We will now be moving along the back wall behind the conductor's podium. The black & white pictures of jazz legends from the 1920s through the 60s now give way to rock band posters. Pink Floyd and the Beatles. Good place to start. My old pal and colleague, science teacher Mr. Wagner would teach a lesson about Pink Floyd to my general music class. The teacher who teaches about rocks, was teaching about rock. (see what I did there ?) Mr. Wagner liked to emphasize the early Syd Barrett line up of the band.
Front and center is my James Brown doll. When you pushed the button he would sing "I Feel Good" with a hearty "ooooooowww!" at the end. He did this while shaking what his mama gave him.
James was part of one of our little classroom protocols designed to be nothing but silly. If I could get an adult to say the words "James Brown," the whole class, in unison, would let out an "ooooooowww!" and then look straight ahead, poker faced. At the end of my last year when we had our lottery for kids to claim something from the classroom to take home as their very own, James was claimed by Mr. Cranmer. His kids, who sometimes frequent the music venue where I currently work, tell me he still plays with his JB doll.
This side of the band room, the conductor's right, was where the low pitched instruments sat. Trombones, baritone horns, tuba, & bari sax all lived over here. We referred to these folks as the bass section. The percussion area was right behind them. Needless to say, mucho shinanigans occured in this part of the classroom.
Notice the very cool trombone stands and hooks for the baritone horns. The kids needed to bring only their mouthpieces for school rehearsal. This saved the instruments from being put into and out of a case thousands of times.
Being a professional bass guitarist for decades before becoming a teacher, I took good care of the basses.
The 10 kids in the bass section carried the rest of the band. There were always 4 or 5 really good players to help the rest. I have an electric piano, bass and an acoustic guitar handy in case I needed to dazzle the kids with my skills.
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At the upper right you can see the disembodied hand, a band classroom favorite. When an important document needed to be shared with the class I would let the decrepid hand hold onto it for display.
For a while, the hand held the "Word of the Day." Every week, the school would designate a WotD. It would be some interesting vocabulary word for our literacy based approach. Each teacher was
supposed to use the WotD during class. Me, being me, one morning I wrote "FUNKAFIZE" and posted it in the decrepit hand.
During each class that day,
students naturally asked about the WotD. They all stood and while Tower of Power played on our PA system I had them put their arms over their heads, wave them around and sing along "You've got to funk-a-fize … you've got to funk-a-fize." I instructed them that in the rest of the classes that day, when the word of the day was spoken, the band kids should immediately jump up, wave their arms and sing!! Of course, some kids did it. A few of the teachers were thrilled (see Mr. Wagner), others not so much.
 me and my old pal Sean
A memorable student who anchored the bass section was Sean. My first year teaching 7 & 8th grade band at ITMS, Sean was in 7th grade. There was no tuba player in grade 8, so Sean was the the tuba section for our 107 piece concert band. Sean was never going to be selected for all-county band. More important than having musical skill, Sean is a good citizen. Occasionally, during warm-ups, he would crank out a couple of solid concert Bbs. During those memorable moments, the metaphoric clouds would part and rays of sunlight streamed down upon the band.
Today, Sean is one of the very few of the thousands of students I taught with whom I have an adult relationship. When I say adult, I mean when we get together we both act like we are 12 years old.
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