Irving 5th Grade Band on April 4th @ 8:45 am

Mrs. Murphy was a singer but never played an instrument. She had some great ideas for classroom management, but sometimes the class would get out of control. She allowed them to talk but still maintained control of their energy. There were quite a few difficulties in the classroom that I saw during this observation. The kids seemed to get quite a bit more noisy and rowdy as the class went on. The teacher had a lot of patience, but there was also a lot of time wasted trying to keep the kids on task.

Another problem that I'm sure is very common to a beginning group was following the conductor. Tempo seemed to be a difficult concept for many of the students. The percussion section seemed to be the most ahead or behind the beat. This would be a tough situation to deal with because if your percussion is off, it's harder for the band to stay together. I would have love to take those drummers out for a sectional and get them straightened out. They were having trouble with simple eighth notes and were playing them as flams. I felt like the percussion section was basically used to being neglected.

The instrumentation was pretty balanced. Two oboes! That would be nice to start with! There was one girl on trumpet, but the rest of the girls were all on flutes, clarinets, and oboes. All the brass, saxes, and percussion were boys. It was interesting to see these stereotypes actually play out in the real world. Overall, I could see that beginning band is a ton of hard work. It would be very difficult for me to stay sane in a group of this caliber and age level. I felt like the teacher did a great job and I think that many of her students will leave her classroom with a love and excitement for music.