Potpourri Concert

Congratulations to all of the Symphonic Band and Wind Ensemble members for a fine job at the Potpourri Concert tonight. I am especially thankful to all of you who came from all of the sporting events and practices and play rehearsals. I know this was an extra effort and made it a very long day for you. I was very pleased with SB's rendition of King Cotton--excellent dynamics and good rhythmic precision! The WE did a great job with the La Peri Fanfare, and the soloists in Grainger's Shepherd's Hey really set the standard for the entire group. Kudos to all!

By the way, did you know that the buttons from our old marching band uniforms make excellent cuff links? Not that I forgot mine tonight...

Now it's time for homecoming! Go Warriors!

9/11

Twelve members of the DHS Warrior Marching Band took part in a civic ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of 9/11. It was held on the front lawn of the Deerfield Village Hall on Waukegan under beautiful, blue skies, not unlike the weather we remember seeing ten years ago in New York City. We opened the event with the national anthem, followed by some patriotic selections, including "America," "America the Beautiful," and "God Bless America." We also played "God of Our Fathers," which is known as the "National Hymn." The words were written for the American centennial in 1876, and the tune was composed a decade later for the centennial of the U.S. Constitution. Although there is a wonderful band arrangement of this hymn Claude T. Smith, we played a simple, four-part chorale version.

We then played a similar setting of "It Is Well with My Soul," which has a particularly poignant story that is appropriate for the occasion. Horatio Spafford, a wealthy Chicago businessman who was financially ruined by the great Chicago Fire of 1871, planned a trip to England with his wife and four daughters to take his mind off his troubles. He sent them ahead on the steamship Ville de Havre, which was tragically struck by another ship and sank. All four of his daughters died in the accident, with only his wife left to send the fateful telegram, "Saved alone." When he sailed for England to meet his wife, he asked the captain of the ship to let him know when they reached the site of the accident. It was there that he penned the hymn, a testament to one man's faith in the eyes of tragedy. I felt this was a fitting piece to play as we looked back to the events of ten years ago.

I remember being in the old band room in M-hall on September 11, 2001. Towards the end of freshman band, Mr. Swanson, the assistant principal, came on the P.A. system and told everyone about the attacks and directed us to turn the classroom televisions on to the news. My memories of what we actually saw are a bit fuzzy, but it would have been sometime before 9:00am in Chicago, after both towers had been hit. I believe we heard about the Pentagon strike and saw the towers collapse in real time. In any event, there was an incredible numbness across the school. I remember going to my office after class and calling my wife, who was about to turn off the television. My twin sons, four years old at the time, were happily watching the exciting scenes of fire trucks. When she realized that this was no commonplace accident, she found something else for them to do. Trying to get online to CNN was impossible, so most of us spent the day around the TV monitors in classrooms. My student teacher told me her boyfriend was in DC and that his bus stop was outside the Pentagon, so I sent her home to try to contact him. By the time fourth period came around, there wasn't a lot of new information to be had, so we tried half-heartedly to rehearse in Symphonic Band for the Potpourri Concert. Unfortunately, we were working on a cheerful little march, and it just seemed wrong.

The next few days of teaching were difficult. Learning scales and rhythms seemed insignificant at that point, and not being a history teacher, I felt ill-equipped to explain what was going on to my students. I know that I started my next rehearsals with "Amazing Grace" from the chorale books because it has such a hopeful melody. In retrospect, the band piece On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss would have been even more appropriate, as it is based on "It Is Well with My Soul."

One year later, the marching band gathered with the DHS community by the flag pole and played the national anthem. After a moment of silence, trumpeter Jenni Morris played "Taps," slightly cracking one of the last notes, much like the military bugler who played for President Kennedy's funeral in 1963. Instead of this diminishing the moment, it represented the broken feeling we all had inside. At the ceremony this past Sunday, Zack Berman had the honor of playing "Taps" to punctuate an honor guard ceremony led by our Deerfield police and firefighters. I'm proud to say that he nailed it.

Click here for photos from the Deerfield 9/11 ceremony.

Music, Acoustics, and Math

If you like the three subjects above, then I think you'll dig this:

Freshman Orientation 2011

Yesterday, all of the freshman band members went through four hours of orientation, led by their senior advisors. They got their books, lockers, ID photos, and email accounts. There were tours and get-acquainted activities in the gym. At the end of the day, the cheerleaders and members of the marching band capped off the festivities with a rousing rendition of the fight song. Now that the freshmen have been officially welcomed to DHS, we're all ready for the first day on Wednesday. See you then!

Band Camp 2011

Another successful band camp is in the books. We finished yesterday at 5:00pm with pregame learned, the halftime music sounding strong, and three rehearsals next week to do some polishing and finishing touches. A special thanks to our alum Alec who spent the week with the percussionists getting them prepped on cadences. Another big thank you to the four band moms who served dinner on Wednesday and helped with uniform distribution.

Congrats to the trumpets, who won the march-by competition, and to the flutes, who won the spirit contest. Zack B won the individual march-off, with Kiley and Josh K as runners-up. Jon W was the rookie champ.

The great news is that we will be marching 65 students this year! I have to go back through my records, but it's been several years since we've had this many on the field. For the last two years, freshmen have joined in record numbers. That speaks a lot for the older students who have created such a positive community and enthusiasm surrounding the Warrior Marching Band. I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful students to work with.

Below are pictures from Thursday, when each section got to create their own pose. Enjoy, and we'll see you at the game Friday night!

New Repertoire Lists Posted

Hey Concert Band, Symphonic Band, and Wind Ensemble members! I have chosen all of our music for the fall quarter, and it is now posted on the band website. You can view the titles, hear many of the pieces, and learn about many of the composers. Just go to your ensemble's page and click on the "repertoire list" link at the bottom left.

Concert Band
Symphonic Band
Wind Ensemble

I hope you've been practicing--the music will be challenging, and SB and WE perform one piece each on 9/20!

My Three Favorite Musical Discoveries of the Summer!

My first great discovery from the past several weeks has to be Spok Frevo. A former band parent sent me the YouTube link you see below. It's a Brazilian ensemble that mixes big band jazz with a frenetic local style called frevo. The Afropop Worldwide website describes frevo as "breakneck northeastern Brazilian rhythm and dance." I call it "muito quente"--Portuguese for "very hot"!

Notice how each horn player has his own wireless mic attached to the bell. This allows total freedom of movement and excellent sound reinforcement. They all have single headphones as well so they can hear the live sound in one ear and the mix in the other. The percussionists should be familiar if you remember what you learned in the Latin American music unit as a freshman. To the left of the drum set is someone playing the giant surdo bass drums--note the boom-BOOM boom-BOOM pattern. On the right is the pandeiro player with the shallow and heavy Brazilian version of the tambourine.



My second discovery came courtesy of a podcast called Sound Opinions. This is a weekly program billed as "the world's only rock and roll talk show." You can hear it locally on WBEZ 91.5 FM, but I download the shows and listen to them when I'm working out or running. Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis cover a wide range of topics, from historical to current performers. A few weeks ago, they had tUnE-yArDs in the studio. The band is led by songwriter/vocalist/percussionist/African music expert Merrill Garbus. Her music features a great deal of live looping, a process by which a musician can play a pattern and have it repeat over and over electronically while adding new parts on top of it in a live setting. When she combines her overdubbed vocals and percussion with a bassist and two saxophonists, it's a truly infectious new riff on 1970s Afropop.

tUnE-yArDs perform 'Doorstep' on Sound Opinions from WBEZ on Vimeo.

Want to see and hear more? Click here and scroll down to Show #294.

My final discovery is something that makes me very happy. There used to be an online music service called lala.com that allowed you to listen to thousands of tracks for free. The only catch was that you could only listen to each track once unless you paid a nominal 10 cents to add it to your playlist. Instead of downloading tracks, it was all cloud-based. Anyway, Apple bought them out and promptly shut them down a couple of years ago. Since then, the only worthwhile free service has been Pandora, which doesn't allow you to specify the track you want to hear. Instead, you specify an artist or a genre or a song you like, and Pandora serves up a non-stop feed of similar music. It's like having your own radio station, 24/7. So if you punch in "Life During Wartime" by the Talking Heads, you might hear Billy Idol's "White Wedding" and "Momma's Reward" by Edgar Broughton Band. But what if you want to hear a specific album or track?

Enter Spotify. Until this summer, it was only available in Europe, but it has now debuted in the US. Like many music services, it has subscription plans, but it also has a free version. Simply apply for an account, wait a few days for the email "invitation," download the app, and start listening. It's a very slick interface, and they have a pretty big collection of albums that you can listen to in their entirety. With the free plan, your album gets interrupted with ads for other musicians hawking their tracks. This can be jarring when you're listening to a quiet, subtle album like Esperanza Spalding's eponymous disc and some loud rock music bursts through the speakers in between tunes, but hey, it's free!

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So, those are my latest discoveries. In the meantime, I've been back at school choosing music for all the bands. I've got some great plans for each group! I've put up my bulletin boards, photocopied a bunch of forms and warm-up packets, and ordered all new marching band t-shirts for everyone! The countdown to the new year continues!