Chair Placement

Chair placement can always be an issue - parents can complain about where their children is placed in an instrumental ensemble. Mr. Winkey at AP fixed this problem. The students are placed by where they are at in their lesson books. Students can work ahead to sit higher in their section.

Doing this creates a few options:

1. Students have a friendly competition. Students can see where the others are in their book (only if shared student to student) and the practice harder to get above or at the same level as the other student.

2. For your ensemble - the students who are further in their books are generally have a better grasp on skills and concepts. In addition students will generally set higher in the section where they will play the notes addressed in the books.

3. The motivation to work ahead takes place. Students realized this fall that others had passed them over the summer. This can keep students working during their summer breaks to maintain or excel in their band.

These are great options that Mr. Winkey has seen and we will continue to see improvement quarter to quarter.

Thurs 8/24/11 - Teaching w/o warning

Today my day started with high school marching band. The AP Marching Band is a growing program and they are preparing with a spy themed show for contest in Fort Dodge. The band's set includes "Secret Agent Man", "Mission Impossible", "James Bond", and ending with "Soul Bossa Nova". The students are increasing the number of drill movements year by year and this year seems promising.

When I returned to Aplington Middle School I joined the chorus. Ms. Weichers asked me on the spot if I could teach the solfege hand signs. Having no inhibition I decided why not. I realized how easy or how hard this could be if I showed I was totally prepared, but with that in mind I jumped in. My job became easy and we sang a whole scale in a progression - making connections between intervals etc. Also I had some trouble makers in my back row, so I moved them to the front row and had the group show the hand signs to the class. They shut down rather fast and worked as a group with the rest of the class.

The 6th grade exploratory was a class on Baroque music specifically one Bach and the organ today. Two things that I was very passionate about. Mr. Winkey shares that enthusiasm and I get to continue that tomorrow by showing slides of photos specific to the time/locations and composers discussed. I also hope to make the connections between Bach's Cello Prelude and Secrets by One Republic. Also there is a funk version of Toccata and Fugue in D minor that will be shared.

7/8 Chorus is taught here by Mr. Wessel. He only comes over for this chorus and starts by teaching the Opus Music. Selections this year are challenging especially for the girls. The pieces are rather dissonant and in Latin. This is normally the first language the students are exposed to and they will learn them as a choir. The men are singing Ritterchor favorites "The Awakening" and the "Prayer of the Children". I find it rather interesting that the lowest the students could sing in once piece would be a low G. This is so challenging when half the male voices haven't matured to hit those pitches.

To conclude - more solfege is on the way and there will be more updates coming soon.

Word Walls in Music Education - AP

Today is only the third day of classes! The initiative at Aplington-Parkersburg is to have students become better spellers without having a spelling class. Every class has been requested to use what is called a Word Wall. These will show key words to further the students' vocabulary and give them a place to review at all times.

Our goal in the music classroom is to put terms that are relevant. I currently observe and will soon teach the Exploratory class here in Mr. Winkey's band room. The course gives a music history lesson for 9 weeks (one quarter). We are starting in the Baroque period, focusing on Bach and Handel. Words are added to this wall for testing purposes and a constant reminder of how to spell these words/what context they can be used. We plan on using these in our 5th - 8th grade bands and continue from there with musical terms. We hope to build better musicians, by introducing them to vocabulary and keeping it consistent across the board.

In Ms. Weichers' general music courses we will have word walls dedicated to dynamic and tempo vocabulary. Students will learn these terms in the general lesson through a series of movements, songs, stories etc. I plan to continue with constant reminders and maybe jingles that will help the students spell.

*Written assessment will take place in our music courses for sure, ensuring that students are learning these terms and using them correctly.

The AP School District has a dedicated group of invested teachers. Every class will have word walls that relate to their specific fields. Hopefully spelling scores will improve to the ITBS and MAPs testing. More to follow.