Rehearsal Cancelled due to band's greatness!

Hey band, yesterday you were incredible!  Two amazing performances and a parade all in one day.  It was long, very demanding and not only did nobody complain, you did exactly what the staff asked throughout the entire weekend.   The performances showed your greatness and I am not just  proud of how you were during the performances but during the whole day as well.

So I was thinking what would be the best way to reward you, I talked to Mr. Coffey and Mr. Downey and we have decided to cancel Tuesday night's rehearsal.  We can all recharge our batteries and I think we all can agree that a break is good.  

Mr. Behiri recorded both events and I will have it on the youtube site as soon as I get them.  Please, in the next week spend the 16 minutes watching each one and find some things you could make better.

We have a very special band this year, I have never seen anything like it.  Your resiliency, positive attitude, and competitive nature is truly magical and regardless of the scores, you are all winners.  When we were warming up, at the end of that long day, you all cared, worked hard, were bubbly (until I find a better descriptor) and even enjoyed running to the bathrooms, laughing when we got to the High School in New Jersey.

I was so moved by your drive and determination, for the first time ever, I was not the least bit uptight about the scores.  I honestly was so moved but how great you were all day that the subjective scores meant very little.  Thank you!

It was a nice bonus that we had our highest opening score and beat a bunch of bands with our number.  The judges loved the show, a few tweaks and we are good to go.  The judges are never so positive with anyone!  The concept, drill, music and everything went over very well with them.

I'd also like to give a "shout out" to the band parents that pulled our equipment around, carried heavy speakers when the wheels broke and especially the leader of the pit, Gordon Berger.  I honestly do not know how we could pull the show off without you.

Good job, I am so proud to be director of such an amazing band, parents, and a supportive administration!

Opening Season Post - Please Read! It's long but important.

As we enter this new season today with Homecoming and the Scotch Plains show in New Jersey I am writing this blog so that you understand what we are doing in this activity including all the details.  I originally signed us up for this show and the football schedule was set up very late this year so we left it all alone, opening up next weekend as an off weekend.

If you don't already know, this year’s show “Metamorphosis” is based on the life of a butterfly with some modern classical music, the first being “Air and Dublinesque” by Billy Joel and “Sonoran Desert Holiday” by the modern classical composer Ron Nelson.  Mr. Kendi just finished the butterflies, which you will see on the field today.  

This year I will be posting the weekly detailed schedule on the last page of the website roslynband.com.  You can reach it directly at roslynrehearsal.com.  I will do this throughout the season.  I will also blog after each show so you can come right to this blog if you want to know what is going on with scores, what the judges said and my take on it all.

Twitter - I give twitter updates.  You can have every one sent to your cell phone as a text, or simply bookmark our twitter site to see what is going on throughout the season.  I will be tweeting constant updates on competition days so put your phone on vibrate.  You also have to be approved by me to get access to the twitter site, see the “twitter directions” link at the top of roslynband.com. I will approve throughout the day

As a director I am tremendously proud of how far the Marching Band have come in terms of their development. The students have worked so hard, from the first step at band camp through the night rehearsals and now the competitions.  As most of you know, I treat band as a leadership training, character development, and goal setting class in addition to the marching and music instruction.

Many bands choose not to compete. They choose to perform a less involved and simpler show at only the Newsday festival and their home games. We, compete. We are better for it and will accomplish great things by being a competitive band.  Short and long term goals are an important part of life and through this great activity, we will “shoot for the stars.” 

We all need to be competitive but remember, this is totally subjective, like figure skating.  I always tell the kids that in figure skating they even throw out the high and low scores, which is fully acknowledging that it is somewhat unfair.  People who are sports people and are new to our idiom may have some trouble with this.  You may see our band, hear the score and wonder what happened.  Yes, the judges TOTALLY make the call, in fact, they decide everything, total subjectivity.  

Remember, we are great, look at how far we have come and everybody in the Marching Band community, judges, other band directors, audiences, and the public fully knows Roslyn as a “powerhouse” marching band.  We are proud as ever and I as director feel truly privileged to run such a great group of kids with an incredibly supportive school district and of course great parents and the amazing “Band Fans” parents group.  We have parents who bring out our equipment, parents helping to run our band camp, and the largest contingent of spectators are from Roslyn at every event we go to.  Our parents even cheer for our neighbor competitor when they win the class over us!  We are the greatest people anywhere!  Total team players.  

I now need to cover something that is difficult to state and word correctly, especially for new parents to our marching band.  At the risk of being negative I need to talk about this because it will come up in the stands, with parents and fans who have been with us for years, the big elephant in the room.

We traditionally, more times than often are not getting the scores that we may deserve.  For instance, last year I objectively watched our class a MetLife Stadium National Championships and I, along with the staff pretty objectively had us in 3rd or 4th place out of 9.  We waited until 1am to get awarded 9th place, but our highest score ever of 85 nationally.  The kids were fine, as they always are, because they understand this idiom and the subjective nature of the activity.  And then the judges said how great we were on their evaluations and didn’t reflect the number or placement at all.  This is what we have been going through here for 11 years competing,  I know it sounds bad to even mention it but I, as director have to acknowledge this and make it a teachable moment.  Realizing that we are in a subjective arena and compete at a National Level is very exciting no matter what place we get, yet it is hard to get the kids psyched to “Win” when they almost never do, and most times do not get the recognition that they deserve at the competition.  At the State Championships with our old conference, from 2002-2012 it was much, much worse, we would get beat by bands that were the size of our woodwind section, with 5 colorguard and 3 in the pit, not playing or marching as well as us.  It was obvious and confusing.  We had the same judges for years who constantly and reliably slotted us at the bottom. That is the reason we are with US Bands, which we came to last year.  We got the highest score ever at the Nationals last year, even with our 9th place.  In addition, with so many shows, we get alot of different judges which makes the chance of getting a “good read” by the judges much more likely.

And in my opinion our band kids are perfect!  They give up part of themselves for the team every single day! Hard working, fun, smart, bubbly, and love band!  What more could I ask as a director?  A fair read from the judges?  YES, I want it all!  I want our kids to get the score they deserve!  I am very positive, even when we fall apart as we did yesterday at the pep rally!   I told the kids that they kind of blew it, I have to be honest so that they know I am true to them when I compliment them.  We have a difficult show and am trying to play and march it perfectly which isn't going well right now.  I think we will nail it at some point during the season, and that is really always the goal, to challenge the band to a difficult and rewarding show since we get judged on difficulty and multiple responsibilities with the drill and music.

Winning, yes it will happen, at some point, and you will know when my post simply says “YES, HERE WE GO.” It may be this year, next year, or 10 years from now, but it will happen.  It is inevitable. We are on the right track!

The Rehearsal Schedule

Balancing it all on the head of a pin. That’s what I call it, making a rehearsal schedule for a competitive marching band in an academic high school. How much to rehearse, how many shows to do, how we rehearse, and how to handle attendance are key parts of running this marching band which I deal with every day. Balancing the schedule of a competition marching band is a delicate endeavor. Meeting the needs of the students is the priority however we do "compete" so we need to maximize our rehearsal time, and get as much done as is possible so that we can be competitive. We need to utilize every minute without hurting the quality of our group. The balance is as tricky as balancing something on the head of a pin. I have been asked many questions from parents and students about how I schedule rehearsals and competitions so in the spirit of communication I have posted my philosophy of rehearsals, competitions, and how we have built our schedule.

How Many Hours to Rehearse

I have had some parents ask me why we rehearse so much. I have had even more parents ask me why we don’t rehearse more. Well, when starting the competitive marching band here at Roslyn, they rehearsed 2 nights a week and Saturdays, and did a show every weekend. They even added some rehearsals if the band needed it. Coming here in 2003, I decided that we would go with a 1 night rehearsal format, very few Saturday rehearsals, and try to add an hour of rehearsing on show days, before we leave the high school. This is the least that I felt we could practice and still be competitive. By having great communication among the staff, proper planning, and efficient rehearsals, I felt we could build a dynasty with this structure. Hicksville HS in the 90’s had the highest scores on Long Island and had this exact schedule. I observed them frequently and they were efficient, there wasn’t a minute of wasted time in their rehearsals. It amazed me that they could have the highest of scores and rehearse so much less than the bands they were scoring above. I used them as a model when I came here to Roslyn.  Remember, every band we compete against rehearses two to three times more than us.  Go to their websites and look at their rehearsal schedules.  

Formulating the Schedule

I build the schedule in April, put it up online, finalize it in mid August, tweak it and add times in September and stick to it. I do not schedule anything on the “off weekend." I will not add anything after school starts because I feel it is unfair to the band members to require them to be at everything and then add something. We get many requests to perform at various events in and out of our district with only a few weeks notice. My policy is clear, we will perform if given the dates prior to band camp. Requiring perfect attendance, which we must do since we have a drill where every person is of the utmost importance and our lack of rehearsals, creates this policy where we don’t add performances after the schedule is finalized.

Rehearse Less? Rehearse More? 

For the parents that say we need to rehearse less, I submit that it would greatly hinder us to even take a few hours out of this schedule. We are at a bare minimum in terms of being a competing band. Any less would mean going to a “home game and Newsday band” format, where we only perform at the home games and Newsday Festival, which is what most bands on Long Island do. Any more rehearsing, and we would burn out, not be fresh with the show, and it would hinder our academics and not leave time for jobs, other activities, etc. Personally, I feel that a competition band teaches so much more about music and life. I feel that the schedule we have is perfect for our school, students, parents, and community.

Is Our Schedule Working?

I feel that our schedule is clearly working. We are very successful, being one of the most talked about bands, getting exponentially better each year. Our competitors, virtually every one of them, rehearse two to three times as much as us. We are certainly among the top 3 or 4 bands on Long Island, regardless of the scores, so this schedule works for us.  We rehearse about 80 hours, other competetive bands run from 300 to 500 hours.  In terms of “bang for the buck” we are beating everyone.  I also feel this is why we have the 2nd largest competitive band on Long Island, because we leave time for today’s high school kid to do everything else.

Constantly Learning and Tweaking

As a band director I am constantly learning about maximizing rehearsal time, meeting with the staff regularly, and tweaking our schedule year to year. I welcome parental and student input and have used it regularly. Right now, I feel we are on the right track with our schedule. Our kids are excited, fresh, and love the marching band, which is the top priority!

US Bands, what they are

The US Bands is a conference of over 700 bands which runs 150 shows in 25 states.  Of those 150 shows, 50 are regional or national competitions and 100 are local competitions. 

Bands are in classes by band size, not school size, which is a system which rewards bands based on the number of people that they have in the group.  I believe this works in our favor since bands in the higher classes receive higher points for the most part.  Below is the size breakdown for how your band is placed into classes.  Group I: 1-40 members, Group II: 41-55 members, Group III: 56-75 members, Group IV: 76-100 members, Group V: 100-135 members, Group VI: 136+ members.  Then they then put each band into “A” class or “Open” class, we are in 5A.  The judging is based on General Effect, Music, Marching, Colorguard, Visual, and Execution.

We are looking forward to a great season and remember "Aim high, be patient, and as far as subjective scoring, be ready for anything."

I will post here after the competition today or tomorrow and remember, what I write is open to the public so at times I will be extra discreet, so you have to "read between the lines".

Pat

The Plan for Band Camp

As you know, we need parent coverage for band camp on the first 3 nights of band camp.  I only had one person step in to help since my posts this morning so I have to plan ahead in case we do not get anyone else.  

We need one Mom for Wednesday, Two Dads for Monday, One Dad for Tuesday and One Dad for Wednesday.

If we do not get the proper supervision we will be rehearsing at the High School on Monday and going to Taconic when we have the appropriate supervision which right now is Thursday. We need coverage for each of the 9 bunks and an extra mother and father on top of that for each night.  We have always had this in the past.

Rehearsals for Monday through Wednesday right now will be at the high school field, we will post the schedule tomorrow night.  It will be rehearsals and breaks for lunch and dinner.  No night rehearsal since we do not have lights yet.  We will definitely be at Taconic by Thursday morning. Camp will end on Sunday, August 24th and there will be no refund for the days not used at Taconic.  We are contractually committed to paying them for the entire week

Let's get the coverage we need!
I really need everyone to talk to their parents and grandparents to see if they can come up for one night, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.  

If they can, please have them call, text or e-mail me immediately.  My cell is 516-662-0206

We all really want to go to Taconic for the entire week so let us all make this work.  We would need the chaperones there by 10:30pm and they could leave as early as 8am to go back to their business.  There is full wifi at the camp main building if they need to do their work at camp.

All updates will be on roslynband.com

Parents, come to band camp for a day or two!

Band Camp is an incredible environment.  The positive family atmosphere we bring to everyone at the camp is truly life changing.  The band learns the entire show in 7 days while building relationships through living, working, and playing together as one big family.  We already have one or two parents in each bunk at camp, something we do here at Roslyn.  The parent responsibility is simple, to let me or Mr. Coffey know if anyone is missing or if anyone leaves. You are not a policeman, counselor, or disciplinarian, you leave that to the band director and assistant band director, Mr. Coffey and myself.

We totally encourage any parents to come up and check it out for an overnight to see what all the excitement is about.  You would stay in a boys or girls bunk, depending upon if you are male or female.  If you have a child with you (any age below HS age) they may be in a bunk of that same sex as them as well.  You would eat meals with us as well. We don't charge anything for this.  We do have a full slate of parent chaperones so we can only allow additional parents who come to do two days with a night in between so that you can get the full experience.  Camp Taconic is about 4 hours away, in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.  It is a fun area to visit as well.

If you want to come to see the full experience just send me an e-mail at pattersax@gmail.com

You can see what parents are going to be chaperoning by going to the roslynband.com website and clicking the "Band Camp" page in the top menu.

Today's Parade at Epcot

We will be performing at 10:30 at Epcot today.  Our performance starts behind Canada, we march towards the big fountain by the huge Epcot ball, we turn around facing the lagoon and away from the fountain and perform for 5 minutes, then we go around future world a bit and back to the Canada area.  They may have us come out early again like they did yesterday so be ready.

For tonight's dinner we will meet at 8pm the top of the stairs that lead down to the Terrace des Fleurs, which is the landing on the England side of the bridge between France and England.  I will hand out wristbands there.

Where to stand for the Magic Kingdom Parade on Wednesday

Since Disney eliminated the afternoon parades they now have bands March in the morning with no parade following them. A detailed map of both parade routes are on roslynband.com.

Since there is no parade following us you do not have to get there very early. Parents who have done this in the past have gone an hour to an hour and a half prior to get a good spot to see the band. With no parade there is really no need to be there more than 15 minutes prior to Parade time.

For Wednesday's parade we are marching at 10 AM coming out next to the firehouse just inside the front entrance of the Magic Kingdom. We are then marching down towards the castle, around the circle in front of the castle and out through frontierland. The best places to watch the parade from are on top of the train station by the main entrance. You'll be able to watch the band go around the circle there. Another great place where out parents will be meeting will be in front of the castle by the circle. The kids will then get released out of a door next to the Pirates of the Caribbean after they change into their street clothes..

We are scheduled to play at 10 o'clock which means we would probably be coming out at the beginning at 10 AM if there is not another band before us. I will try to tweet our progress from backstage if I can.

Tuesday morning trip update

Yesterday was Hollywood Studios day. We couldn't have ordered better weather.  Not a cloud in the sky, warm in the 70s, absolutely beautiful.  We got into the park at 9, left at noon for a break at the hotel, rehearsed for an hour, band looked and sounded great, then a break for swimming, napping, eating until 5:15 when we returned to Hollywood Studios for the Fantasmic dessert and show.  Then more park time, it was extra magic hours so we got on some more rides.  Then back to the hotel at 12 midnight, kids went to bed quickly and quietly.  An amazing trip so far.

We had a bump in the road, forgot the flags for the colorguard.  It was on about 5 of our lists and I guess we were all so excited that we left them at home.  As we do everything with the band, it was clearly a team effort that we forgot them.  I looked at my list of 200 plus things to do and I didn't check it off.  Whoops.   Terri and Mitch Kurtz saved the day, got into the high school and sent them UPS, we will have them this morning in plenty of time for the two parades on Wednesday and Thursday.  Thanks so much to the Kurtz's!

If you are having problems getting into my piccasa picture album for the trip, please e-mail me and let me know so that I can fix it.  I am getting some confusing e-mails asking me to approve the viewing of the album.

The kids are great, everybody is happy and healthy and the weather looks to continue to be amazing!

Monday morning trip update

We didn't have any traffic all the way down to Florida.  It was amazing!  Check in went smoothly.  We did the bed bug check, something we will always do from now on whenever we check into any hotel.  Got in around 7pm to 70 degree weather.  The band checked in, ate at the food court, and enjoyed the resort for the rest of the night. They all went to bed without any problems at 11pm.  We had 2 official dedicated disney security officers on duty watching our rooms from 11pm through the night. We had that built into the price, something very important to protect our band.  I always do that.

Felt the pools with my hand, like bathwater.  They have upgraded all our rooms, each now has a refrigerator and all spanking new furniture, beds, rugs, etc. We are very excited about that.  And now we go to Hollywood Studios for the morning, a rehearsal and hotel break for naps, pool time and to enjoy the resort during the day, then back to the Studios for our Fantasmic Dessert and the late night magic hours because we are disney hotel guests.

Thanks for having such great children!  It is a total pleasure to run a trip with such great human beings. Parents, you should be proud of the job you have done raising these kids.  I don't take it for granted for even one minute!

I will try to post each day.

Today's weather and departure for Florida

Since we have snow in the forecast for today I am sure you may be wondering how this will impact our trip.  Well, it looks like the snow will be finishing up at about the time we are scheduled to leave, at 8pm.  We could have anywhere from 3 to 6 inches when it ends. The storm will be hitting Boston after it leaves our area.  If we have to wait a while we will just stay at the school, I have to have a meeting with the band anyway and can do that here.

Remember, we will be traveling on highway's all the way down to Florida and it will be clear skies ll the way to Orlando.  The temperatures will warm up significantly as we go south.  The highways we travel will be well plowed by the time we get to them, with plenty of salt and sand throughout the Northeast.

And for those of you who haven't been on any of my overnight trips, I monitor everything and am on top of the entire travel situation on every trip.  Our school district runs a rigorous inspection on the busses when they arrive before we can even load.  I am overly cautious and I stay awake through the entire night watching the road.  I know and trust our drivers. I always know the outside temperature and am on a continuous lookout for black ice conditions when we are anywhere near the freezing point.  If I ever feel we are in any kind of an unsafe situation we pull the busses off the road and wait it out.  The safety of the entire group is the most important thing at all times, overriding absolutely everything.  Please do not worry, we will take care of everyone.

When you see the snow today, don't fret.  The most impact it will have on us is getting to the school to drop the kids off.

Next Year's Show Announcement

Next Year's Marching Band Show

The First Thing that Happened

Ok, so I was pretty much set on the Elton John Show, Beatles or Les Mis.  As I listened over and over none of them were really doing it for me, they seemed cheesy and I couldn't get excited about it.  After finding multiple bands at all levels who did each of these shows on youtube I was further unimpressed.  I started looking for other shows, round the clock in my free time.

The Second Thing that Happened

We were looking at the old shows on youtube after band on the smartboard. After talking to the Seniors in the Wind Ensemble who did marching band, a group of them said that their favorite show was the Wedding show, when we did Emperata Overture, Song Without Words, and Chorale and Shaker Dance and not because of the theming as much as the music. I took a quick vote (broadway, rock show, or classical music as the choices) and the last choice won.  I was surprised.  This coupled with my lack of excitement for the other shows continued me on my quest.

The List

Before looking further I put together a list of what I feel we need to take care of to move our entire marching band forward to the next level.  These are my goals as director of the band for next year.

1. A show that is musical, with catchy melodies
2. A show that either Stephanie or I can write the drill and teach it in case Stephanie is teaching in some other part of the country and I have to write and teach the drill
3. Feature the entire guard (they were awesome, see the youtube videos of met life, they reached an incredibly high level this year)
4. Feature the dancers (classical style is better)
5. Continue to feature the drumlin as we have done for some time now
6. Feature the Woodwinds
7. Feature our amazing three freshmen soon to be sophomore floutists, Alyssa, Kat, and Kellie.
8. Feature the pit. After watching/listening to the metlife video, the pit was amazing.
9. Feature and add body moves for the band proper, during winter rehearsals, awarding points to the band member who come so that at least half of them know all the body moves before camp, in the featured playing/body move spots in the show.
10. I feel that we have a very advanced band program here at RHS and we need to work on a more difficult show, more challenging and one that has educational merit.   The Broadway show thing isn’t meeting that criteria.
11. A show that is 7 minutes long.  With the short amount of time that we rehearse, we really do not need to add a minute. This past year we were over 8 minutes.  The top bands in the country do the least amount of minutes required, which is 7.

The Show

So here it is, I am so excited about this show.  Each time I listen to it I get more and more ideas.  The theme came to me after I compiled the three works.  I call it “Butterflies.”  It will illustrate to music, the life of a butterfly.

The beginning would be the dancers, or entire guard in a cocoon.  The cocoon opens up, the butterflies come out with the music, either the entire guard will be the butterflies, or just the dancers, with the guard being the elements that come in contact with them, then everyone dances, and go through the various things that butterflies come in contact with during their life cycle (wind, sun, calm, etc.).  The first pit feature, about a minute in, would be with the three flute soloists with wireless mics which we already have, featured within the drumline playing the unisons along with the pit.  Those three flute would be featured throughout the show with the wireless microphones.We would put the entire guard into uniforms and flags depicting butterflies or something embellishing that.  We could do anything, just in the planning stages right now, but all around that basic concept.  The band proper will do dance type moves (those things that all the bands are now really starting to do) during the percussion and pit features.

In Conclusion

I am very excited about this show and concept. Listen to the show a few times, it will totally grow on you and these melodies will stay with you throughout the day. Also watch our show "The Wedding" from 2010 on our youtube site.  It was a successful show for us, where we put classical wind music to the field with a simple theme.  And thanks to the seniors for pointing me in this direction.  I am truly and totally into doing this incredible show, I hope you all are as well.

Hit the link below to listen to it.  Give it a minute to load.

patpat15.com/Butterflies2014