The Beginning Band INFORMance:

A Showcase of Student Growth

Patrick Horton
Shelbyville Middle School
IMEA Southern Indiana Symposium
September 9, 2016

In this presentation...
1. Some of the successes we have
found at SMS in beginning band
2. Strategies and ideas that can be
easily implemented into any
middle school band classroom
3. A different approach for
showcasing student learning

Music in Shelbyville
1. Curricular Options
a. Band and Choir, grades 6-12
b. Music Technology, SMS
c. Music Theory, SHS

2. Co-curricular Options
a. Instrumental: Marching Band, Jazz Band, Pep
Band, Musical Pit Ensemble, Solo/Ensemble
b. Vocal: Show Choir, Musicals, Solo/Ensemble

Beginning Band in Shelbyville

1. Interested 5th grade students; instrument fitting night
with parents in spring
2. Students choose an instrument; placed into a woodwind or
brass/percussion class in fall
3. Beginner Band Camp; one week before school, students
meet in like-instrument groups for 50 mins./day
4. School starts; we meet every day for 1 48-minute class
period

What is an INFORMance?
An INFORMance is a way to showcase growth in a
student-centered format that promotes building relationships and
increasing parent understanding. It is a great time to inform
parents, administrators, and other stakeholders about what you do!

Why an INFORMance?
1. Students are excited to show off their progress.
2. Families and Administrators may not know what
really goes on in class and can observe growth first
hand.
3. Families do not always get to hear their childs
individual contribution to the whole group.
4. Students may not be ready to perform a full
concert.

INFORMance Standards
(Indiana State)
1. Singing alone and with others
a. Possible

2. Playing an instrument alone and with others

3. Arranging music within specified guidelines
a. Arrange a melody and bass line

4. Reading, notating, and interpreting music

a. Reading rhythms

What is Sound Before Sight?

The sound before sight approach develops
musicianship through listening and performing
prior to the introduction of reading and writing
notation.

Why Sound Before Sight?

1. This streamlines the learning process.
2. The focus is on MUSIC and SOUND.
3. Make music right away.
4. Aligns learning music to learning language.
5. Students are encouraged to audiate or think
with in the language of music from the
beginning.

Sound Before Sight Standards

(Indiana State)
1. Singing alone and with others
2. Playing an instrument alone and with others
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and
accompaniments
4. Composing and arranging music within specified
guidelines
5. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music
6. Evaluating music and music performances

Our INFORMance Set-up

1. Students invite one guest to sit next to them
2. Cafetorium is set up twice the size of the normal band

3. All additional guests sit around the band

4. Everyone can see the projector screen
5. Guests and audience are treated to A Day in the Life
of a Beginning Band Student

Our INFORMance Set-up

6th Grade Band Students

(w/ One Guest Each)

Additional
Audience

Director

Projector Screen

Additional
Audience

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS
Beginning Band - Quarter 1
1. How do I hold my body and my
instrument to produce the best tone
(including embouchure, articulation, grip,
and stroke)?
2. How do I develop a tonal and rhythmic
understanding of the skills needed to
perform music?

GOALS
Beginning Band - Quarter 1
Students will
1. Demonstrate correct hand
positions/posture
2. Demonstrate correct embouchure (grip)
3. Demonstrate correct articulation (stroke)
4. Develop/improve tonal memory
5. Develop/improve rhythmic awareness and
basic rhythm reading

A Day in the Life

of a Beginning
Band Student
The
INFORMance

Rhythm Readiness
Purpose: To increase coordination and prepare
students to perform rhythms in upcoming
lessons.
(Grunow, Gordon, & Azzara, 2001)

1. No instruments
2. Macrobeats vs. Microbeats (pulse vs. beat division)
3. Introduce duples and triples (audiation)

Breathing Exercises
Purpose: To develop executive skills for proper

tone production

1. No Mouthpiece - Oh shape for inhale

2. Brass/WW - taken from many sources including the

3.

Breathing Gym
a. Throwing paper airplanes
b. Slow exhale - in 4, slow out 12, 16, or 20
c. 2-4-Hiss - in 2, out 4 (or 6, or 8) with Hiss
Percussion - dribbling on drum pad (Rick Dietrich,
Palmer MS/Kell HS, Georgia)

Embouchure Development
Purpose: To develop the executive skills for
proper tone production
1. Mouthpiece Alone
2. Brass/WW - Long Tones
a. Brass - Sirens
3. Percussion - proper grip + multiple bounce strokes

Articulation Development
Purpose: To develop executive skills needed
to begin each note
(Byo & Duke, 2011)

1. Mouthpieces Alone
2. Call-and-Response
a. Teacher led and Student led
i. Say "tah"
ii. Use air - "too"
iii. Mouthpiece only (embouchure + articulation)
iv. Use entire instrument (after warm-up)

Long Tones and Scale Exercises

Purpose: To develop proper executive skills
including posture, instrument position, hand
position, finger dexterity for optimal performance.
1. Label notes with solfege (Grunow, Gordon, & Azzara, 2001)
a. Allows for ease of learning rote songs
b. Develops aural skills
c. Promotes ability to decode a fingering chart (without the
added complexity of reading music.)

i. Woodwind fingering font was a great purchase

(musicteachertools.com)

Rhythm Learning Sequence

Purpose: To connect rhythmic syllable
patterns to rhythm notation
1. Hybrid rhythm system - some of my considerations
a. Each rhythm has a unique syllable (duples vs.
triples)
b. Syllables are not connected to other rhythms
c. Traditional counting (ex. 1 e + a) is still used at
HS level

Rhythm Learning Sequence

1. Sound Connections (Ester, 2010)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

Neutral Echoing
Syllable Echoing
Echo-Translation
Connect Sound to Symbol
Application and Practice

Not demonstrated during INFORMance

f. Notating
g. Melodic Reading

Rote Song Learning Sequence

Purpose: To develop a tonal vocabulary
(Grunow, Gordon, & Azzara, 2001)

1. Whole-Part-Whole
a. Sing it!
b. Perform in chunks
c. Perform entire melody

2. Add Bass Lines

a. similar method
b. Jump Right In method suggests occasionally teaching
bass lines first

Rote Song Learning Sequence

3. Sudden Stop Game (audiation)
a. Which note did I end on?
b. Play the note that should come next?

4. Concert Cheat Sheet may be needed...

Introducing Other Concepts

1. Staccato vs. Full-Value
2. Dynamics
3. Others...
4. Not demonstrated during INFORMance
5. Introduce during Call-and-Response
a. Students are focused on listening

Which Tunes?
1.
2.
3.
4.

Hot Cross Buns

Au Claire De La Lune
Mary Had a Little Lamb
Original Tune in 6/8
a. Student get to name it each year

5. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

6. Endless possibilities...

Creating Arrangements
1. Students determine the following:
a. Who plays the melody?
b. Who plays the bass line?
i. Can you hear both parts? (reflection)
c. Which dynamic should be used?
i. How can we adjust our dynamics to improve our
performance? (reflection)
d. Which articulation should be used?
i. Did I use the correct articulation? Did everyone use
the correct articulation? (reflection)

Melody:

Bass Line:

Dynamics:

Articulation:

Forte

Staccato

Flutes, Alto
Saxes,
Trumpets,
Percussion
Clarinets,
Trombone,
Baritone

Transition to Music Notation

Quarter 2

Tonal Patterns
Purpose: To connect tonal vocabulary to
written music notation
(Grunow, Gordon, & Azzara, 2001), (Ester, 2010)

1. Begin with Call-and-Response

2. Assess through Tonal Pattern Guessing
Game

Method Book
Purpose: Application and practice
of rhythm and tonal reading skills
1. Standard of Excellence: Book 1
2. Tradition of Excellence: Book 1
3. Melodic Reading (Rhythm Learning Sequence)

Additional 5-note scales

Purpose: To build skill in commonly used key centers

1. Add additional 5-note scales to warm-up

a.
b.
c.
d.

Concert E flat Major

Concert C minor
Concert G minor
Others...

2. Give them only what they need to know

3. Transpose familiar melodies to new keys
(audiation)

Notating Music
1. Write down the tunes we learned by rote
(audiation)
2. Give structure - not just a blank piece of
staff paper

Reading Music
Repertoire for the December concert is learned
through reading!
1. Count first
2. Then Perform (chunks first)
3. Other strategies
a.
b.
c.
d.

Say it with note names

Say it with Tah
Say it with Tah while doing fingerings
Perform rhythm/pitches on mouthpieces

Showing Growth with Data

Collecting Data
Pre-test/Post-test format
1. Growth is most reliable
2. Sometimes awkward to administer

Terminology or Theory Assessment

PROS: easy to administer, can be easy to grade,
can incorporate literacy standards
CONS: difficult to assess standards that involve
musical skills
Example Standard:
6-8.RT.4 Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and
other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in
a specific technical music context relevant to grades 6-8 texts
and topics.

Listening Assessment
PROS: promotes listening and analyzing, offers
ways to include new and different repertoire
CONS: may not show a great deal of growth
Example Standard:
6.6.1 Listen to recordings of instrumental ensembles playing
appropriate repertoire. Identify and describe
instrumentation, and basic musical form, style, and genre.

LISTENING EXAMPLE: 1
1.
2.

3.

4.

Title: _________________________________________________________________
The ensemble performing includes which of the following instruments?
a. saxophone, trumpet, trombone, snare drum
b. violin, accordion, trombone, tuba
c. violin, flute, oboe, snare drum
d. bagpipes, cornet, alto horn, xylophone
We can identify the genre of this tune by listening to the rhythms. The rhythms
use:
a. accelerandos
b. whole notes
c. diminution
d. syncopation
Which kind of improvisation is used in this style of music?
a. collective improvisation
b. no improvisation
c. double improvisation
d. quarter note improvisation

Composition Assessment
PROS: connects to musical skills, promotes
musical creativity and music literacy
CONS: grading can be time consuming, needs
very specific guidelines
Example Standard:
6.4.2 Compose and notate short melodic patterns for
individual instruments within established guidelines.

Also could use the Writing Down Our Songs! worksheet

seen earlier (notating)

Performance Assessment
PROS: connects to specific musical skills, can
connect directly to concert repertoire
CONS: grading is time consuming, pre-test can be
awkward
Example Standard:
6.2.3 Play musical selections with accurate pitch,
articulation, rhythm, and appropriate tempo, dynamics, and
balance.

Suggested Reading
Byo, J. & Duke, R. (2011). The Habits of Musicianship.
Publisher: Author
(University of Texas, Center for Music Learning (cml.music.utexas.edu))

Ester, D. (2010). Sound Connections. Publisher: Author

Available through educationalexclusives.com or through the author

Gordon, E. (2012). Learning sequences in music: A

contemporary music learning theory (2012 [8th] ed.). Chicago:
GIA Publications.
Grunow, R., Gordon, E., & Azzara, C. (2001). Jump Right In: The
Instrumental Series - Teacher's Guide for Winds and Percussion
Books 1 and 2. Chicago: GIA Publications.

The Beginning Band INFORMance:

A Showcase of Student Growth

sms.shelbyvillebands.com
Find a copy of this presentation under links

Patrick Horton
pwhorton@shelbycs.org
Shelbyville Middle School