Call me Maestro

In the movie Dead Poet's Society, Robin Williams character, the English teacher, told his students, if they were really brave, they could call him "Oh Captain, my Captain." And his students did. I have thought it would be funny to insist that my students call me "Maestro" instead of by my surname. I have never been brave enough however to ask this of my students.

Why not though? Maestro is just Italian for teacher, which I am. Maestro is the traditional title for a professional conductor, and aren't I a conductor too? I can just imagine a parent getting upset that I insisted their child call me Maestro, and just who the heck do I think I am anyway?

Titles aside, conducting is a very important part of the job of a band director and something that needs to be taken seriously whether you're conducting the AAA High School band that wins all kids of contests, or the hokey pokey elementary school band that's playing one liners out of the beginning band method book.

When I was a band geek fresh out of high school and beginning my career as a music ed. major (which is really just another way of saying band geek) those in my cohort all had the same goal in mind: we wanted to be big time high school band directors. We spent our time perfecting our conducting gestures and thinking of the day we would conduct First Suite in Eb by Holst and Variation on America by Ives with our own award winning high school band. As we got closer to graducation we came the the realization that most of us were going to hokey pokey elemntary school or home on the range middle school and not AAA high like we had always dreamed. No matter where you end up, those conducting skills you worked so hard to acquire by spending time in from of the mirror while listening to Fredrick Fenell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble will not have been spent in vain.

Like so many of my classmates my first job, and my second (which I still hold today) were at Home, Home on the Range Middle School HHOTRMS (not it's real name). While in both of those jobs I had my top concert band, but most of my job was teaching beginngers (at my first HHOTRMS job I actually spend half of my day at Hokey Pokey Elementary School HPES). When conducting the HPES or the HHOTRMS beginning band in their performance of Jingle Bells, or Mary Anne I decided that I had two choices: I could stand there and wave my stick "floor, door, wall, ceiling" over and over while the students ignored that I existed, or I could actually conduct and lead the students. Why settle for the former? It relegates my role as the conductor to a mere back ground dancer, and, as I have pointed out to my students before, I am a lousy dancer.

Even from the first three note songs that can be found in any beginning band method there are musical elements that the condcutor can and should bring to the attention of the musicians in the band. How else will they now that it's more appropriate to breath at the end of the fourth bar of jingle bells rather than breathing every bar, or worse, between every note! How else can we demonstrate the stylistic difference between the stacatto notes in Polly Wolly Doodle and the lyrical style of a warm-up chorale.

I realized in my second or third year of teacher that I conducted my beginning bands with as much gusto as I did my concert bands and it made a difference. I team taught with a colleague 2 years and there was a difference in how the band played under the different direcotrs, even when playing one liners out of the method book.

Perhaps this would make a good topic for a disertation or thesis. I could collect video tapes of various conductors leading their groups and to some sort of analysis on both the quality of the condcuting and on the quality of the performance, but perhaps there is to my subjectiveness in that reasearch.

For now I can call myself Maestro in my head and I'll continue conducting my beginings like they're AAA High School or the New York Philharmonic for that matter.

...and the band geeks loved him so much, they made him their king.

I was a band geek in school. There are millions of us out there in the world. What probably started as a slur meant to insult those of us devoted to our school's band has come to be a title worn proudly by so many of us. My high school had a huge band program when I was an eighth grader. My school's sports teams were an embarrassment (in particular the football team), but the band program we something to be proud of. By the time I arrived, because of the departure of a very popular band director, the program dwindled into a mere shadow of itself. Although the band was no longer the biggest and best thing in our school, the "band geeks" were still recognized by all as one of the most recognizable (although probably not the coolest) cliques on campus.

In my four years of high school, we had five different band directors hold the position. If you include my three years of middle school into the mix, during my seven years of secondary school I had seven different band directors. The only director that I had for more than one year in a row was Mr. C in 6th and 7th grade and in freshman year I had two different directors. Rumor had it at the time that the school's administration wanted to get rid of the band director, but, contracts what they are, they could not simply fire him. So they demoted him to assistant band director with the previous popular band director who had left to go into administration, returning to finish out the year as band director. As expected the "assistant band director" quit faster that you can say "Vivace."

The parade of band director's continued through my senior year. The men that held the post had varying degree's of competence. Of those seven band directors 3 were brand new to teaching and 1 was new to teaching high school (he had formerly been an elementary school band director). The challenge faced by band directors in such a situation is that, no matter how charismatic you may be, it is hard to retain students in your program when there is someone different on the podium every year.

While I stayed a loyal band geek and even served a year as our band's drum major (unfortunately of a very small band by this point), I couldn't help but think that perhaps I could do it better. After performing with the county honor band, I realized that I could do it.

Before naming this blog I googled "King of the Band Geeks" and found several claiming the title. While these people claim the title because they were perhaps the geekiest or most devoted of the band geeks when they were in school, and they are still devoted and loyal to their band geek friends, they stopped being the king the moment they put on that cap and gown. Who then can rightfully claim the title? My friends, it must be the band geek that never left the school band. Sixteen years after high school has ended I still spend all of my time in the band room. As the band director - as the maestro - I AM the King of the Band Geeks.