Mrs. Cancino S Fifth Grade Band Newsletter s2

Mrs. Cancino’s Fifth Grade Band Newsletter March 6, 2017 Dear Band Parents: This week, we completed our playing tests on line #76, and I was glad to hear exclamations in several classes of, “Oh, this one’s easy!” when I announced the day’s test. Next week, we will have a test on #84—this one is much trickier, and several classes agreed they needed some extra work on it. And, we are also preparing for our test on #88—concert Bb scale. It isn’t required to memorize it at the 5th grade level, but I will offer extra credit on the test if students choose to play it from memory. I was so pleased to see more students trying for their belt tests…we even have a few children who have gone ahead to the Blue Ninja Belt exercises, even though I haven’t taught them in class yet! Ha, ha, my nefarious plan to get children to willingly practice has succeeded… In other news, there is a band instrument repair school/shop in Colorado that is having a big sale on used/refurbished instruments. Their students fix the instruments, and I guess they’re now reselling them. Just in case anyone’s in the market, the link is here: http://www.ciomit.com/ and they have a list of the inventory, giving the retail/current prices, as well as what has been done to the instrument (i.e. overhaul) or not done (parts missing). With used instruments, just have a certified repair tech look at them. By instrument, your children are also working on specific skills. The kids have already learned how to do this, so they should be able to explain it to you. Feel free to give them a quiz, see what they’re retaining and if you have any questions, just drop me a line:  Flutes—we’ve been working on extending our range, both high notes (fast air, point lips up) and low notes (smush lip plate into face, swing right arm forward, blow down).  Clarinets—spent some more time trying to jump to the upper octave by “popping the register key.” To do this well, their embouchure (how they set up their mouth), their reed (stronger reed needed for high notes), and their fingers (right hands don’t always cover the holes) must all work together.  Saxophones—we’ve also been increasing our range, low and high, as well as adding more alternate fingerings. For low notes, drop the jaw and take a little more mouthpiece.  Brass—our lip slur exercises have been getting a little fancier, adding eighth notes, using the full range (low, middle, high) of the notes we know on each fingering. It’s more challenging to not tongue each note, but for now, I’d rather have them tongue and hit the note than not and miss it.  Percussion—we have added snare rudiments to our bell practice (don’t forget about bells!), so ask about flam taps, flam accents, bouncing, flamadiddles, paradiddles, berry-blue/blue-berry (setting us up for 5-stroke rolls), and flams. Remember, your children should now be working around pages 20-23. If you’re still hearing a lot of pages 8-10, your child is playing stuff that is easy and familiar…encourage them to push ahead to keep learning. At the beginning of the year, I mentioned that my 9-year old would be starting band at her school, and I’d be experiencing a beginner at home along with you. Just an update, she participated in a concert this week, and she had much harder music to practice than the regular fare. We started about a month ago, with many tears, gnashing of teeth, and “No, you did NOT play that rhythm correctly—do it again” at our house. But, she made it out the other side and had fun performing. If your child is experiencing that frustration of “this is too hard, I just want to get it done,” and is hurrying through practice, making mistakes, or not practicing at all—keep sitting them down, ask to hear one or two exercises from class, and they’ll make it, too. Mrs. Cancino Band Director: Matula, Mitchell, Barnhart, Parks [email protected] http://www.ccboe.com/departments/music/