Lately I’ve been stressing about making sure everything is running smoothly for a new music ensemble we’re kickstarting at Minnesota Brass: MBI Winds. While things are generally going smoothly, there’s always concerns from week-to-week: filling our remaining positions, facilities, and staying on budget.
I found myself losing sleep and having high anxiety about it all, and especially about things I couldn’t control. Despite having put together a fairly extensive meditation program for River Valley Sound (728 Cadets winter winds program), I wasn’t putting any of it into practice for myself.
Something I noticed at rehearsals was that I didn’t have time to worry about everything else. There was literally not enough space between the notes to let my mind wander. Live music has a way of demanding everyone involved to be present. Could I be absent and simply go through the motions? Sure. But live music to me has never been about going through the motions, it’s about turning yourself over to the performance.
This mandatory meditation is magnified in a group setting (i.e. rehearsal). At home during practice there’s always extra space where my mind can wander. At rehearsal everyone is counting on everyone else to do their part, and do it correctly. Be present, or be damned.
Bringing it Home
Some of these self-reflections about making music are things I could incorporate into other areas of my life. Being present for family and work, and not giving way to let anxiety creep in. I’m not there yet, but like the monks say, it’s always a practice.
…and marching band, WGI, etc. Props for any sort of marching arts are only as good as the best “band dad” in your group. Some band dads are great engineers, but staying in budget is always the trick. Aside: that term was not (properly) defined in Urban Dictionary, so I added a definition ð
When it comes to props, the name of the game is cheap since they’re only used for a season. But they need to last a whole season, and work consistently. Sometimes you need to solve a problem which doesn’t have an off-the-shelf solution. When structural strength is not a concern, 3D printing can help.
Our trumpet soloist also has a 3D printer, so I dropped the spool off at his house and he was able to print all of them up. The cork was cut from a large sheet. It had sticky backing, but he made sure it would stay permanently with cyanoacrylate (CA) glue a.k.a. super glue.
At first I thought he paused the printer and switched from orange to white filaments to get the stripe look. Nope, it’s just white electrical tape – you’d never know from 10 yards away.
If you want to print straight mutes that are show themed, you can find the STL files here. I tried getting the cork from a local music shop without luck, so we bought some from Amazon.
Flag Clips
Another prop we had was a Route 66 street sign made from 1.5″ inside diameter (ID) PVC. The goal was to be able to clip a flag to the sign post so they can be moved around together without issue. Here’s the first version to give you an idea:
Version 1 barely survived one show, but that’s OK. The trial and error revealed where additional material need to be added for strength.
From feedback from the guard I learned the flag clip part could be a little bigger to accommodate the flag silk. Version 2 had a double-detent design to help prevent the flag from falling out on it’s own.
The clips slip over the PVC and it has enough room for pole tape (we used chrome Duck Tape). To hold them in place we just added a strip of duct tape on the opposite side of the clip. Here you can see the sign in the background. There are two small bulges on the bottom half of the post where the clips are fastened.
Both Shannon, our trumpet soloist, and myself have Creality Ender-based 3D printers. They’re not expensive, and you may already have someone in your group with access to one. They’re less than $500 and band nerds like to nerd out in other ways too. Ask around and use this new technology to your advantage, it wasn’t mainstream before but now it is. ð
When the pandemic hit, I needed something to do. All my music stuff had been canceled. Unlike me, who works remotely, it was apparent that several businesses were going to be negatively impacted.
I contacted Best American Craftsman (aka BAC) in Overland Park, Kansas to see if they’d still be fixing instruments. They would be, but with some staff doing repairs at home, and a smaller staff in the shop at any given time. All good, I was in no hurry.
I sent in my Bach 42 trombone in specifically for their “Escape Velocity” slide service. Having sat in the case for at least a decade in the 2000s had not served it well ð Also, my F-attachment valve was slower than molasses in January, as they say.
Was it worth it to box up my case and ship it half-way across the country? Absolutely! It was like my slide and f-attachment trigger action were brand new – possibly even better than new ðŠ
Reconnecting with my people
I’ve had a ton of hobbies over the years – you can read about most of them on this blog. But recently I came to the conclusion that band people are my people. Of all the subcultures I’ve steeped myself in, they are the best. There’s something about band kids (we’re all band kids at heart) that binds us all together.
I’ve even found that some of my old high-school classmates are still active. An Irondale classmate invited me to a jazz camp in norther Wisconsin. Besides being all-around fun, I got to do group lessons with fantastic trombonist Andy Baker, and also actively work on improvisation – which I’ve never been good at. I’ll keep chopping that wood for next year’s camp ðŠĩðŠ
Slide oil, cream, or mix?
Working with River Valley Sound (the winter winds part of 728 Cadets) I met Chris. He’s a band director and trombone player. He was able to help me quickly hone in on what’s new.
Being a frequent pit-orchestra guy, Chris also gave me advice on a trombone stand. I initially went with the Hercules hand-slide stand. It is very solid and does avoid the stopper leaving a mark inside the bell. However, I quickly realized that I instinctively want to pick the horn up by the slide handle. And the slide handle is now in the stand ð So I switched to a standard style K & M stand. It’s more expensive because it’s made in Germany, but it’s solid and I just do what everyone else does – put a sock on the stopper so it doesn’t leave a mark in the bell ð
This is for those of you involved with any competitive pageantry out there, whether it’s for WGI, DCI, BOA, or your summer parade marching band. It’s mostly for the members, specifically high school kids because I think most instructors out there know the gig.
The need to write about this is because of something I observed… Because we frequently share judges recordings that we like with the membership.
A different perspective
It’s good to get feedback from a 3rd party. It can also be frustrating as an instructor when you’ve been saying these things all along. But I get it – it goes along with the adage that kids don’t like to listen to their parents.
I imagine this is why clinicians are popular. They can come in and say the exact same thing as your day-to-day instructors. But they’re able squeeze just a little more juice from the ensemble because they’re an outsider.
Getting that outside perspective is good. They may be able to put it into words or terms that make it easier for members to relate to. They may also identify ideas or issues the staff or members weren’t fully aware of.
The Tapes
Tapes are a misnomer – judges haven’t used cassette tapes in years. They’re digital recordings that are much easier to share. But I’m old school and may refer to them as tapes.
During the performance
While listening to a judges recording, re-live that particular performance in real-time with the judge. This is when you can feel the judges reaction as the performance unfolds. Did a moment not come together cleanly? Maybe there was a build-up that didn’t resolve as well as it should. You may already realize that something was or wasn’t great before a judge calls it out.
When judges are doing a running commentary during the show, it can be difficult to comment on all the things observed in real-time. Judges keep notes, either on a notepad or in their head.
After the performance
They’ll put the “meat” of their observations at the end of the program – when the group is clearing the floor or field. It’s almost impossible to give a full real-time commentary during the program, especially if it’s a first read (first time viewing).
Think of it like watching a movie. When it’s over – that’s when you talk to your friends and discuss the content. Maybe there was something you didn’t understand. Like a movie, sometimes judges might not get it if there are design elements or performers missing that day – especially early season.
Whatever the case is, you’re likely to find the great commentary at the end. The judges are reviewing their mental or written notes and looking at the big picture.
Far too often as the performers listen to these tapes, they start talking among themselves as soon as the performance is done because their part is over. Have patience and listen to what the movie reviewer has to say after they’ve been able to soak it all in.
Buzzword Bingo
Just for funzies, you might play buzzword bingo with a judges’ recording.
Sonority (quality of sound, distinctness)
Tessitura (range or register)
Negative space (using the whole field or floor)
Vertical alignment (if not talking about a visual element, likely referring to playing together in time)
While it can be fun to play this game, I always give credit to the judges. They have a hard job. They have to rank and score many ensembles in a consistent way.
Hopefully a newcomer reading this will find it useful to fully consume judges feedback in order to best make use of it. Good luck out there!
Hey there – here’s a how-to on setting up compound complex time signatures in TE Tuner and how we use it at rehearsal.
I have the privilege of working with a WGI winds group called River Valley Sound out of Elk River Minnesota. For our 2022 production we’re playing a hymn called “Nearer My God to Thee” and the arrangement we’re using is by a BYU group called Vocal Point. It’s an awesome arrangement and performance – I’ll leave a link in the description. You should definitely check it out.
The Vocal Point arrangement starts in 4/4 but goes into 7/8 time, then back to 4/4 for the arrival, then 7/8 to the end. Normally we’d use Dr. Beat at rehearsal, but we haven’t found a way to set up 7/8 time in it easily.
So I was looking at TE Tuner, which – as the name describes – is for tuning, but it can do so much more. Side-note: another great tuning app I use is iStroboSoft by Peterson b/c it’s got a great strobe display that’s easy to see. But kids love TE Tuner b/c it makes a smiley face when you’re in tune ð It’s only $4 for either iOS or Android and it’s honestly the best $4 you’ll ever spend on an app.
I prefer to use TE Tuner on my iPad because it has a bigger screen with bigger buttons. It also has longer battery life and a regular headphone jack, so I don’t need to bring an adapter to hook it up to a speaker.
But I’m going to show TE Tuner on my phone because I always have my phone with me at rehearsal, and it’s good to know how to access all of the features on the smaller interface.
TE Tuner Metronome
Let’s get to the metronome!
First you’ll want to click the list icon to get into All Preset Groups.
I created a new preset group for our closer.
Count-In
We’ll deal with the count-in first. No matter what the time signature is, we always get a standard 8 beat count-in when we’re rehearsing.
So I turn it on, set it to start and add 8 beats. I turn on the “optional beat equals quarter” so that we always get a quarter note tempo – this is important for the 7/8 stuff later. Then I turn off the voice and turn on the beats.
Met Icons
Let’s go through the icons below the count-in.
Because of the mixed meter in this tune, we want the 8th notes constant. Make sure the 8th equals 8th icon is highlighted so the tempo stays consistent between meter changes.
Next is the accent, I turn that on.
Then the claves are for the sound and I like to set it to “Doctor” since we’re used to the doctor beat style sound.
The last notes icon is to turn on/off drone stuff which we’re not going to configure today, so we’ll just turn that off.
Preset
Let’s configure our first section. It’s the intro and it’s in 4/4 so we’ll leave “With Meter” selected and I know the first section is 32 bars so I’ll set that. Make sure Use Tempo is selected and we’ll set it to Fixed at 160 bpm.
Then you can customize the metronome beats – purple is an accent, gray is off, blue is a standard beat. Touch the Back arrow in the upper left when you’re done.
Then we’ll add a 7/8 section by clicking the plus (+) in the lower right. Keep “with meter” selected and choose 7/8 – our tune goes 1,2 1,2, 1,2,3 so I’ll select the 2+2+3 one. The first 7/8 section is 18 bars.
Under Use Tempo I set this one to Relative and leave the change to zero.
Then I’ll set the accents how we like it for this tune.
(This screenshot is from the 2nd 7/8 section which is 34 bars instead of 18)
Now let’s see how they work – go back to the Closer group and then back again and make sure our new Preset Group is selected. Click the X to get back to the main metronome screen.
Bug or Feature?
Here’s the weird thing that I think prevented us from using TE Tuner when we started the season – when you switch from 4/4 at 160 to 7/8 the tempo comes up as 106.7. I don’t know if it’s a bug or a feature but it’s because the 7/8 beat is a dotted quarter up here in the upper left.
106.7 is exactly 2/3 of 160 – which is fine because 2/3 of a dotted quarter is two 8th notes, it’s just weird to look at.
Now I can tap either of these presets to load them. The highlighted 1-2-3-4 icon indicates we’ll get that 8-count intro before our preset runs.
Optional Beat Setting
Here’s where that Optional Beat in the count-in is important. If you touch and hold the 1-2-3-4 icon you can edit the count-in. If I have it off, the count-in will be at the 106 bpm tempo. You can preview it with the play icon in the upper right. We always want the count-in at 160 bpm so I select Beat Equals Quarter.
Sequence Feature
Now that I’ve got my preset groups I can select the Sequence icon to run through the presets from beginning to end.
A useful side effect of this feature is that the metronome won’t switch to the next preset until the current measure is over. I’ll show you how that’s useful.
If we’re running one set before the 7/8 time starts and it’s only 16 counts, I can tap the 7/8 group on the fly and it will advance to that preset after the current measure is over.
Now I can add the additional 4/4 and 7/8 Presets to this Group so I can let the met run from the beginning to end of the tune.
Aside about TE Tuner on iPad
Before we go I want to show you one more thing which I think is important. I was talking to my brother in law who works in the Spring School District in Texas and he was telling me about Philip Geiger, a band director from the district who co-founded TE Tuner in 2012. Now if you know anything about music programs in the US, many don’t have the budget to get new equipment every year.
This is my 4th generation iPad from 2013. It is stuck on iOS 10 but TE Tuner still runs perfectly on it, where as many other apps aren’t receiving updates or flat out don’t work on this older hardware.
As a software developer myself, I understand that engineers are always looking at using those shiny new features. But I appreciate the intention it takes to maintain backwards compatibility for older hardware. Kudos to Mr. Geiger and his team – I left a link to his BOA hall of fame induction if you want to learn more about him & his career.
Hope you find this guide to the metronome features useful for your ensemble.
