I apologize for being a little late on announcements for this week.  Monday we had our first brass/percussion sectional for our 7th and 8th graders and I had 13 students stay...... a great start.  I distributed the All-West TN band audition music that was posted Monday and we began to work on it as well as on scales and sightreading.  We will do the same thing today (Wednesday) with our woodwinds.... working in small groups on All-west music and in bigger groups on sightreading practice.  Next week these will be reversed and woodwinds will meet Monday Aug. 29 and brass and percussion will meet Wednesday Aug. 31. 

 

Tuesday we had our first individual practice session that is geared more toward our 6th graders and 7th and 8th grade beginners to try to catch them up and for my older students to either be peer tutors to them or to practice in groups and help each other.  We had 45 students stay at our first session!  I was so excited to see everyone but it was crowded and it got very loud in there as everyone was doing their own thing.  We were able to use practice rooms and storage rooms and we will keep rotating these to give people a chance.  We had two high schoolers come to help and I hope to have more come next week.  This is a great way to get in practice time and practice with each other.

 

The All-West TN band music is posted and I will post in a separate post where the marked selections are for Appling Honor Band auditions.  Please begin to work on this and don't procrastinate.  Once Smart Music gets settled, we will be using that as a tool.  In the meantime, go to www.wtsboa.com and listen to the mp3 file recordings and/or link to the smp Smart Music file for returning band members. 

 

The car wash that was scheduled for this Saturday has been postponed to Sept. 10 because of scheduling conflicts.  We will fill you in on details later.

 

There are about half of the students that still owe band forms (handbook commitment/information form, media release form, health form, smart music form) and also the $125 band fee. Remember that checks are payable to "Appling Middle School" and are set by the Bartlett School Board.  This covers the Smart Music subscription, band tshirt, solo and ensemble entry fee, All-West TN band audition fee (7th/8th graders), all sheet music expenses, school instruments and repairs, end of the year awards, travel expenses, etc......These are due by Sept. 1 (which is also our first band booster meeting.... next Thursday).  Let us know if you are having trouble getting these in and you need a payment plan.

 

Our sixth graders have officially learned their first five notes and are beginning to take away letter names in their music...... please practice hard on this as these early stages are so so important.  Seventh and eighth graders are finishing up their books from last year and reviewing and should move on to new books the second week of September.  They also should be working on the pep music for the Sept. 13 football game and 8th graders have music for the Oct. 1 Bartlett celebration event.

 

We had a great turn out at the 6th grade orientation last night and 7th/8th grade has theirs tomorrow night (Thursday August 25) at 6 pm.  I hope to see many of you there or please email me at [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.  Also please remember to enroll in the RemindMe text system and the instructions are on my home webpage. 

Have a great week!

 

Angela Sanders