Amused

The PAC-12 announced that they will resume football this fall but Bands will not be allowed to play at or anywhere near games, leaving Olin without a fall marching season. The Hybrid Model now proposed for both John and Sus's schools effectively negates rehearsal, so the question remains: what is a performing ensemble without performance opportunities? S7E6 Recorded 10.4.2020

The counties where Sus and John teach are meeting the thresholds to open schools, so this week we grapple with what performing arts courses look like without rehearsal in preparation for students in the classroom, some students still online and the current guidelines in CA that preclude instrumental or choral rehearsals.   S7E5 Recorded 9.27.2020 

This week we sat down with our friend Patrick about his work opening West Park High School as their band director. He discusses the opportunities of starting a new program, and the challenges of doing so during distance learning in a pandemic.   S7E4 Recorded 9.20.2020

This week, we discuss the challenges we're continuing to face in our digital teaching and share ideas for engaging and meaningful lessons for our students in a remote teaching environment.   S7E3 Recorded September 13, 2020

Welcome Back, for real this time. First Family Episode of Season 7 with Veronica. We debrief our first few weeks of teaching and discuss dipping our toes into digital in this new normal.   S7E2 Recorded 9.6.2020

Welcome Back! We're opening our seventh season with an interview with Messrs. Jonathan Grantham and Patrick Dandrea from Amador Valley High School. They have been doing extensive work in maintaining an ensemble program in a digital environment, and recently hosted a directors band to showcase their ideas as a launching point for other teachers.  That Presentation can be found here: YouTube Live Link Session Slide Deck There are some additional strategies for solfege and rhythm reading included at the end of the deck. Additional Resources Overview videos we've used for students, some asynchronous projects, and planning template documents. Recorded 8/30/2020

This is the last regular episode of our Sixth Season. This is the end of semester potpourri, a look back at the year, what we're excited about for the summer and projects we hope to tackle.

"We have no idea what the fall is going to look like but you need to plan for it" - your admin team, probably. We don't have a lot of answers but we talk about messaging and planning and the differences between university, high school and middle school. Recorded May 24, 2020

John finishes his last week, Sus wraps up her virtual choir project, Olin is not looking forward for OSUMB instrument return and Veronica laments the regression of her 7th graders.  Recorded May 17, 2020

Back at it again, we discuss recorded lessons vs. synchronous learning sessions and the pros and cons of both.   Recorded 5.2.2020

Veronica debriefs her first week back after local school districts took almost a month off to prepare for digital learning. Recorded April 19 2020

We bring the spouses back on for a dive into what it's like being confined with a music teacher and some ways to mitigate the problems that stem from that. (Take 2: Sus's Audio is fixed)   Recorded April 16, 2020

John and Sus have been teaching since March 16 in secondary settings, but now Olin and Veronica are moving back into teaching after their spring breaks and debrief the challenges being faced.   Sorry about the bad audio (again) this time John got complacent with his audio set up, since it had been set up all week for teaching. Recorded April 5 2020.

Jesuit has some survey data based on two weeks of teaching digitally, we break down some of the points that jump out to us as we enter week three of this new paradigm.   Recorded 3/29/2020

We debrief our teaching and lessons learned from trying to adapt to digital teaching and learning in the first week of shelter in place in California. We had a small hiccup with Sus's audio at the end, so she missed out on a win this week... =(   Recorded March 22, 2020

We sit down with the incoming CMEA VP, Chad Zullinger to talk options for digital and distance learning as we try to adapt to school closures and our new normal.  CMEA Resources mentioned can be found here: https://calmusiced.com/resources/covid-19-information/   Recorded March 15, 2020

What has merit in a meritocracy besides musicianship? That's the question we try to tackle today.   Recorded March 8, 2020

Veronica dives in with the question that boils down to "when is it time to cut bait" with beginners who are showing no progress. We try to tackle the problem from a few angles.

We debrief our week, ending with a presentation at the California All State Music Educator's Conference. We also discuss our favorite clinics we participated in and Sus reminds herself how much she loves CCDA.

I sit down with Jim Mazzaferro (and his bass) to ask a few questions about developing your bass player, as well as a few questions about guitarists as the conversation progresses. Forgive the transitions, balancing Jim and his bass as he demonstrates proved to be a challenge. Jim's bio can be found here Recorded 1/30/2020