Short Week?

We are gearing up for a "short week" of school due to the Minnesota Education Association Convention. While most people put their focus on how quickly we can get to vacation, I put my focus on how much we need to accomplish in our three days! It is the beginning of MAD Jazz and JazzHAWKS this week, and we play for games two of the three nights. I do not attend the conference in the cities. I would rather take my time and resources ($) to attend the Minnesota Music Educator's Association Mid-Winter Conference in February instead. Everything there applies directly to what I do on a daily basis. In case your thinking "Eichhorst gets a long weekend," let me assure you that I have school-related projects lined for those "conference days."

Before I forget - we had an excellent rehearsal on Friday in MCB. We made huge project on the Bach Arioso that we are preparing, and while we did that the flute ensemble and percussion ensemble met in sectional in other parts of the music area. What an efficient use of time!

Back to this week: the Junior High Concert Band members will start working on their 4th piece tomorrow. It is called Ancient Voices and they already love it after just hearing it once. They also will begin composing this week! I have developed exercises where they will write melodies for the entire band to play. If it works out, we will branch on to melody/accompaniment exercises.

MCB must do MASSIVE work on the Vaughan Williams and Brahms. We have spent a little more time than I would have liked to learn new and review old pepband music. I hope we have a great week! The phrase is "short week, but lots of work!"