Norwell High School Music Department

Okay, so the pizza night is at Kevin Caldwell’s house at 6:00pm.  Be sure to bring your own beverages if you want a wide variety of choices.

Address is: 24 Summer St in Norwell, over by Vinal School.  Hope to see lots of people there!

Thanks to all the brave young souls who made it to the football game tonight, many of whom stayed until the final buzzer!  I love your commitment and your heart, ladies and gents.  You make getting soaked to the bone completely worthwhile.

See you Monday!

John O’Briant

As of 5:05pm:

As of right now, we will play tonight.  It’s Homecoming, after all, and we should make our best effort.  Wear clothing that’ll be okay out in the rain and (woodwinds) bring your cases with you so you can store your instruments in case of heavy rain.   We’ll give it our best go, and if it gets too out of hand, I’ll send you home.  Remember, preservation of your health and your instruments’ well-being are our primary concerns, since we have a concert to be gearing up for this upcoming Thursday.

See you at 6:15!

Hey, parents. We did have some parents graciously offer to bring refreshments to the concert on October 25th, but none of you volunteered (or were able, in many cases) to help staff the refreshment table. For that reason (and because the Fall Concert will be short compared to our other concerts this season), we’re going to hold off on doing refreshments until the Winter Concert. Thank you again to those who did volunteer to bring food and drink! I hope you’ll be able to do so again in December.

Cheers,

John O’Briant

Parents:

If you are interested in volunteering to bring in food or drink to be sold during intermission of the concert 10/25 (next Thursday at 7pm) or in staffing the refreshments table, please get in touch with me as soon as possible via email (obriant@norwellschools.org) or phone.   We did this a couple of times last year with varying levels of success, due to varying levels of parental involvement.  We’d like to make it work better this year!  Please get to me in the next few days so I can make a determination about if we’re going to do this by this weekend.   Any further information I have about refreshment sales will be posted here as soon as I know it, so check in early and often.

Thanks!

John O’Briant

One of the duties of the Band Staff secretary is to report the minutes of the staff’s meetings to the department at large.  We’re going to try out delivering those minutes on the website, to increase transparency and improve communication.  Our second meeting of the year was a quick one, but we definitely discussed some important topics.  Thanks to Cole Hager for cobbling together the minutes!

Band Staff Meeting
Date: 10/11/07, 2:15-2:45
Present: Kevin; Will; Laura; Cole; Maria; Hope; Monica
Absent: Kelly

Topics discussed:

1) Guitar Hero II Tournament:

• Date will be early to mid November (will be checked against school calender)
• Possibly in the gap between sports?
• Second prize will be a $20 gift certificate to a music store or a Circuit City/FYE
• Looks like a Friday is best for most people
• May spill over to a second day for later rounds
• Registration to occur during lunch (date TBA), organized by band staff

2) The Fall Concert

• Posters have been drawn up by Hope and Maria
• The posters are wonderful and colorful
• The Concert is on the 25th (Thursday) of October
• Distribution must occur quickly
• If refreshments are to be sold, more parents will need to commit to this to make it happen smoothly
• Students and Mr. O’Briant should do their best to contact parents to make this happen

Pictures from class and our first pep band game this season from historian Laura Napolitano ‘08:

As interim reports come out for the first time this year, you may notice a newsletter enclosed.  Here’s what it had to say about the Music Department:

Enrollment in the music department is growing!  Because of the restructuring of some music classes and the expansion of course offerings to include Music Appreciation and Music Theory, the number of students enrolled in music courses has grown by 21%.

The new courses are progressing quickly, with music appreciation students immersed in their first critical, written music reviews, and music theory students beginning work in the building blocks of harmony and music composition.

The Chorus, Jazz Workshop and Symphonic Band are already hard at work for the first concert of the 2007-08 Performance Season, which is at 7pm in the NHS Auditorium on Thursday, October 25th.  Admission is free of charge, but donations will be accepted.  Understand academic ensembles’ crucial role in fostering new music and young composers, the program will feature among a number of exciting selections the World Premeire of composer Matthew Barbre’s “Invisible Apparatus” for winds.  Although the performing ensembles are much younger this year, both the new students and the returnees are already showing great promise and musical progress, and the band and choral officers have stepped into their leadership positions with enthusiasm and aplomb.  Mrs. Cortright would especially like to thank Leigh Cappello, Caroline Cronin, Tracy Hill and Laura Dargon for their cooperation and selflessness in switching sections to improve the balance of the choral ensemble.  We are all looking forward to an exciting year in NHS Music!

—–

Cheers, and congratulations to the Symphonic Band for two great rehearsals back-to-back,

John O’Briant

I’ve mentioned all of what follows in class, but I’d like to remind everyone again that papers are due on Tuesday, October 9 (or Wednesday, if I don’t have your class on Tuesday).  I’ve decided that I will accept late work, but that you’ll lose 2 points (out of 25) for every day that it’s late.  Trust me, you’ll feel a lot better about the whole thing if you simply turn it in on time.    Presentations will begin on that first day back as well, so make sure you’ve brought in your recorded piece and whatever materials you think will be necessary to effectively present your work.  I’ll supply the laptop, InFocus machine, an amplifier, a plug for an MP3 player if needed and/or a CD player.  Remember that we do not have an internet connection in the auditorium, so if you’re planning on using a PowerPoint presentation, you’ll have to bring it in on CD/DVD or on a USB thumb drive.

I’ve also typed up and posted on the bulletin board the list of the order of presenters for each class, so if you need a reminder of where on the list you are, swing by and check.  I recommend that unless you’re towards the very end of the list, just be ready to present on the first day so you don’t get caught off-guard.  If you have materials that you’d rather not carry around with you, I can store them here.

Good luck!  It’s been really encouraging seeing your wheels start to turn and to hear some very thoughtful, probing questions.  Remember–I’m not expecting you to know absolutely everything to say about a piece of music yet.  I do, however, want to see that you’re listening carefully, really thinking about the songs you’ve picked and writing carefully.  Your fluency in this musical language will continue to develop with time and experience.  I’m looking forward to some great presentations and papers!

Enjoy your long weekend,

John O’Briant

Parents and Guardians:

I was very pleased to see a number of instruments that don’t normally go home leaving my room today in the care of your daughters and sons.  I’ve reminded students in my performance classes that since our concert season opens significantly earlier than in the past, we don’t have the time in rehearsal after such a long weekend to get everybody back up to speed and their chops back in shape.  We have to be able to jump right back in where we left off!  So please, encourage your children to spend some time on their instrument each day of this extended weekend.

Every practice session should start out with time devoted to the fundamentals of characteristic playing–long tones, flexibility exercises, fingering technique, attack exercises and the like.  After that should come work on music to be performed.  If you’re planning on putting in a large amount of time daily, I recommend splitting it up into a number of shorter sessions–say, three sessions of forty-five minutes each.  This approach allows you more easily to focus your attention, and it prevents you from completely mangling your chops.

Hope to see you all fresh and ready to go on Tuesday, and enjoy your weekend!

-John O’Briant