Band Curriculum by Chris Tempest:

I plan to approach the concert band with more of a music education focus than a strictly performance focus.

Goals:

1.  The students become better listeners.
2.  They become more well-rounded musicians.
3.  Music becomes a bigger and more meaningful part of their lives.

Part of the listening component will be training the students to identify works by title, composer, genre, time period, mood, basic meter, instrumentation and type of ensemble.

My goal is to lead the band through a study of music history, over the course of the school year, starting with Vivaldi in Baroque Era, and ending with Gershwin in the Modern Era.

So the first week of class we’ll listen to Vivaldi, identify unique stylistic elements and then we’ll play Vilvaldi.  Actually, we’ll play short excerpts of Vivaldi, as I’ll be arranging these classic works myself.

As time allows, I hope to also introduce a familiarity with moder music of various genres:  Celtic, worship, Blues, Latin, Soundtracks, Show tunes, folk, jazz, pop and rock.

We’ll listen to, talk about, study and play all these kinds of music!!

I’m very excited about this music education / listen, study and play framework, and I’m also excited about the prospect of working with a smaller band, and having the versatility to do some different things.

Also, I’d like for any of the band kids who are interested to have the opportunity to explore these other areas of music too:  piano, guitar or percussion lessons, conducting, composing, arranging, music theory, songwriting, recording, improvisation and sound gear / sound board.