The countdown is on until our holiday concert and the end of the nine weeks and Christmas break!  We are very busy this week and here is the schedule:

Monday - Jazz Band until 4; Poinsettia pickup after school until 4

Tuesday - 7th grade required rehearsal until 4

Wednesday - 6th grade required rehearsal until 4; Deadline to audition for solos or ensembles for the holiday concert

Friday - All-West help session until 4; Jazz band nursing home permission forms due

 

Make sure you have your concert black uniform for next Monday's concert and make sure you are practicing!  We will need help from parents on set up/tear down and student monitoring.  Look for emails to go out about the concert.

 

We had 27 students show up to the help session last Friday and had about 10 high school/college kids here helping.  Thank you so much for those that came.... I heard great progress being made and look forward to even more coming this Friday.  We are now a little over a month away with Jan. 14 auditons at Arlington High.  I am signing up all 7th and 8th grade non beginners (61) and there are 7 6th graders....... 68 kids!  That is great!  Now..... let's buckle down on our music and scales and use Smart Music to help us on sight reading.  We can do it!

 

I have been busy listening to Smart Music this morning and it appears that MANY MANY of you have not submitted anything so far.  Smart Music is due no later than next Tuesday 12/13 but I really need for you to do a little bit at a time and get on this so that I can listen to them and get them graded.  I am very busy with family and church activites in the next few weeks as well and had hoped that more people would have turned things in for me to listen to so that I could get ahead.  Please do not wait until the last minute and please only submit your best.  I have had to reassign some people things just because they submitted 50 or 60% and spent just over a minute on them.  It is not a recording tool but a teaching tool.  You are in control of when you press the submit key and should only submit when you are happy with your score and you think I would be happy hearing it.  Use it as a tool to slow things down, click on my part and play along with it, use the clicks, and to also listen back to yourself.  For my 7th and 8th graders, the All-West music that is posted will take time and should not be done in one sitting.  Please work on it a little each day and try your hardest not to submit less than an 80% for accuracy.  Also try to work on dynamics and articulation - Smart Music will not assess you on these things but I will when I give you feedback. For 6th and 7th graders these Smart Musics are worth 120 points and 7th/8th graders they are worth a collective 200 points, so please do them and take them seriously.

Let's have a fabulous week!

 

Mrs. Sanders

 

 

Mrs. Sanders