..........congratulations!

This may sound a bit conceited, but I assure you, it's not intended to be such. I am actually sending congratulations to my students, as we scored a North Carolina State Bandmasters Association, Honor Rating of "Superior" at band contest earlier in the week. The state band contest is much like an EOC (end of course test) for band classes. It's not required that we attend the contest, but many band directors choose to do so. I had a great conversation with Josh the other night concerning the overall worth of band contest as a teaching tool and if it was really necessary to compete with music. There is a definite argument by many of our fellow directors that contest does not give the desired results in the long run, and it's only a show of arrogance among many directors to earn awards rather than advance musical skills. Our conclusion was that the band contest festival is an outstanding teaching tool that pushes both the director and the students to exceed what would normally happen. We use this opportunity to "pull out all the stops" and show the very best that we have as teachers and performers. There is also a bleed-over into other pieces of music that we prepare following the band contest. Both students and directors use the same techniques and learn others through band contest preparation that will definitely aid as our ensembles progress. I always learn something that I can do better when involved in band contest preparation. I ask questions of other directors, read more seriously from professional periodicals, listen more, and learn more about how to bring out the strong points of an ensemble; as well as, to hide the weak points. No two ensembles are alike and that makes the preparation an exciting challenge. At any rate, the 2009 band contest was a great success for us. In the past four years, we have attended state band contest on three occasions (we didn't go in 2007 due to a personnel SNAFU that involved student suspension, and the ultimate destruction of our ensemble). In those three attempts, we have been 100% with "Superior" ratings - that's something that I'm quite proud of. Again, that's not a conceited statement; but that of a teacher who is proud of his students' accomplishments and the growth he has made as a teacher. Teaching is a privilege, and teaching music has more magical moments that you could ever imagine.