Sheet music! Hundreds of students - 12 different parts plus a conductor's score for every song - 4 or 5 songs for each concert season - scales arpeggios warmups etudes exercises - all this adds up to thousands of pages of sheet music twice a year.
When I started playing clarinet in the school band, way back in the middle of the previous century, there were no photocopiers. We were given commercially printed sheets of music (originals). We marked our music in pencil. After the concert we erased our marks and handed the music back in to be stored.
When I began teaching school band, that was still the usual practice. Four years into this new century when I arrived in Island Trees, things were different. I photocopied music. I stapled individual packets including each student's specific parts for the whole concert (packets). I would give these packets to the students to take home and practice and to mark as necessary.
These brown cubbies were (say it together) "scavenged from the basement." On top of the cubbies at the left and standing vertically are the commercial copies of the music arrangements we are working on for this concert - the originals.
The two boxtops contain the packets. When a student lost their packet, I simply gave him a new packet. No digging through the folders of originals. The plastic baggie contains 2 bottles of valve oil (liquid gold).
The very cool, five drawer cabinet was given to me by Rich Smith, legendary baseball coach at Garden City and all around good guy, when he retired from teaching. I don't know what he kept in it. When he was retiring he came to my classroom and said he thought I would use it. It now contains a wide array of small tools, parts, supplies and doodads that otherwise would be lost. If you look closely you can see his name scrawled in yellow on the top drawer. |
8 of the 9 cubbies are occupied by sheet music. The last one at top right has instruments waiting to be sent for repair. Larger instrumets awaiting repair sit on the floor (french horn and alto sax in this pic). You can see I already put the little white id tag on them. These were probably going to Tom Quinn for repair.
 the Chia Obama - step 1
Perhaps the coolest thing in this pic is the box in the center displaying an American flag. You guessed it folks, it's the Chia Obama!!!
My Goal Room kids did this project one week, smearing the chia seeds onto President Obama's head. After some serious discussion, the class made the decision that the President should be sporting a chia beard.
 the Chia Obama -
the finished product
The beard was actually a soul patch, very popular among jazz trumpet players. In this bottom picture he is still sitting in his water tray, hoping against hope for further growth.
While it didn't develop into the most fully realized chia, it certainly provided a full measure of laughter. |
