophone. I was asked by Mr. Burhts to help this student play his notes more legato since the notes he was playing were sounding very choppy. I actually really enjoyed teaching this saxophone student because this was an opportunity for me, as an almost music teacher, to be able to use what knowledge I have to help this student play well. Needless to say, I felt that I had the potential to shape how this student plays his instrument and so I proceeded to show him very basic but crucial steps to being a great musician.  Posture, breath control, and good embouchure (the placement of the mouthpiece in the mouth) were three different concepts that I focused on during the lesson. Since I was not familiar with how to play the saxophone, I knew that focusing on those concepts would be more beneficial in the long run. My student was learning and I was excited to see that the sounds he produced on the saxophone were improving with just those simple changes. The lesson ended and I felt confident that he would be able to blend in better with the ensemble the next time they were to meet.

At the end of day, I was pleased with the lessons I had taught and hoped to potentially be given another chance to teach out of the norm. This experience had me wondering, have any of you guys ever taught something or helped somebody with something you were unfamiliar with? What did you do? I know that I was initially was terrified! I felt that I might seem clueless to the students that I was teaching. I'm just wondering, how did you feel afterwards? Was it rewarding or did you feel like you could have done something different? I know that I was pleased with how my instrumental lessons went but there is always room for improvement. :)

Next time I'll be discussing what observing elementary music classes is like. Check it out! Well...until then!