Ratings Reactions: Be Coachable!

Concert and Sight Reading Evaluations are wrapping up for another spring. The time of reactions and reflection is upon us. If the ratings weren’t what you hoped for, what do we do with that? Are we defensive and looking for someone or some circumstance to blame? Mike Lunney offers a different perspective in this episode. What can we learn? How can we improve? If we’re honest, did we just not have our best day? The big question, are we coachable? Are we looking for the lessons and for help to correct things? A simple hard truth, until we accept help, honest help, we’re doomed to repeat our weaknesses!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So, you know, typically Mike, I we try to do things to not necessarily not necessarily announce what time of year we're recording these or whatever. You know, we try to be uh Yeah, we try shy away from certain times of the year, but I'm telling you, uh I think I don't know if it's an age factor. I can't say that. I've been this way my whole life. Just finished tax season. Oh and every year, because I do my own, I I save it on a thumb drive. You know, I try to be all super secure and not have it just sitting on a computer. Somebody could but here's the thing, I always put it somewhere, that thumb drive, because I have to reference it each year. I have to reference last year's return. And I always think I'm gonna put this somewhere where I know where it is, and nobody else would ever think to look there. And then the next year when I go to start that year's taxes, for the life of me, it takes me three hours digging through every drawer, every box, every secure place.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Do you know where just to find the stuff? This is overkill. You know where I secure mine? It's in a safe deposit box at Bank of America. Is it serious? It is. I go in and I get my flash drives out, and then I give it to my people. And then when I'm we're done, I take that same stuff so it doesn't sit on my computer, all my emails and everything, and it goes in the safe deposit box and it just sits there for the whole year. That way, at least that's the one thing in my life that I know where it's at.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

If any nefarious directors are listening, don't come to my house. I have a fireproof safe. I don't put it in.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Well, of course not. I mean, why would you why would you waste all that? Why would I do that? Yeah, I mean, you know, you paid money for that safe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I'm gonna have to get you to coach me through some of this stuff, brother. I'm I'm trying to be coachable. If you got ideas and yeah, we'll have to coach help this poor guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Oh, we all we all have our uh our demons that possess us on being coachable. Yes, we all reach our buttons.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

You know what? I'm just gonna go off for a second, Mike. I can't believe sometimes my mortgage got sold this year. Oh, yeah. I just got a notification. By the way, uh the big conglomerate sold off your loan to a smaller, and I'm laughing, and they're probably a fantastic company. I have no complaints with them, but I went from you know, a really well-known name to something called Mr. Cooper.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Some guy just decided to start doing mortgages. But some kind of border in San Diego.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

I'll buy that one.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

He owns an HR block company.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Oh man. Coachable. I think that's probably an important part of growth. Well, yeah, and part of getting better.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

And it's something that's really weighed on my mind a little bit because you know, we're kind of, you know, we talked about, we don't talk a lot about the time of year in which we do a recording, but we're kind of finishing up all of our concert evaluations. And so I get a lot of uh really cool phone calls, you know, because people I've worked with, and you know, it's either uh it's it's in two categories, Mr. Derek. It's either thank you so much, you helped me so much for this, or it's like um everything in the world was against me, and there's no way I could have done anything better. You know what I mean? It's there's no in-between on that. And uh, and I'm not asking for people to thank me for it because you know, they they they do pay me for my time and I'm compensated. So I mean, and it's it's nice when they call, but I always get kind of a kick out of the ones that call, and even if they make a first division, it's like, well, you know, my principal this and my school board this and my budget this and my scheduling this, and you know, my family's all in an uproar and my house is burning right now, but I'm gonna go ahead and finish this phone call. Yeah, I get this whole litany of uh things, things that we all face. So uh so just kind of think about it.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

And you know, I can relate to that because we talked about doing this at a certain time that's not normal, and I don't normally do it from my office. I'm in the office today at Tarpley Music. And uh on the way here, I was looking at the because I I'm one of those guys that I try to be where I say I'm gonna be when I say I'm gonna be there. Yeah, and you know, there's construction all over every city in America, or at least in Texas, there is, it seems like I know Andrew, I mean Andrews, I know that in Abilene, I going down what was a 14th the other day, I was like, what is going on here? And so that doesn't mean anything to anybody anywhere else, but there's there's construction everywhere, and so I'm thinking to myself, uh, you know, your mind starts doing that litany of excuses. Well, I'll just tell them I I wasn't expecting this, but because there's 42nd, one of the biggest streets in my town. Yeah, just blown up. They're just putting sidewalks in. I don't I guess we needed newer, wider sidewalks, but we've had that conversation before. But uh, you know, I've heard some people say that uh how much construction there is based on the economy, but let's not get off on that time tangent. Um you know my conspiracy theory. But I'm saying that it's easy to rehearse. I is it human nature? We just rehearse excuses, or we just automatically I don't know if we just don't want to face the reality. Maybe that's too harsh, but it's always got to be some something else. It wasn't my fault. I didn't do anything wrong, the world's against me. Is that kind of what oh yeah?

SPEAKER_00 5:28

It's uh, and we all fall into those traps. We all have our pity party. You know what I mean? No one's immune from that. Um, but I I tell you what, uh, a really good recruiter at the University of Mississippi, uh baseball coach, and I can't remember his name, so someone out there will have to remind me. But it he he made mention of the fact that there's average athletes and there's elite athletes. And the difference between them is elite athletes don't make excuses for why things are happening the way they are. And uh average athletes use the excuses to as a self-defense mechanism to cover up the inadequacy of their lack of discipline. And I know that's not a black and white thing, you know what I mean? It's not like you know, sure you can't just go through life where everything's wonderful and 100%. You know, you've got to uh face the fact that some things are happening to you. But when it comes down to it as an athlete or as a band director or as a dad or as a church deacon, whatever the role might be, it's our responsibility. We've got to figure out a way to get around those excuses. And uh I I don't mean excuses as derogatory, it's as as reasons. You know what I mean? The excuses need to become reasons, you know, instead of oh, I can't, I'll never have a good band here because my school board. And I always tell directors that if they get to that point where it's so many things happening that they feel like they can't get something done, you know what? Ladies and gentlemen, there's a lot of jobs out there. It's not like there's a lot of jobs out there when I came out of college. Oh my gosh, I mean, you there's like five band directors for each opening. You know what I mean? It's it's it was amazing the overflow of band directors that they're in. We're not in those times anymore. You know what I mean? So my answer to them is always why don't you just go to a different job? And maybe that's too easy for me because I grew up as an Air Force brat.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So movement was movement was part of life, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, yeah. I mean, my I lived in eight places before my eighth grade year, you know what I mean? So it's it's to me, it was like that's just what you do. And then I kind of went into a whole thing of where, you know, all of a sudden I go to one school and stay for 19 years, another school for eight years, and that was the majority of my career. And then it was like two years at one school and two years at another school. And, you know, and I never left a job because of I felt like I couldn't get things done. Um, I think I was very fortunate, very lucky, very blessed that I I'd never had horrible administration, I never had horrible school boards, I never had horrible bandparents. Um, so I I I sympathize with people who have to face that, but either figure out a way to make it better or find another place to be, you know, put your plant your feet somewhere else, you know. So we kind of go through this, and you know, at this time of year we get feedback on performances, you know, and a comment or a way that it's written or explained sends us spiraling towards this edge of anger, frustration, disagreement, anxiety, and overall irritation at the person giving the feedback. And uh, and I'll tell you a funny story. Uh uh not funny, funny, like ha ha, but ironic is that when you go judge, a lot of times they'll put the uh the places the place where you eat lunch happens to be in the contest office.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

So you've just heard this band and the concert panel's just given them a 334. And so you're eating your little barbecue plate, and the director comes in, and then the executive secretary starts talking to him and he gives them their uh papers and everything. It's rather tense. It's rather tense. Can be, I would say. Oh, it is. Not can be, it is. You can tell there's some little bit of side eye and a little glance this way and that. And I've never had anyone, I well, I have had one time someone confronted me. Um, but you know, it's it's and I try to tell myself that you know they're just dealing with their own frustrations. And uh, I think deep down that they know that there was problems with a performance. And sometimes it takes other people to tell them because of my own uh I went to uh a little school to work and uh made a 3-3-3 in concert contest and a 3-3-3 in sight reading. And so I took my recording to my high school band director because I lived in the same town that my high school band director lived in. And I said, Man, this is just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I played it for him and he looked at me and he goes, You're lucky that wasn't a four.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

You know, and I was like, well, uh, blah, blah, blah. I thought, I thought I'd been ripped off. And so he went step by step, and uh, he said, No, this is what you need to do. And uh, so we went through that and a couple other mentors of mine, and and I followed their instruction, and uh, I hope to think that I like to think that I was coachable at that time because I could have easily said, Oh man, these people are stupid, they they don't know what they're talking about. I mean, I'm Mike Lunny. I was young and I knew everything, Derek. I mean, just just ask me, and if you didn't believe me, ask my mom. My mom would have told you that Mike knows everything.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

You know, Mike knows everything.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

You know, it was absolutely ridiculous. He was like trumpet player on intellectual steroids, you know. It was it was actually pretty funny. Um, so sometimes we deal with that as mentors of the of people. We kind of have to kind of bite our tongue and just go, sometimes the uh sometimes the toenail just has to grow back.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Right, and it takes six months, you know, for it to happen. And I'm not trying to to jump the shark here, but I don't even know what that term means. I just thought I'd throw that up.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

It's a happy day term, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

We did jump the shark. Oh, I do remember that.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Um that was the end of the series, man.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

See, we were talking earlier about shows that I've seen that you haven't, vice versa. Yeah, but I I and I probably mentioned this before in conversation with you, if not on our podcast, that one of the interesting things I see is that Mr. Missband director, when you're listening to another band, you feel like you're very objective and you're just stating what you heard. But when it comes to your band, you know what and getting too careful with it. What I like to say is we judge other people on the facts, we base ourselves on intention. We always expect that people were gonna understand how hard we worked, that people are gonna understand all the when all that an adjudicator has to to go on is what's right in front of him.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

That day at that moment. And that's not necessarily fair to the the overall picture of your program, but it is what it is.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, yeah. You're man, they just said it exactly right. It's not a fair system, but what system is, you know, DPS pulling over people on the highway is not a fair system, you know. But sometimes we get caught, sometimes we blow by and go, oh, he's not turning around. So you're right. And I I think sometimes we have to really face that fact as directors that um we cannot base our entire worth of our program on the opinions of three people in an auditorium for in 15 minutes. Yeah, and sometimes some of the groups, their their music programs five and a half minutes, you know, total. You know, so in five and a half minutes, uh, we've got to decide as a panel, is that a one, two, three, four, or five? Uh, how did they how do they meet the rubrics? And all we're doing is giving a opinion of uh what happened right then. And so sometimes it's how they handle it. But you know, when it comes back to the rehearsal kind of stuff, I think sometimes director, well, I say think, I know, sometimes directors uh they hear in their head what they want to hear by what they're seeing on the score. And they don't really hear the band. And sometimes when I go to clinic, Derek gets hilarious because it'll be like I'm sitting there listening to it going, man, there's a lot of stuff going on that I don't think they're and I'll just go up very Why aren't you stopping? Well, I'll just go up there very gently and I'll just take the score off their stand. I'll just I'll just close it and they're still conducting, they look at me like you know, like I took away their scuba tank, you know, and they're 90 feet under the water. And I just take their score and I just kind of gently I just smile and just kind of take it. And I it's funny because once you remove that score, they've been using 20% of their brain power, and all of a sudden you take the score. Now they're at least they're using 80% of their brain power, and all of a sudden they stop the band really quick and go, oh man, trumpets, you know. And so it's that, yeah. Because when you see the music, your brain interprets it in your mind. And uh, and I've told this story before of Don Hannah reaching up and grabbing my wrist because I was conducting and uh I was humming, and he he grabbed my hand and he goes, Stop. And I go, stop conducting. So stop singing. And I go, Yes, sir. Because if you're singing or humming, you're in your mind, you're hearing what you're humming, and you're not listening to the band.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

And exactly, you have cut off half of your yeah, and it was a defense mechanism.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

I I could kind of cover up the mistakes, I could whitewash the fence, you know. Sounds pretty good, you know. But that was so funny, just right. And he looked at me in the eye, he goes, Stop. Stop conducting. No, stop singing. So sometimes we just have to be careful of things like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Um, so I what I hear you saying is instead of us build and we we belabored it to an extent, but instead of us building up uh this as an attack, I'm I'm guessing what you're telling us is this is an opportunity. Yes. That we can take that that that constructive critique. I'm not even gonna use criticism because people automatically associate that negative. I don't think criticism is in the right way. This is what I heard. Yeah, but we can take that and and I guess what you're telling us is adjust our attitude about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yes. And it's the fact that uh in our particular what we do for a living, um our music is a part of our soul. Now, when I go to my tax prep people, they have spreadsheets and they do not sit there. And if I uh if I criticize something that they've done and say, Are you sure about this? They don't take that personal because it's a spreadsheet. Now, music is a little different. It's members. Yeah. Our entire living is based on uh taking emotions and channeling them through music and channeling music through emotions. And, you know, if you repair diesel engines, you can take it personal when someone criticizes your intellect, but you're not gonna get emotionally, you know, tied up into man, this engine is really humming well. You know, so it's it's weird. So we've got to somehow remove ourselves from the fact that the criticism is not going to be necessarily always a critical nature of um the person. Sometimes it is, and I've taken that criticism before, and sometimes I've been receptive, sometimes I haven't, but it's mainly a criticism of this isn't sounding correct, this isn't working right, what can we do to solve this problem? You know, because uh we the directors will fall into different kinds of categories. Um if you as a director and someone comes to work your group, or you listen to a recording and you're listening with the same, if you're lucky enough to have a staff, or just even your band parent president and listening to something, if uh they say, Well, you know, that that drill set didn't work right, or this didn't, you know, they they criticize something, you go, I've already told them that. Oh, I've already told them that. I've already told them that. The problem is you probably did, but telling them that is not teaching.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

You know, teaching fix it.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah, teaching it has to have some sort of reaction on the other end, otherwise you're just talking into a monitor or a wall, and uh no one's listening to what you're saying. And so that's the hardest one to get around. But you know, and sometimes it's so tiring as a clinician to for a person, I've already told them that. Well, obviously, if you'd have taught it, then I wouldn't have to be telling you again.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Exactly. And you know, one of my biggest life is communication. Yeah, just to say And if the uh the the equation of communication is effectively presenting something and it being received. If they did not receive it, you have not communicated. You might have told them, but you didn't communicate.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, and they didn't get it. They go to a place of feeling inadequate or being offended, and uh right. And maybe I'm just you're attacking me.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah, I I I was just built different, I guess, because you know, and I've said this before. My dad was an Air Force sergeant, and he bless his soul, he's he's passed away now, but he loaded bombers in Vietnam, you know, had a crew of people they loaded B-52 bombers in Vietnam to carpet bomb, I guess. You know, so he had a different viewpoint on criticism. Yeah, uh uh pretty much if if he wanted you to have an opinion, he'd have issued it to you at birth. You know, kind of yeah, he kind of it was a fire hydrant of information, and he just told us so I kind of I've had to temper that as I've gotten older and became a clinician and kind of worked with other bands because sometimes my dad comes out and it's uh my my own personal dad comes out, not my fatherly, you know, let's take care of these young people. It's uh dang it, you're doing this wrong. And here's the way to do it right, in my opinion. And so I've got to temper that because it's as each generation gets younger, it's just different. It's not bad, it's not worse, it's just different. You know, they're they're a little more sensitive to uh to being criticized. And uh I think it's because they're smarter than we were. You know, I don't know about you, Derek, but I grew up in the generation where a lot of times directors threw stuff and kickstands and you know, and uh, you know, it wasn't anything for a kid to be pushed on the not violently, but just to grab him by the shoulder and kind of move them around on the field. I told you you're supposed to be right here. You know, yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Now, if you did that now, budgets must have been great because we went through so many megaphones during marching season, flying off the top.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah, in fact, I had one. This is a true story. When I was an elector, I had one that had gotten broken. And so I used it every year about a week before contest, and I would take it as old Harry Dinkle. It's a prop. It was a prop. And so I'd throw it from the tower down, I'd get mad at the band. It was it was all choreographed, and I'd throw and that thing would explode. And then after band went in, I would go out there and I'd pick up all the pieces and I'd super glue it back together and I'd stick it to the shop and I'd get my other megaphone out for the rest of the season. But that was my destroy the megaphone moment. And uh, the kids knew that it was like, oh my god, he just he just destroyed a piece of equipment. This guy's mad. And I don't know if I would do that anymore, but it sure was fun, it sure did feel good. It was like rage hang ups, whoosh, you know, when you have those old landlines. Um, but you know, it's it you've got to figure out as a director when you're being critiqued, whether it's by a uh concert panel or a marching panel or area marching or and even digs deeper when it's just somebody in the audience. You know, every director out there knows that feeling when just some Joe Plumber comes out of the stands during the third quarter and goes, Man, that really didn't look good tonight. They'll tell you. They treat you like a football coach, you know, they'll come and they'll tell you, you know, and so sometimes that's actually harder to take because, you know, then you feel like you're being attacked all the time. Um so we've got to get past that point, if we can, of feeling offended. Typically, the comments are directed at the performance of the ensemble, because very few times has anyone this has happened, but very few times has someone come up to me and gone, you know, are you sure you know what you're doing? Did you finish college? Yeah, yeah. Did you what what what qualifications do you have to do this job? Yeah. And I've had I've had those words spoken to me before, you know. Uh, and uh, you just kind of bite your tongue, and you know, nowadays I wouldn't bite my tongue, I would just lash back out because I've got nothing to lose anymore. At the time I was trying to build a career, so it's like, oh yeah, I got I'll put up with this. Nowadays I just rip their head off and you know, uh, but but that's that's just Mike Lenny being old and crotchety, you know. But uh but you've got to kind of get past that as if you're asking for someone to come and work your group, if you're taking them to a contest or a festival, you're gonna get feedback. Isn't that the point? That's the system. I mean, if you just Want someone to tell you what we do, go play a recording for your mom, you know, and mom will tell you how wonderful you are and how you're the best kid, and how you're just amazing. My mom was the best at that. If I wanted my ego built up, I could just go talk to mama. Mama always thought I was incredible, I was the golden child, you know. I knew I wasn't, but it sure felt good. But you know, if you're going to a festival, just realize what happens in that you are going to get, you know, um some feedback. And you know, yes, sometimes it can be a systemic issue, you know, like a band doesn't play well in tune, or a band doesn't play with good tone quality in the clarinets, or a band doesn't play precisely, you know, and it might be a combination of all of those, you know. Um, different things happen, you know. So it might be a systemic thing of like, hey, we need to go back, you know, sometimes in a clinic, it's not like let's work on the music, it's like let's work on being musical. Uh let's go back to the corral. Let's not even work your contest pieces. Let's go back and let's figure out kids how to how to do this because you know, it's an old statement, but I've lived with it. Um, you know, there's no such thing as advanced fundamentals. You know, there's only basic fundamentals, but there's advanced situations that require require stronger fundamentals. A note starts, a note sustains, and a note ends. Period. That's the only fundamental that exists.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Yeah, and it is shooting around on that. If you define fundamental, if you break it down, what it actually means, they're there's not in anything, there's no such thing as advanced fundamentals. Right. Fundamental is fundamental.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah, yeah. It's just by definition, it's the fun, it's like a straight line versus a crooked line. There's only one kind of line. By definition, it's a straight line. And you don't have to say straight, that's like hot water heater. You know, it's a water heater, it's not a hot water heater, it's a water, you know, it's uh ATM, you know, automatic teller machine, machine, ATM machine. You know what I mean? So we could go on and on with stupidity, you know, but it's it's it's the truth, it's the truth with those fundamentals. So being coachable really comes down to uh that you can accept criticism regardless of whether you agree or not, but it has the merit in the process of reflecting and getting better. Because there's criticism I received that I don't agree with.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

But if I've asked, you need to say that again, Mike.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, there's criticism I've received that I don't agree with. There's I've been to let's say a marching contest, and they'll say, like, uh, we don't think that this Woodwind feature needs to be as long as it is. You know, so it's you're taking too much time, it destroys the arc of the show. And in my mind, I'm I don't agree with that because my Woodwin feature is longer because my Woodwin players are better. You know, so I'm gonna have them play a longer feature. So it doesn't mean I have to agree with them, but it does mean I should not vocally disagree with them. When they give a criticism, they're not asking for an argument, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Tell me if I'm missing your point here. Nobody's asking us to enjoy a criticism.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

The and you know, it's this is a belief of mine. We decide if we're gonna be offended about something. It doesn't matter what it is, we can make the choice that offends me or that does not. And if you get offended, it's your own fault. But you have allowed yourself to become offended. So I I say that not really trying to slap somebody with it, but I'm just saying you have the ability to say, All right, I don't like what you said, but is it true? Is it helpful? Does it make my group better if I listen to it? Yeah, that's what you get to do with that. It doesn't matter if necessarily even if you agree with it. Right. Or you you have to decide if you agree with it. You you went there knowing somebody was going to adjudicate, listen, and make a comment. If you say if they say something bad, I'm gonna get so mad about that. That's the wrong attitude. Yeah, I'm just they say something bad, I get to say okay, is that true? And and just like you going to visit Mr. Miller, I guess it was Mr. Miller. Yeah, it was, yeah. You get to say you know, even if one of your first things is I just need to know, and did I I I'm do I have any reason to be upset about this? Find someone you trust.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

Yeah, well, I was even worse. I said, I I th I don't think I deserved a three. I think they ripped me off. He said, You're right, you deserve a four. Yeah, that's he looks like his man, you're lucky it wasn't a four, Mike. So here's all the things we're gonna have to work on.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

And so I kind of my point, I guess, Mike, is you get to choose whether things make you mad or not.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

And that if you choose to be mad, you're not being coachable. I guess that's the bottom line of that ramble.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

But and no, it's not a ramble, there are a lot of good points in there. And it if if you don't want to receive criticism, there are plenty of jobs out there where you can just go to some little uh local little tiny music festival with your kids, and the everyone gets a first division and they give you a big giant trophy and you get put in the town paper. Um, you know, there are jobs like that that they don't even require you to go to UIL. They they don't have any concern about area state marching, which is fine. But if you don't want to have criticism on things, there are jobs out there that you can I can I can give you a list of them. You know what I mean? And you might not like working there after you get there because you'll realize real quick that without criticism, the group never gets better.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

That's my problem. If yes, there are, but all you're saying to yourself is I don't want to put in the work to become good or great or even just better. Right. I'm not interested in a journey. This is as good as I ever want to be. Let me go find somewhere where they'll let me be this.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Right. That's exactly right. And uh sorry. No, no, you're good. You're good.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

And I'm not apologizing to you. Um whoever that hurt.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Yeah. Oh no, no. It's uh we're past the point of apologizing for hurting people. You know, it they're the ones we've already established the fact that it's their issue if they're hurt. A hundred episodes in. I didn't purposely go to hurt somebody. You know what I mean? That's that's their that's their perception.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

It's a choice that they make, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Yeah, so I that doesn't concern me. I think one of the most interesting parent conferences, I was helping sub for a semester for a gentleman who had COVID and had prostate cancer. And we had a uh at a a two-A school, actually three A school, and I was doing the junior high band. And so this parent comes in and we sit down with her, and me and the head director, and she goes, I don't think my son enjoys being in your band. And my response was, and the the head director just about died because I'm at the age where I can say whatever I want to. I go, you know, your child's love of being in my class is really, really, really low on my list of things I care about.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Let me show you my priority list.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Yeah, my priority is I want the band to sound good. I want the band to get better, I want the band to sound musical, I want kids to feel safe. I'm really not concerned whether they're enjoying every moment. Said, I believe your child's not enjoying it because they don't need to be there.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

And that was it. Let me just pencil in number one, make Barney happy.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah, just mic drop right there, you know. That's uh and the principal was in on that meeting and he he still gives me heck about it. He goes, Oh my god, Mike, I can't believe you said that to a parent. And I said, Well, it's the truth. He goes, Wanted to say that for years. He goes, I know it's the truth because he chimed in. He goes, If you want to remove your child from the band, so we can do it right now.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

There's a process. We got it.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

We can make this work. So it doesn't always have to be that blunt, but man, sometimes it is, you know. Um, now we got to kind of look at this as far as with critique for uh like a just a regular old clinic, not talking about parent conferences and things like that, but you know, find out if there's certain things like is tuning a constant comment? If so, you've got to dig into precisely what is causing that in your group and how can you fix that? Because I've literally asked band directors before when the tuning is not where it needs to be in a program. I've said, uh, well, how often do you work on tuning? And they they they kind of look at you like, you know, said, Well, you know, we tune like right before contest and we tune before football games. Said, so this isn't like an active process of like five minutes a day. It doesn't have to be a lot, just you know, just do this and work on it. Sometimes it's a matter of just showing them what they need to do. And if they're receptive to it, if they're coachable, then they'll they'll jump to it because a band that doesn't play in tune will never be successful. I don't care if it's UIL or grandma Susie in the corner of the stadium. Um, they're just gonna listen to it and go, that that don't sound good. That band just doesn't sound good. Um, so you've got to kind of get to the systemic problem of how do we make that tuning better? Okay. And being coachable is willing to admit that you're as a director that you're not sure and know that you need some help in developing the skill in terms of your ensemble ears in whatever particular instance. And in the middle of my career, that that was a that was a a level of maturity that I had to really work hard to get to. Where uh, you know, Dr. Wayne Dorothy would come in and work my band from Harden Simmons, and I would just kind of stop and go, Wayne, I I don't know what's wrong right here. And he'd go, Oh, I got it. And he would jump in and he would fix it. And it that sense of vulnerability to admit that in front of the clinician and in front of your ensemble goes a long way. And I wasn't making up a scenario. I really did not understand why we could not stay together in this portion of the music. What is happening? He said, Oh, it's part of it you're conducting, part of it's the listening on the outside of the band, part of it's this, this, this, this. And he worked the band for about 10 minutes and it was fixed. Now, if I'd have just said, I already told them to listen. Or I told them they're supposed to watch. You know, you know, so it different different things uh mean things to different people. So you've got to make sure that you you develop your ensemble ears, and we use our clinicians to help us develop those ensemble ears. The coolest part about clinicking, there's some groups I've worked with for upwards of almost two decades now, with the individual directors. And it's so cool to watch them as like a fourth year teacher, and now they've been teaching for 24 years. And just to uh, you know, I'll I'll just they'll be conducting, I'll just kind of wave to have them stop and they'll go, Oh, I know what you're doing. And they'll just they'll jump in and fix it before I say a word because they've already anticipated where they wouldn't have done that 20 years ago. 20 years ago, they'd have looked at me like a deer in headlights. Like, why did we stop?

SPEAKER_01 33:18

What do I do?

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah. So that that's the really cool part about being coachable is uh you will develop those ensemble ears and you will develop the fact that you'll start to anticipate where things will happen. And uh to give you an idea.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Can I ask you to tell a story? Can I ask you to tell a story real quick that I I think it's so perfect for what we're talking about today? You, like me, kind of save things, including all your uh critique sheets from your first several contests. And I think you told me one time that you pulled some of them back out after a contest where you weren't necessarily happy with results, and you started comparing sheet to sheet to sheet, and I'm saying that carefully. Yeah, for each year. And do you do you know where I'm going with that? Yeah, do you remember yeah?

SPEAKER_00 34:12

Old school analog uh research. I just pulled them out of every single sheet sheet had on there uh um upper woodwind tuning. And I realized that I was just almost oblivious to it. And then I'd pull up the old recordings in those days as real to real and cassettes and try to explain to a young person what a cassette is and why it's even named a cassette. Um I would listen to it, and I'd go, wow. Yeah, because I I'm a brass player, so I was just focused in on percussion and brass, and the clarinets could have been rabid and frothing at the frothing at the mouths, and I would have not have noticed what they were doing. And so it works. And I'll tell you another story on top of that one. I've got a good friend who's uh in a really good band program. I mean, state marching for decades. And they this last previous contest, um, heaven forbid they fell out of finals. You know, so they did prelims, they didn't make finals for the first time in like 20 years. And so this was a cool experiment with nowadays. He took all of the state marching critiques, listened to the recordings, wrote them all out, loaded them into chat GPT, and said, I need lesson plans for next fall on how to eliminate these problems. It gave him a 20-page, 20-page document that was exactly on point. Think about it, 20 pages. Yeah, and it it's it even said things like uh, now this is what happened here, this is what happened here. And Chat GPT even goes, it sort of pulls things from the internet, of course. You know, it doesn't really think, it just compiles data and said, please realize that these are not musical issues in this portion of our critique. These these are just uh these are just you just need to work harder at this. This requires no musical talent to be better at this. And then it would say in another one said, This will require uh uh development of our ensemble sound, which is a musical talent, you know. And but I mean it was letter perfect, Derek. I mean, it was like, you know, it's like I almost want to uh cheat and go, hey guys, you send me your recordings from from your critiques. And then I'll give you an analysis. I'll give you, I'll give you a really detailed analysis. Uh all it takes is for me to transcribe it into I you could probably just play it into chat chat GPT nowadays. You don't even have to type it out for them. But being a tabulator for one of our regions, I've got access to all the uh judges' critiques from every region contest within our region and every area contest within our region. And so I actually have access to all of those. So I could I could sit down one day and compile the most common mistakes in class 3A marching band at area marching. And how do we fix that, Chat GPT? So it kind of goes beyond me just looking through the sheets, but yes, find the things that were the in your weakness. What is your Achilles heel? You know, what is it? Is it I know directors that they'll get the contest and they won't even realize they're missing a tambourine in a triangle part in their concert piece after they worked on it for three months. And it's that director is me. I wasn't gonna rat you out there. Mr. Laney, or or do you want that tambourine part? I go, what tambourine part? What tambourine? Well, you know, you know, in the second movement of Longford where it has the tambourine part, it's a no one's ever been assigned that part. Well, I was expecting I'd have gone to contests, the judges would have just gone, why are there 14 percussions standing back there and five are playing and the other eight are just standing there and no one's playing the tambourine or the triangle? You know, I would have never even noticed that that's that's so you've got to find what is your weak spot and have the kids call you out on it, or staff members, or a clinician, or because if they don't, guess who's gonna call you out on it? It's when you go to contest or festival. You know, they're gonna they're gonna call you out on it, you know. They're gonna say, why aren't we doing this? Something as simple as I judged a band the other day that it was a vibe part, and for whatever reason, they never paid attention to it. So the kid was playing it on marimba. And it made no sense whatsoever because everything else was metallic and it was like this into the Arctic thing, and it was really a cool piece, but as I just thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk on the marimba, and I'm going, that's actually a vibe part. So that's why in your mind you're thinking, why did they not notice that? But we're all that way. We become right, we become earblind. It's like we heard it for three months, so it's like, I guess they played the right notes, you know, but it has it or they're using the wrong mallets or whatever. So it's it's a level of maturity that you've got to try to work and analyze and keep working on to make yourself a better ensemble person because um with our ensembles, we rightfully so get caught up with the right notes. And, you know, and so my point to make here is fact, make sure that your music is not so difficult that you're gonna take to a contest that all you do is chase notes to the bitter end. Because if you're chasing notes the day before contest, then it's not gonna be a good experience for anyone. The band's gonna hate you, you're gonna hate the band, you're gonna hate the judge, you're gonna hate life, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna fall into addiction. I don't know. You're you're you're gonna hate everything around you because all you did was chase notes, and that is a worthless pursuit. Find music that the kids can play through. I I like to say it this way. When we site read a new piece, there's the first trashing and there's the second trashing. The first trashing is the first time we read it. So I go, okay, guys, time for the first trashing. And we just play through it. If they can't play through it completely without stopping numerous times, if they stop numerous times, we're not doing that one at contest. If they can survive the battle, and then we go through and we explain, okay, here's where the problem was here, here's the problem was here. Mark this, please. Everybody get your pencil out, mark where you missed a note, you know, and then we say, okay, time for the second trashing. Second trashing, go. Then we do it. We play it again. At that point, I can tell right away if it's going to make it a contest or not by the first trashing and the second trashing. Um, it's not a matter of can I teach this in three months? It's a matter of can the band survive this in 10 minutes without just becoming totally unglued. You know, and if it's harder than that, you know, then you've got a big decision to make. Are you do you have an ensemble that you know can do that? Okay, can can they survive this? We stopped 15 times to get through the Gene Any Symphony number four finale, and it's a tough piece. It's a grade five piece of music. Do I have the kids that can pull this off? More importantly, do I have the musical intelligence that I can pull it off? Do I understand this piece well enough? You know, so you've got to sit down after band and go, is this marching show actually going to work?

unknown 41:14

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

And I want to I'm not sure that thought's not worth the price of the entire podcast today. That's such a great and that's a coachable moment right there. Yeah. Because I'd argue that if all you're doing is chasing notes and you're trying to force kids into something that they're not ready for on their journey, you're not creating any musicians out of it. Yeah. You're creating frustrated students.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Yeah, I mean, if you wear a size 10 and a half tennis shoe and you're forcing that kid to wear a size eight tennis shoe for three months, no one's gonna be happy.

unknown 41:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

No one's gonna be happy. Okay. And it's uh a situation where, you know, and going to like marching season, because we're gonna do a podcast here in a bit about uh show design stuff. You know, if if a band cannot play through the marching show in the spring with any sort of semblance of they understand the structure and they don't have to stop 500 times to do it, then that show's too hard. You know, they've got to be able to play through it. And uh I'll go as far as to say this for my 1A, 2A, 3, 8, 4A friends for the most part, because I've lived this life. If you think you're gonna teach something during marching season, you're misled. Right. There's not time to teach great musical structure and ideas. They've got to understand the music in front of them because you've got to teach body movement. And I right or wrong, marching arts, we can do that old argument with uh, you know, with uh the old, the old souls, you know, about how it's not marching band anymore. Um, but you know, it's uh they've got to be able to understand the music to a level to which you can actually make a show out of it and you can teach all the things that have to happen, including who's gonna eat cheeseburgers, who's gonna eat hamburgers, um, do we all have black socks? Does everyone have their gloves? Does everyone have gauntlets? Do you do your valves work? Um, is is it raining today? Is it too hot? Is it too cold? Is it a sleep storm outside? You know, there's so many other things that just force their way into our life in marching season that if you think you're gonna have time to teach something brand new, that you're gonna extend the range of your trumpets by playing a harder show so they can play higher notes at the end of the season, you're an idiot because you're not. If your first trumpets can play to an F on the top of the staff, that's fine. Don't as far as we need to go. That's as far as we need to go. Um, don't push them past the point of what they can do comfortably because there's too much other stuff to do. So, and that's the main critique I would have as far as being coachable is be smart enough that when the clinician comes out, that the kids are well enough fundamentally. That they can understand what's happening around them. Otherwise, just chasing notes.

SPEAKER_01 44:05

For clarity, I would say we're not advocating for dumbing down everything all the time so nobody ever grows. Right. But the growth needs to be realistic. And here we go, Mike, part of a process.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Part of the process. Atomic habits, man. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

This for this next round. My kids were able to handle that. What can I add that's not too much, but but grows us as an ensemble.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

That's right. And I went to a clinic one time and it was a very well-respected director at a 6A program, and they were the state honor band. And his his uh I guess his offering in the clinic was uh what you have to do is you've got to find who's your weakest section in your concert band and then choose music to make them better. And I'm sitting there, I'm my butt is clinching. So I'm thinking, how many 18283A directors are sitting in this clinic right now that don't have five concert bands at their school? That their top six trumpets, four of them are all area trumpet players and one's in the Allstate Symphony. You know, so your weakest section might be the trombones. So sure, let's let's play something that uh strengths our trombones. But you know what? In the 18283A world, which is a lot of bands, um, you'd better not do that. Our job is to hide our weakest section by all means necessary. Rewrite the show, whatever you need to do, hide the weakest section, try to get them to be better, but we are not gonna showcase our trombones if they're the weakest section in the band. We're not gonna have a big trombone feature in the middle of part.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Trombone king. Here we go.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah, yeah. So something to think about out there. Whatever your weakest section is, yes, work fundamentally to make them better, but don't showcase them. You know, um, I've I used this expression before: if you're in a beauty contest and have no teeth, don't smile. Don't smile. Use the other assets that God gave you to garner points in the beauty contest. And bands the same way. If you have terrible trombones, don't throw your trombones on the 50-yard line and have them play some kind of amazing uh feature. If they're a great trombone section, yeah, if you've got a beautiful smile in a beauty contest, smile big. Smile big, you know, because it's that's that's one of your greatest attributes in the beauty contest.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

I would love to see Mr. Lunny in a clinic. Trombones, don't smile.

unknown 46:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Oh, there's times that we need to uh I'll I'll kind of cover the my microphone to go, we need to cover that up. The tuning of the flutes is horrendous in that woodwind ensemble. How about we just don't have flutes play right there for four measures? You know, no judge is gonna go, how come the flutes aren't playing? You know, where'd they go? Yeah. So sometimes it's a matter of, you know, discretion is the better part of valor, you know. It's okay to tell kids it just don't do that. I think a big one, if you've got a big band, you know, I'm kind of going on tangents, but these things will help in marching season. The biggest advice I ever got was from Mr. Anthony Gibson, because he's the king of big bands. I mean, you know, Allen Bane, like 700 kids. And he was up there trying to help work my uh Wiley band. And we had like 160 kids on the field, and we were the tempo was tearing. And he he just kind of covered up his microphone and he goes, Mike, just tell every kid outside the 45, don't play right there. I go, What? So anyone outside the 45s, just tell them don't play for those four measures. Okay. And it was fixed. And it didn't sound any different because all the power was coming from the middle of the field. It was the ones on the outskirts that were causing the problem. I had never thought about that before. It was always, we got to watch. Now you got to anticipate the beat. Now, drum majors do this. He just said, just tell them don't play. Think about that. And I was very coachable, especially when I did what he said, because I respect the man. But as soon as I heard the results, I was very coachable. It was like, what else, Anthony? Fix me, fix me, fix me. Because he is the king of uh of working a big band on a field because his band at Allen would go from the goal line to the goal line, front sideline to the back sideline, and always sounded amazing, you know. So be coachable because you'll see you'll hear the results really quick. You'll hear them really quick. Okay. Um, be willing to ask for help and seek solutions. Like it could have been, I could have easily turned that on Anthony and turned around and said, Man, I don't know what to do, Anthony, instead of him having to stop me. You know, I could have just gone, this this hasn't worked all year. What do I do, man? You know, be willing to admit that there's a problem. We don't have to fix everything. In fact, I'll throw myself to the caution here. I learned a long time ago that Mike Lunny is not mechanically inclined. If the dryer doesn't work, if the dryer doesn't work, there's many a time in my younger years that I tried to fix the dryer. And then it cost me an extra 200 for the repairman to fix what I already screwed up, plus what was originally wrong with the dryer. So I know people see it as spoiled, but you mean I I'm lucky if I change a light bulb without calling an electrician. You know what I mean? Because there's something I'm gonna do wrong in it. So I'm just better off just saying, just come charge me money and fix this. Make this, make the refrigerator go buzz, buzz, buzz and make things cold. So that I have no concept at all. My car, oh my gosh, I'm an idiot. Uh um, I don't, you know, I've got a Nissan Rogue that's a 2021. Do you realize that, Derek? I've never raised the hood except for one time when the battery died to hook the charger up to it. That is the only time that hood's. I didn't, I opened up and oh, that's what it looks like under here. Oh my gosh. There is an engine. So every 4,000 miles, I do what I'm supposed to do. I take it in and get charged out the wazoo at the dealership. Now people go, now he's really no, I don't want to be coachable by Lenny, he's an idiot. But yeah, I just go and say, just do the maintenance. And they go, okay, here's the price. Oh, yeah, that's good. That's good. Yeah, whatever, whatever. Just do the maintenance. And sometimes we have to be.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

The fact that you do the maintenance keeps you from having to raise that hood. That's the reason you haven't raised that.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

That's my point. That's my point. I'm getting to is that with a clinician, they're the maintenance. You know, don't argue with the main, I don't argue with the Nissan repairman. I don't go in there and go, I don't think you're right on this. I don't think we need to rotate the tires yet. I think I've got enough tread to make it. No, you don't argue with the maintenance people. If you know what's wrong with your car, that's something different. My brother was an amazing mechanic and he could fix anything. Mike Lenny, not so much. Okay. Jeff could do it. Mike couldn't do it. So trust your clinician because I always tell them this when I go in. I tell the band, I'm going to change things. Just go with me. Tomorrow, your band director might change it back, and that's perfectly fine. I'm not thick skinned. It doesn't bother me in the least. There's a thousand ways to do this. And so the kids are more uh coachable in that manner. They they know that we're not changing things forever. And then sometimes the director will chime in and go, Yeah, I like that. Or sometimes they they'll be honest, go, I don't know, Mike. I don't know if I like that. Okay, let's change it back to the way it was. He or she's the boss. They're gonna do that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Yeah, but what a race of resources, my friend, to pay for a clinician to come in for Attaboys. You don't need to pay somebody to come tell you, oh, good job, you're working hard. You need somebody to come in and say, Hey, good job, you're working hard, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

And I think my favorite clinic to ever do, and I won't throw this person under the bus and I won't tell what school, but there's a school that I would go to every single year, two weeks before marching contest. I'd get up in the stands and we'd start the rehearsal. And the director would go, uh, just a second, Mike, let me fix this real quick. And I knew it was coming. And I'd go, Okay. And I'd sit down in the bleachers and he would spend the next three hours working the band. Then he'd hand me a check for$300. It was only 10 miles to get to his band hall. He'd give me a check for$300. Any closing words you want to tell the kids? Sure. So I'd give him a little pep talk and say, Man, y'all worked really hard today. I appreciate your efforts. Uh, you know, your director's doing a really good job with you. Thank you for your time tonight. And I would go home after teaching for 30 seconds and receiving$300. All I had to do was sit there and watch. And it was a good director, by the way. And I could watch this director work their band. I actually learned some stuff, you know. So uh talk about not being coachable, you know. They basically just pushed me over to the side. It was like, didn't ask me one question. At the end, there was never a talk before the rehearsal nor after the rehearsal. Um, it was just like a I don't know, it was it was kind of awkward in a way, but man, that was the best$300 I ever earned. Once you are easy money, man, just show up and sit down in the bleachers and let the director do. Almost said their name. Oh that's a dangerous moment there. Yeah. But you know, um, yes, but you know, a lot of things we do, we learn from experience. Are we learn from those clinicians, and we can kind of use that as transfer learning to use it for other things. We click save in our brain. You know, we hear something that was something that worked really well in our brain. We write it down somewhere, realizing and remembering the solution to the performance problem is 100% gold. Uh, Brian Owens, do you know Brian Owens?

SPEAKER_01 53:29

I do not.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Janet Wilson's daddy. He was he taught at Brady with uh Mike Devonport and Butch Crudgington and that crew. But I was watching him work a band, and this is such a simple hack that it's it's uh I use it to this day and I give him credit for it, but it's the the balance wheel. Have you ever heard this concept? The balance wheel. And I just hold my hands up. Now, if you have the YouTube one, you know, you're watching it, you can see my hands are in front of my body like in fist, like I'm holding a big giant steering wheel. And I just tell the band, I use them like a mixing board. I go, if I go this direction, I want to hear a lot more low voices, bigger horns, and a lot less of the little tiny horns. If I go the other way, I want less of the big horns and more of the little bitty horns. And then I can, most bands, you can find that spot where your hands lock in and say, that's the balance right there. That's the balance wheel. So instead of going tubas do this, two euphoniums do this, trunk, I just go balance wheel. And I explain it to them. And once you do that, the next time you come out, you go balance wheel. And they go, Oh, and I grab the steering wheel, I do it. Simple band hack that I learned from Brian Owens, and he's still doing miracles down at Ballinger because his daughter's still the band director there, and he's doing his thing, you know what I mean? He he's uh he's had battles with like Parkinson's and uh different neuromuscular things, but man, he's still 100% on track on that, you know. But uh be coachable, and I I want to kind of not necessarily close it with this, but just to say we all want our kids to be coachable, correct? So be coachable.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

What are you modeling?

SPEAKER_00 55:06

Yeah, yeah, what are you modeling? Um, we need to be coachable. Use all the comments from adjudicators, clinicians, colleagues, students. Isn't it cool in a band to ask them a question? And then they look at you like you know, in a clinic, they look at you like no one's ever asked us before. You know, hey, that that Rallentondo doesn't work really well. Why? And then they they they think no, that that wasn't a rhetorical question. I need someone there's money.

SPEAKER_01 55:34

I'm waiting for an answer.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

I'm waiting for an answer. This is not a preacher. I'm not asking a rhetorical question to prove a point in my sermon. I want you to actively now listen to it again. And then sometimes a really smart kid will figure it out really quickly. You know, either we're not following, or there's a real simple rule in a ralentondo with an autempo. This is another band hack. This would be worth the price of admission. When you slow down, two, three, four, Tay. The subdivision at the very end should be the unit of uh beat on the autempo. Our mind hears it that way, and our body feels it that way, but band directors fight it. So I'm going like one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, tay, one, two, three, four. Doesn't it feel comfortable instead of three, four, t, one, two, three, four, one? That doesn't feel comfortable. So sometimes a kid will say, Well, we're not slowing down enough to make it match what you're doing in the next measure. Ah, you need to be a band director. Because you figure that out just by sitting in the band, you know. So, and I always tell them jokingly, said, You know, it doesn't take a lot of intelligence to be a band director, it just takes making a lot of mistakes. Right. And you'll be a band director.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

I agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

Can I say something like that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

It's maybe this is for our younger people, maybe this is for people who just have been telling themselves their whole career. I don't believe that as much as you try to hide your ignorance, and I think that's what we do, we don't want people to think that we're ignorant, and ignorant just means we don't know, right?

SPEAKER_00 57:19

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

As much as we try to hide that, I don't think there's ever been a group of students that thought, man, my director knows everything.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Yeah, you could lump that in the case. Even if we try to pull that ads know everything.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

I'm just telling you that it's okay to not know something, and it's exactly what you said. And I think they respect more if you're showing yourself to be coachable just like you did. I I've been banging at this thing for three weeks. How do I fix that? Yeah, and whether you're doing that, you know, back to our original premise, if you're as you're reading that uh critique sheet or whatever they call them to be pleasant for everyone now, if you're reading that comment sheet and all three of them say the same thing, that's a chance to go, okay, yeah, I gotta find somebody that can help me with this. Yeah. Because and it's okay, your kids, because you you know, they're gonna read them if you post them.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

And then they say, Oh, but we're working on that to make that better. I even if they don't consciously have that thought, kids aren't stupid. We've said that numerous times. They're smart. Quit turn and pretend like you're smarter.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

And Derek, I mean, if if you make it in an environment where kids are not afraid to make mistakes, it makes it where you're not afraid to make a mistake. Because one of the most interesting questions I get answered is when I go, what can I do? In a concert band situation, especially, what can I do right here to make it easier for you to get through this section and play better?

SPEAKER_01 58:54

And they'll if What am I not giving you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

Yeah. And they'll tell you, say, but well, we just don't understand what you're doing direct conducting wise. Well, we're confused. It's like, oh in my mind, I thought it was really clear. And it said, Well, what's confusing? So, well, you know, we this, this, or this. And the kids will be really honest, and what a great environment. You know, a kid's not afraid to make a mistake, I'm not afraid to make a mistake, and we with respect call each other out on our mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 59:23

I think John Maxwell calls that freedom to fail.

SPEAKER_00 59:25

Yeah, freedom to fail. And what a life lesson, you know, that's uh because we all know directors out there who've never said the words I'm sorry in their life. You don't understand. That's true.

unknown 59:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:37

They've never been sorry about anything. It's always if the kids were just better, if they would never their fault. If they would just practice more. Oh, there's another tangent. If the kids just practice more, and I always go, have you taught them how to practice? What? Right. No, no, you you need to do a whole lesson plan on that. On this is how we actually practice at home. Now, will all the kids go home and practice? No, but maybe five will.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

Yeah, but it's the same thing as our leadership conversation. What do you expect out of your leaders? How do you teach them to lead? Yeah, you got to kind of tell them what to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

Yeah, you got to teach them, you can't just go go practice. That's like uh I don't know, it's like telling me to go wash an elephant. I know what end do I start on? I don't know. I've got a job at the zoo, go wash the elephant. Uh, what do I do? You got to teach me how to wash the elephant, you know. So it's it's you've got to teach them how to do what you want them to do. Uh, but you know, kind of to the point of the podcast, though, you know, I kind of chase some tangents, but that's okay. Um, you've got to be coachable. You you want your kids to be coachable. You've got to be vulnerable in receiving criticism. Sometimes it really hurts. Sometimes it's uh it's very revolutionary where it's like, oh my gosh, I am doing that wrong. Sometimes it's a very positive feeling of uh, oh man, I've been doing that wrong. Now I know how to do it right. Sometimes it just it just hurts. And I'm sorry that it hurts, but we've all been there. Sometimes you just gotta bite your tongue and just go, that hurts, but you know, I think they're right. Or if they're not right, wait for the clinician to leave and then change it back. It's fine. It's your band.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

But the truth is gonna come out.

unknown 1:01:18

I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

I always told myself if he told you to do something or she told you to do something, and then it's on the critique sheet.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:26

Yeah. I always tell my student teacher said, do not try to fool these students into you them thinking you know everything, because they will sniff through that in 20 seconds. Challenge accepted. If you don't know something, just stop and go, I'm not sure. I'm gonna figure this out by tomorrow's rehearsal. If y'all have any ideas for me, please help me. So that's a much better approach than uh I am the student teacher and you are just not listening and doing things the way I said to do them. Right. There's more to life than that. Man, we just solved all the world's problems just in one podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:08

Well, you're saying that facetiously, but but if world leaders would be if we could just all learn to not be offended when somebody offers A an opinion or B something, they may be trying to really help you. Yeah, I don't think there's a lot of people maliciously going around saying, watch this. Hey, I will tell him all the wrong things.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

I will say this, Derek, though, for all my older friends out there that uh have all kinds of advice for people. Never offer advice unless you've been asked for advice.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

I call that the rule of Charles Nail, based on what you have told me.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:46

I just bumped into him over in Midland the other day. He was he was kind of in the office, and I mentioned that to him. I said, Man, you you changed my life, and then not not just from the critique that you gave me, but the fact that I saw a gentleman who uh waited because he had all the answers at that moment, but he waited for me to go, Mr. Nail, what do I need to do between prelims and finals? And he told me so glad you asked me. Yeah, yeah, because I'm so glad you asked me. Translation. Mike, you're an idiot. You're about to screw up my grandson's band.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

So if anybody needs to be coachable, ask Mike. Yeah, that's right. I know that you don't mind saying, hey, I've got great uh some thoughts on that because I've been there.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

So yeah, yeah, it's it's a lot of fun. I like being rude to people. No, no, that's not what the whole thing was about. Never mind. Never mind. Oh, that's a terrible way to end this. I'm just joking. I got jokes. Yeah, I've got jokes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:47

Amen. Have a great week. Go coach them up.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

I will, I will. See you later, Derek.