Weaving back the unravelling edges

This is a man worth knowing about for any music teacher!  What a legacy to leave behind!

Larry Hill


I'd forgotten about it till a few kids turned up early to a Bass Marimba rehearsal on Friday morning.
Back in May after returning from a Europe trip, my seemingly ineffectual efforts at focusing 35 kids at Wednesday Marimba practices had begun to gnaw away at my sleep.

I'd recognised that I had not pared back the numbers early enough, down to 20 max, but it was too late to dampen the enthusiasm.  The practices were over-crowded and cluttered.

After reading Larry Hill website, I was re-energised and focused enough to give my 'conducting' real purpose.  And over the past 12 weeks, I've relaxed more  and more about our progress towards the Festival concert in just 6 weeks time.

The immediate strategies were to:

1. Reverse a decision to give the kids a chance to play a variety of instruments.  It was a major headache to get them to remember which instruments they were playing for what piece. That went out the door. 
2. Draw up a practice schedule (see embedded pdf).  (Having key players assigned to teach the others without a schedule of weekly section practices was not working.)
3. Build a spreadsheet with macros to allow me to quickly reassign parts to different players if needed.  This worked extremely well.  (Although a little messy to anyone not familar with Excel, it was very much a time- & sleep -saver for me.)
4. Move kids on who were not attending practices or who were not fully committed, get class teachers & parents involved where kids needed a little more guidance.  
5. Write lists on the board so that every class entering the room throughout the day could see what pieces would be rehearsed in Band Practice in the week, which section was practicing on which breaks and which days before school.