Give me music ed, or give me death!

The Limerick Festival continues! Don't be shy!
______

I have lamented before these student musicians I get who don't know how to play with other people in a group. Folks, your kids HAVE to be in band. They HAVE TO. Or orchestra, or some kind of music ensemble.

I don't care how much time they spend by themselves with their piano music or their blistering guitar licks. If they don't learn to play with other people, they're not musicians. Even f your kid is sooooooooo talented that s/he can sustain an early career exclusively by playing solo, eventually s/he will need to work with other people. You don't learn to play with other people until you actually play with other people.

Now, if your group involves a music educator, they will learn amazing things, like the JOY of starting and stopping together. The ECSTASY of tight sound, that has everything to do with being in the same tempo. Your kid will learn about musical ideas, how to talk about them, understand them, how to tweak them. Your kid will learn how to play live, how to drop in, how to vamp, how to jam.

If your kid doesn't learn how to play with other people, s/he will either a) get discouraged, b) hit a plateau and never improve, or c) live a life fighting with their bandmates over "creative control." Seriously.

Encore! Encore?

So today was the karaoke competition of the school's Olympic Week, and I'm almost ashamed to say that Team Faculty won. We might be too talented for our own good.

S sang the Diana Ross part, and of course she was awesome. I sang the Lionel Richie part. There was a lot of ham in the singing, but we made sure there was extra ham; rollerbladers with streamers, interpretive dance, a hype man, and a surprise appearance by Fr. P, which brought about an obligatory standing-o.

After work today, I came home, and the walls in the den are painted! Yes! But the carpet and molding isn't back in place yet; they need one more coat of paint, apparently. I am hoping to sit on my couch and watch tv when I come home from work tomorrow.

For dinner I went to a teriyaki place on Michigan. There is a lot of bad teriyaki in this town, but there's a lot of good teriyaki too, which makes it unremarkable.

Then I went up to the Newman Center and taught them some songs for their Black History Month Mass on Sunday. Which is cool, because it's the 'turn the other cheek' readings, which I never really understood until I read Dr. King.

Today I told my musicians at school that every time I am moving around during a song, it's because I'm trying to communicate something to them; otherwise I stay still. They were like, oh, really? We thought you were just "into it."

No dammit! I am not "into it!" I'm trying to get you to SLOW DOWN. or LOOK AT ME. or END THE SONG.

Sheesh! I'm tired of Catholic school music kids! I want public school music kids! Who take band class, have rhythm, and understand how to play in a group! And who don't complain about carrying their own gear! Sheesh.

Funny Monday

So I went in this morning to do morning prayer that I wrote just in case the scheduled student flaked. Well, she showed, so she did her morning prayer, and I got to work.

Gave a quiz, got some work done. Scheduled an appointment. Had the last two chicken nuggets in the cafeteria, and a boat of jo-jos. Does everyone know what jo-jos are? Here, they are potato wedges. M had never heard of them. She's from eastern europe, so she pronounced them 'yo-yos.' I found it charming, so I didn't correct her.

Anyway, after work I came home, had some oatmeal and crackers and cheese for snack. Met J and had dinner at the Attic. I wasn't hungry enough for the specials (seafood chowder; pot roast) so I just ordered a Chinese chicken salad. It wasn't what I expected. I expected mandarin oranges and those crispy fried noodles. It had some kind of spicey sesame dressing.

Afterward, we went to the Christmas concert. It's funny how you can tell which songs the kids like to sing, and which ones they don't. There are three sets, an opening ensemble set, a piano bar for soloists and small ensembles, and an ensemble finale. The one thing I want to say about the piano bar... choices, children! Choices! Hee hee.

When I came home, a light bulb had gone out in the kitchen, so I'm going to go to the store now to replace it.

The other thing is that I found a bunch of comment spam on this blog. I erased it all and turned on comment moderation. All though I like it when commenters log in, you can still log in anonymously an comment, but you'll have to wait until I approve your comment before you see it posted. Sigh. Another layer of busy work.