MHHS Bands

Dear Band and Band Parents, It's the last week of April! I am excited because last week was awesome in terms of participation and also because I got to see some of you and work with you on Zoom in lessons! If you haven't done Frere Jacque and Ming Court yet, please do that this week. You can submit on smart music or make a video and turn it in on classroom or sign up for a zoom lesson or use the Screencastify share function I posted earlier. Any way you want me to hear you, I will hear you! My goal is to make sure that the entire curriculum is available for you and that I am here to help you get at it! You want to be able to say the following things by the end of the month. There are some additional learning targets in my prior blog post if want a bigger challenge. 1) I can play a concert Bb Major Scale (the first scale on our Presto middle school challenge sheet) 2) I can sing and Play Patsy Ory Ory Aye and Baa Baa Black Sheep (our second and third new song coming ...

Dear Band and Band Parents, Here is what we are working on for the rest of April. First: Students should log into classroom. The most recent two posts have all this information and Smart Music instructions. This week, we are starting with turning in recordings of Frere Jacques and Ming Court on Smart Music! (If you haven't signed up for Smart Music yet, the instructions are in the post directly beneath this one). New instructional videos are coming this week (see all the fun stuff below). Also, please remember not to stress out about band. I know how busy you all are and how stressful it can be to have lots of assignments due. Do what you can and don't worry about the rest. If you want a Zoom lesson I am starting to give those! My first is scheduled this week. I am going to be setting up Zoom office hours to touch base with you by instrument. My goal is to make sure that the entire curriculum is available for you and that I am here to help you get at it! He...

Dear Band Parents, We would like to put together a band page for the yearbook this year but there are VERY few pictures of the band available. I am asking if any of you have pictures of the band from the last concert you are willing to share for possible inclusion in the yearbook? It would be nice to see our students represented. If you have any band pictures for the yearbook, just send them to me and I will get them to our yearbook editors. Thank you so much! Emre Akter

Dear Band! There are two main items on our agenda this week. First, thanks to everyone who signed up with smart music! Your student emails work for this. You will not get a confirmation email but I will verify your account. I will be verifying accounts at least twice a day. If you have not done so PLEASE sign up for your smart music account. Your first assignment (due Friday) is to try playing lightly row with your smart music account. I will be making a video demonstration of how to do this with my saxophone so you can see how it works. Second, I will be posting some rhythm reading videos this week. Your only job is to watch these and participate. Finally, I am making plans for a concert video. I will be in touch with instructions on this soon. Mr. A

Dear Band Parents and Students, We have an issue with smart music at the elementary school. Your emails are locked so you can't get emails from people outside the newfairfieldschools.org domain. That means, when you sign up for Smart Music, you can't complete the process, so it isn't working for you. I am working on this problem now with tech support, but a workaround is to sign up with parent's email. I am very sorry for this hiccup. I didn't anticipate this difficulty and they didn't run across it at the other schools as the student's emails are fully functional. Mr. A

Dear Band Parents and Students! I am now able to email all of you, which is a nice treat. Quick points for the week: 1) Our Wednesday check in video is up on Classroom! 2) Students should sign up for Smart Music. The instructions for students are on classroom 3) I am asking students who volunteer to share videos with me for band recruitment for next year. Parents, if your child submits a video I will be asking your permission to share the video with the 4th graders. A permission form will be sent home. Participation for kids on this is entirely optional! I am just thinking ahead. Details for students are on classroom I hope this helps. Mr. A 

Dear Band, I hope you are all well! Our daily check in video is up on classroom! You can find that here: https://classroom.google.com/u/0/c/NjU1MDA2OTUwNjVa/p/NzQwMzMwNDc2MTFa/details Also today at 9AM the Trombone lesson for the week and the Saxophone lesson for the week will be going live. I have posted new materials on classroom! There is now a fingering chart for all instruments on classroom and PDF's for the song we are currently learning (Ming Court) I hope all of this helps. Please email me with any questions! Mr. A