Ask Mike | Lessons for Music Educators
Ask Mike is the go‑to podcast for music educators, band directors, and music program leaders seeking real answers rooted in real‑world experience. Hosted by veteran Texas Band Director Mike Lunney and co‑host Derrick Killam, a long-time leader in supporting Texas Music Education programs, the show focuses on learning from hard‑earned lessons, so you don’t make the same mistakes yourself.
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About the Hosts
Mike Lunney
With 31 successful years as a head band director in Texas, Mike’s bands were consistently recognized as superior, and his insights come straight from the podium, not a textbook. Today, Mike remains active as a clinician, mentor, and adjudicator, continuing to shape the next generation of music educators.
Derrick Killam
A lifelong supporter of school music programs across Texas since 1990. Derrick brings a unique industry perspective from decades in music retail, having served as a Repair Tech, Repair Shop Foreman, Education Specialist, and now as a key member of Tarpley Music, a NAMM Top 100 Dealer and industry leading Musical Instrument Retailer in the United States.
Ask Mike | Lessons for Music Educators
Marching: Setting Your Program Up For Success!
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Here we are, looking at a new marching season ahead through fresh eyes! The canvas is blank and opportunity awaits. Mike Lunney has set up a series of episodes to help you set your program up to take advantage of the opportunities that are waiting for you. We discuss things like setting the standard and encouraging the students to make the conscious decisions up front to be successful. And Mike incorporates helpful tips for you, the directors, to lead into this successful season by example!
Mike, it's my favorite season, brother. How are you today, by the way?
SPEAKER_00You looking great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Look at trying to get that college professor look going.
SPEAKER_02If you're not on YouTube, you need to check him out today. Look at Sharp. You know when employees show up looking like that, I'm like, got a job interview somewhere? Yeah, you know, it's unfortunate. Why do you look so out of character today? But no, you always look good and you look great today. And listen, this is somewhat facetious, but it's my favorite season, the season where music educators do nothing.
SPEAKER_00Yes, for for like three days. Yes.
SPEAKER_02At least we hope they take three days.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we hope they do. We certainly hope they do. I was I always took all of June. I don't know if I could pull that off in today's environment, but you know, once I got back from State Solon Ensemble Contest, um, I didn't do anything uh with the students or anything major until after the 4th of July.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's listen, no judgment on anybody. I think that sounds healthy. Uh if you could do it, great. Yeah. And by the way, I heard a new term. Uh I've been I went to State Solon Ensemble Contest in the 80s. Yeah. Early, like 1980. Uh, but I heard it for the first time I heard somebody call it T sick. I've never, yeah. I've never heard it called that before, but yeah, it makes it sound cooler, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we always put T S S C C, you know, we did it the hard way. It's like a WWW, you know, it's uh it's it's easier to it's hard to say. That's more syllables than just saying the internet, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, even my alma mater, WTSU, when I went to school, West Texas State University. Now it's W T A West Texas A and M. Yeah. Which kills my longhorn soul, but it is what it is. And but you know, we used to say WTSU, and that kind of rolled right off, especially in the fight song. W T S U. You can't really do that with A and M U.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't work. What amount?
SPEAKER_00But props to those guys up there for being able to keep WT in the name because so many schools weren't able to do that. You know, it'd be like instead of East Texas State for a while, it was, you know, Texas AM and Commerce.
SPEAKER_02Commerce, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, so uh uh give them props for that. That was awesome. In my mind.
SPEAKER_02And even the you know, the decal on my truck says WT, it doesn't have all the rest of that on there.
SPEAKER_00But that's right.
SPEAKER_02Neither here nor there. My one of the things I find interesting though, uh weird tangent as we are ready to send our seniors off to college. I do worry sometimes that it's a sign of the big business that higher education has become that everybody wants to brand their system. I think that's kind of what uh, you know, we have a UT school in Odessa, Texas, Utpub is what I call it. UTPB. Eric Baker, our friend, doing fantastic work there. Dr. Ivan, uh director of bands doing fantastic stuff. But it's gotten to the point that you can't get into the main campus anymore in most of the larger universities until you spend a few years at one of their satellites or their uh system universities, then you get in for your junior, senior. Crazy, isn't it? Um has nothing to do with where I was going today. No, not at all, but still interesting nonetheless. Um but but we were talking about taking time off. And listen, uh, we've already had a couple episodes recently where we've discussed the fact that if you're not already started on marching, you and I'm not saying heavily involved every day, blah, blah, blah, but if you haven't already started getting ready for marching season, you are probably uh gonna play makeup here pretty quick. Yes, no?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, no doubt, no doubt. You you've got to have things moving, things moving, and uh an idea of how you're going to uh how you're gonna teach for the next semester.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00So that's kind of what today's is about.
SPEAKER_02Well, let me ask you before we dive completely into that, I want to ask you, Mike, is there I don't I don't say this in a police mentality. I'm just saying what are the rules about marching stuff? Now you can do whatever you want to to get ready for it, you just can't actually rehearse a show. Have they changed that? What w where are we in the world in Texas at least, as far as what we can do?
SPEAKER_00Um, what we can do and what's legally allowed to do might be two different things, you know. So you know.
SPEAKER_02Should we just move on?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it would be probably better just to move on.
SPEAKER_02I am ready to move on then.
SPEAKER_00Before I get some of my friends in trouble. But no, to answer your question, you can uh the the main thing is that you can't work on drill um until like August 1st. Okay, that's the general rule, but you can work on any sort of music or and you can do like up to 10 hours of fundamentals, and it might be a more than that now, but I think they've changed that. And also there's little loopholes, like if you're doing a 4th of July parade or a rodeo parade, you're allowed to have a few more hours, and that makes sense, you know, to kind of get those little freshmen knowing what they're doing so they can march in the parade. Um, so there's it's pretty not really complicated, but there's parts to it. There's parts to it. So every different, so it's it's hard to say this is the rule, you know.
SPEAKER_02Right. It doesn't mean that as a teacher, as an educator, we can't get started on stuff. It just means that we can't have the kids on the field setting pickpoints. Um that's probably an outdated term.
SPEAKER_00But yeah, you're sounding really old when you say that. Learning their dots.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Putting their program in front of them on a phone.
SPEAKER_00I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Back in the day we used to unfold that big old piece of paper at the directors at the big junk.
SPEAKER_02And the wind was blowing it on the tower.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's those days are gone now. I use my iPad and I can flip back and forth between music and drill. It's it's a wonderful world out there.
SPEAKER_02Let's kind of key this thing in, though, because what I'm trying to do is figure out what kind of a thought process do we have. And and listen, not the term is what it is. How do we help our group win, for lack of a better term? How do we make a successful marching season? Or what are the starting points? What teach us?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh, you know, the whole idea of this podcast uh is how to win at marching band. And you can take that title however you want to out there. It can be winning is not necessarily making a first division, winning's not necessarily getting uh finals in area, whatever. You know, it can be just the fact that into the season you go, man, we really accomplished something really awesome.
SPEAKER_02We won our goals. We did what we wanted to, right.
SPEAKER_00So the first thing I want to talk about is, you know, as a director, if you have a staff, if you're lucky enough to have a staff, you need to work with your staff on this. Um, if you don't have a staff, maybe get some of your student leaders or or just sit in a closet all by yourself and figure it out. But uh define the standard. Write down what excellent looks like for your band. What do you think? Make it measurable and repeatable. We want to avoid uh not that we can't have vague goals, but try to avoid vague goals like we want to work hard, we want to give effort. Be specific. Verbal responses always. That might be a good goal. Verbal responses always. So the band always does strong duts from everyone before every rep or every equipment's, you know, equipment's stacked on the sideline, things are lined up correctly. You know, you can have just little tiny details. All the water jugs have a certain place they're supposed to be, and uh, you know, this is where we put our trumpets, and this is where your flute goes when we're taking a break. Um, so all those little tiny things can be goals for the band because how we do one thing is how we do all things. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Great point.
SPEAKER_00You know, so it's uh, you know, I can usually tell. Um don't I'm not gonna throw anyone under the bus on this, I promise, but I can usually tell in the first 10 or 15 minutes of a marching rehearsal if I'm out there to clinic, um, how clean the band's gonna be by just watching how they go from the band hall to the field, um, what they do with their equipment, um, how they operate when they go across the front sideline. Is it quiet? Is it just like a rolling party? And I'm not saying any of those are wrong. I'm really not, because I know some really fine bands that are uh, for lack of a better term, are pretty loosely run in that gambit, um, but they're really good marching bands. But if you really want to kind of hone down on what your band can do and establish a standard of excellence for your band, it's generally easier to have set guidelines and parameters for them to follow. And, you know, you can't, in today's world, you can't force a student to do anything. They're too smart for that.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00In my time, you they could force us. I mean, we had no choice. It was like, this is what you're doing. Okay. You know, we didn't, I think we just weren't smart enough to know that we didn't have to do that, you know. But we have to convince them to somehow have the same vision that we have for what the program is, and they have to have total buy-in to it. So that kind of goes back to that cultural thing. But that is step one is you've got to define the standard. What is the standard when anyone on the field is giving instruction? What do the students do? Are they at the ready, at feet at second position, horn in front of their body, horn at trail? Is their nose pointed at the person who's giving direction? Um, you know, it's a it's it's a lot more or needs to be a lot more precise than just shut up and listen. You know what I mean? You know, and that's how we kind of grew up, wasn't it? Yeah, shut up and listen. Okay, yes, sir.
SPEAKER_02Yes, sir. I'll tell you what your opinion is. Be quiet.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Well, you we wanted to have an opinion, we've issued it with your band hat, you know. So that's kind of how we grew up, but now it's it's it's a lot different, but it it's a lot better. It's a lot better. The kids are really working into it.
SPEAKER_02Would you push back on me if I said you need to be on task? It doesn't necessarily have to look the same for every group, but you have to be on task. You could, and more to your point, you can tell when they're there with purpose as opposed to there for social time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you can, and even that, you can tell, you need to be able to tell what their routine is. You know, there should be no, it's even kind of like when you judge a marching band, you need to know within the first 15 seconds that they move on the field, what is their style? What do they do with their feet? Is it a modified straight leg? Is it a straight leg? Do they bend their knees backwards marching? Is the toe a full toe flex? Is the toe just one inch off the ground? You need to be able to tell that immediately when a band moves on the field. And that's one of those keys that we'll get to in this series that we have to kind of hone in on. Um, but you know, when I watch them, their routine has to be um has to be set in stone. You know, this this they just need to know this is what we do every single day.
SPEAKER_02This is who we are. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this is what we do, this is how we do it. Okay. Um, the next one would be you start every single rehearsal block with a goal. Every single rep must have a purpose. It's as if it's your warm-up block, let's just use that for an example. You're playing music, warm-up block, uh, in you know, also with uh body movement, because I like to do it where they do their warmups with music, with body movement that will be in the show for that year. Um, so every rep that you do must have a purpose. Nothing's a throwaway. I tell them it's not a throwaway pancake. It's like when you make pancakes on a Saturday morning and the first pancake goes to the dog because it always looks ugly in his house. It's brown. It's too dark. You kind of you throw it over to the dog and the dog eats it, and then the other pancakes on the grill, you know, the grill's funny, it up and you got it. So none of our reps are gonna be the throwaway pancake. You know, we we've got to, and is that always gonna happen? No, there's gonna be some throwaways. But our goal is to not have a goal, right? Yeah. And members should always know exactly what the goal is before they begin. What a concept! How many times do we teach as a as in any activity, even teaching employees at a music store how we're gonna do our horn rentals, that we just assume they know things when they're helping us do things, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, they don't know how to do that. Oh, I I never told them what our goal was for today. You know, so our goal might simply be to do a plie with our back straight and to make sure we have a solid sound in our concert F so there's no wiggle to the sound. It might be that simple. It doesn't have to be this grandiose we are looking for perfection. Because when I say that, do you see how vague that is?
SPEAKER_02Sure. And you never know if you accomplish it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we we need to work harder. We need a better band culture, we need the kids to work together. We do those are all fine ideas, but you know, let's let's put that in the category of just BS that we say to make it sound like we know what we're talking about. Right.
SPEAKER_02And speaking of, it seems to me one of the teaching things I've heard is uh good teaching is you tell them what you're gonna teach them, then you teach them, then you tell them what you taught them. Yeah, you reinforce that goal, you reinforce that point before you actually do it, as you do it, and then after you do it. Now, here's what we learned. We have to repeat this every time. Yes, no?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're absolutely correct. You know, and don't allow any reps without intent. That if you don't have any intention to what you're doing as you're repping your warm-up stuff, um, that's how you train a band to fail. Oh, wow. If there's no intent to it, then they learn real quickly that if I just kind of pardon the language, if I kind of half-ass it on my Remington, that's good enough. Mr. Lenny's fine with that. So then it comes time for Friday night, and they're gonna half-ass it again. Then if you do it Friday night after Friday night, then guess what's gonna happen at contest? You know, because you're the one who sets the standard. Anything- Here's the point.
SPEAKER_02If they think that you are okay with it, then you're apparently okay with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so anything that happens either good or bad within your program is your fault. It is absolutely your fault as a band director. And if you're not willing to take the blame or the credit, then you need to get out of the business because it's you you are at fault. You're it's your fault they do well, it's your fault they do poorly. So you've got to set that so every single rep has to have intention. Now, that's easy. Again, that's kind of a vague kind of thing, but here's what you do. If they do a rep on something uh in the warm-up block and you don't like it, you stop and you tell them that was bad. That was not correct. Here's what you're gonna do to correct it. Do it again. I need more effort from you. You need to do this better. That's not good enough. That's not good enough. And I always tell them, said, We're humans, we're not looking for perfection, but Lord help us, can't we at least improve? Let's at least improve, okay? And kind of going in that same idea on uh my third point is win the first rep, the first rep sets the tone. Okay. You know, the I guess a lot of times we'll give, uh I'll see, and I've I'm guilty of this too. So I'm not trying to, you know, set myself up on a pedestal or something because I'm definitely the reason I know these things because I've screwed them all up. Okay. Um, so you know, the first rep, sometimes we do it as uh like the first trashing of the rep. So we just say, okay, guys, we're gonna do this to this, and I need you to make sure your horn position is correct. Go. And half the band is like, where are we at? What are we doing? Are we playing? Are we not playing? Are we just marching? Uh horns to the box here. I don't know what's going on. You know, so you kind of fuddle through it, and kids are bumping into each other, and then you get mad at them, and then you tell them to get back to their spot. And then if you think about it, it wasn't their fault. It was your fault. Um, there's a certain golden uh philosophy of silence. If I stop right now, everyone who was listening to the podcast, that little tiny break in silence, leaned in. They all listened. They all listened. Like something just happened. I learned that quality from my grandfather on my mother's side. He was one of those old farmer guys that ran a uh a cotton mill and uh peeled apples with his pocket knife. And he, I maybe heard him say maybe 15 sentences in his lifetime, but those 15 sentences were golden. Everything else, you just kind of look at you and like, hmm. There's that silence that was in there. And it made you think about what you were doing. So don't start until they're ready. I don't know how many times I've said that to band directors, and I've had staff members say that to me. Uh, Mike, this would work better if you'd wait till they're ready before you start. You know, wait 15 seconds, make it painful, you know. You know, just uh wait for that. So you want the first rep to set the tone. They've got to execute it like it's finals. Uh we will, and I think it's sometimes people think it's just verbiage. But I like to tell directors, we will perform this chunk. Don't say we're gonna rep this part to the band. That's something we leave in the back of our mind. We know it's a repetition, um, but we say, we're gonna perform set 14 to set 15. We're gonna perform measure 32 to measure 48. We are going to perform a plie, and then we're gonna go into whatever, you know. So you kind of set that standard in their head that everything they're doing is actually a performance. It might not be a great performance at that point, but everything's a performance. Um, the the band's brain and emotional state, they see safety and trust through repeated low stress moments. They do not feel safe with intensity and trying to be perfect. I think that's an interesting concept because some directors think if I just get intense enough and if I just not angry, I'm not talking about yelling at kids, but you know, directors sometimes get all worked up and they're like, you know, we're intense, we work hard, we work hard, we're we're doing this, we're we're gonna be perfect. That's not how a band's uh brain works. And I'm talking real generalistic, but a band's brain works not through intensity, but through repetition, not through perfection, but through consistency. So you do it all the time. And I can remember giving the speech like at state prelims and even one time at a couple of times at state finals when I had that privilege. Um, I would I never told them to leave it all on the field. Think about that. So I want 80% of your best run through tonight. I want you in absolute control of what you're doing on the field because you would never tell a punter to kick it as hard as you can, would you? You would never tell a quarterback, throw that ball as hard as you can and as far as you can every single play. You would never do that. You tell them to do it with control. You'd never tell a baseball pitcher, throw that ball as fast as you can every single pitch. Why do we do that to our band kids? What's this BS about? Leave it all on the field. Now, if you want to define that as uh give it your best approach, uh, be in control of everything you're doing, be an ultimate musician, um, practice things the way we are performed, the way we've practiced, I would agree with you. But I think sometimes they say it in terms of an athletic venue of like a football lineman, leave it all out on the field, never leave it all out on the field. We better haul that off the field in our back pocket and keep it with us. We don't want to leave anything on the field. Okay, so the goal is to, and I learned that lesson through uh um uh a little bit of a name drop here, but Wayne Bergeron, amazing trumpet players. He's played on Lord of the Rings, he's played on The Incredibles, an amazing jazz guy, the big fat band lead trumpet player. We had the great fortune, my assistant hired him to come from LA to work with our jazz band for four days. And he was like screaming double C's on trumpet. And I asked him during lunch, I go, uh, man, Wayne, so that's just absolutely amazing. So are you like just giving it everything? He goes, Oh Lord, no. So I'm operating at about 60%. And it when I perform, it's about 80%. So I only give 100% every once in a while in my practice room. Think about that a second, because he goes, I want to be in ultimate control. I don't want to frack that note. You know, if I give 100% every time, I'm gonna wear out. I'm not gonna be in control of what I'm doing. So I know that's a studio player versus a high school marching band, but I think the philosophy is kind of the same, don't you? Sure.
SPEAKER_02It makes sense. It translates. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Don't don't give us a hundred percent of energy. Uh, give us a hundred percent of control. It's not intensity, it's consistency and control. Okay. Um, if you can in your program, and you can do this, eliminate guessing. That seems real obvious, you know. Eliminate guessing. Instructions must be clear. Allow them to ask questions. And boy, that is frustrating sometimes because sometimes that little freshman who's like 14th chair on trumpet, if you've got a big enough band, you're like, oh Lord, here comes that. Here comes Jeff's question.
SPEAKER_02Here we go.
SPEAKER_00Hand pops in the air. Sometimes it's like, okay, anybody any questions? Well, except for Jeff. Jeff, put your hand down. Say, ignore that hand. Yeah. Any questions? Trombones, put your hands down. You know, I do it kind of facetiously, but then I'll go, okay, trombones, what's the question? You know. Um, and I know it seems like we're wasting time when we do that, but you know what? It creates an emotional state for the band to where they feel like they have control of what's going on in a good way, that they know that it's a safe place to make a mistake, but they don't understand the directions. You know what I mean? And it's uh, and kids are kind of trained. We're all trained this way. Um, you know, I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and the doctor told me this, this, this, this, and this. And you got that mic? Yes, sir. I left the office going, I wonder what he said. What did he say? I had to read my notes off my Athena portal for the Hendrick Medicine to go. What he said, because he he, you know, they they put it all in there, you know. But I think kids are the same way. We say this, this, this, this. This, this, this, this. And all they heard, it's like a dog getting a treat. All they heard was uh set 14. And they're like, okay, we're moving.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, so a little questions that given time to do that, don't start a rep unless everyone understands what is expected, or at least 95%. Because we all have kids in our band that, you know, there's some that um they operate at a slower tempo of recognition of information.
SPEAKER_02That was sweet. That's sweet.
SPEAKER_00But you know that confusion kills momentum. It's the confusion that wastes time. It's not the fact that uh you took time to let them ask a question, it's the confusion that kills it. Okay. Um, the next one is like speak to the standard. Members must hold themselves and each other accountable. But that has to be done in a very consistent, humane way. Um what we're doing is we're raising little assistant band directors on the field. Okay. And when we talked about uh everything that happens on the field is either your fault or your credit. Um, remember, guys out there and ladies, that silence is approval. If you see it and don't fix it, you are the problem. You have to fix it. You know, you can't, and I know there's a that that philosophy, and I understand it, that you know, we it's like triage, you know, like, well, we got to fix this first. I understand that. But there's sometimes you'll you'll see a band at uh I'll use concert band for an example. There was a band I heard that just played atrocious on stage. And when they left stage, they were just very calm and that's just what they do every day. Think about that for a second. It was just so obvious to me as I left the stage that that was not a bad performance. That was an everyday performance. That's the standard that's been set for that band. And I know every band has its hurdles to get over, but you know, just to be able to hold your horn correctly should be something that every student can do, unless there's a physical handicap. You know, um, breathing at the same time, that's not asking too much. You know, playing virtuoso, that is asking a lot. But you know, it just amazes me when they come off stage and you can tell that this and the director too, the director's just perfectly fine. Everyone's face is content. They just pick up all their equipment and they go to sight reading. And I'm sitting there thinking, good Lord, help us. You know, how does someone stand in front of that every single day without stopping and going, hey, flutes, let's listen to that note. Someone move their head joint and make it sound prettier. Something that simple. You know, and I'm not saying that things have to be perfect, but I it's that standard of unexcellence. It's like, I just, I'm just cashing my check and you know, we're done with that. Okay. And I know there's situations that happen that are outside of our control as directors. And, you know, but when you're at a contest, whether it's marching band or concert band or a festival, if we're judging that, all we have the opportunity to judge is that time we see you and hear you.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00We have no earthly idea what's happened, you know, uh, scheduling problems. Um, 15 kids moved away from school. There was a big drinking issue on a bus on a Friday night, and 10 kids got kicked out of band, and we had to rewrite all the drill. We don't know that. We don't. Um, so sometimes there's things that happen, and what I just said, we'd be like, well, if if I know this whole story, it's like, well, that's understandable. No wonder that was not done very well. But I think a lot of times it's just we silence is approval.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, just uh play the notes, nothing but the notes will help us God. You know, doesn't matter what the notes sound like, doesn't matter what the tuning is, doesn't matter what the horn position is, doesn't matter that we're dropping equipment on stage, doesn't matter that all our stands are in the wrong direction, doesn't matter that all the chairs are wiggly and going all kinds of ways. You know, there's a thousand things going on. Five kids are chewing gum, three don't have their socks on. You know what I mean? So you're just kind of watching this band going, this is really bizarre. You know, that this this must be what they do every day. Okay. So, and it's it's hard work, but force yourself, even if you uh inherit and it's your first year in on that gig and it's a fifth division band from last year. Our goal might be the uh we just want all our pants hemmed the right way for the first ball game.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00That might be our goal the next week. Let's make sure we can play the right notes in the national anthem. That might be our only goal. And uh, and just step by step, like building with Legos, you make it happen. Okay. Um and again, you have to rehearse like the rehearsal is a performance. You know, we like to, I've always like to add pressure. Um, timers. You know, we've got to fix this drill, and I'll have a timer, and I've got a timer on my file cabinet at home and I practice trumpet of all OCD things. And I can pop that timer and I can turn it to like 15 minutes, and I can tell myself, you've got 15 minutes to learn this part of in the mood where you can play it five times in a row, correct. Into 15 minutes, I'm done. If it sucks, then it sucks. But you tell the band we've got 15 minutes to fix this, and you do a timer. Okay. Um, limited reps. We only have three times to do this, we got to fix it. Do you see how those timers and limited reps make their brain hone in even tighter?
SPEAKER_02Put some urgency on it, right?
SPEAKER_00Puts urgency, performance runs for other sections. Hey, front ensemble, stop playing and turn around and watch the Woodwind Brass march. Now, then after they march, go uh front ensemble, raise your hand if you have a positive critique and a negative critique.
SPEAKER_02Right. What can we do better? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And what what did we do bad? What did what was good? They might say, man, the low brass sound absolutely incredible. It'd be really nice if we all stepped off at the right time. You know what I mean? Yeah, by the way, you know, the it is left foot step off, okay? Right for our band. You know, so I think that's a really cool thing because it makes kids start to watch each other, okay? If you only train at 80%, you will fail at 100%. You know, it's there's there's no there's no way to get around that mathematically, okay. Well, this isn't Isaac Newton, the invention of calculus, okay. If you only trained at 80%, you will fail at 100%. Um, so you've got to train at 100% so you can perform at 80%. Because your performance will never, this is just me speaking from my experience. My performances for my band and me personally have never been better or as good as my best practice run through. Never. Uh if I can get 80% in a performance, I'm a happy camper. Because as long as we're performing, or excuse me, as long as we're rehearsing at 100%. I think that's a really important issue for us.
SPEAKER_02Well, I you know, to flesh that out a bit, rehearsing at 100% is spending a hundred percent effort to get better.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yes, sir. Performance is a display of the best we can do if you can put out 80% of I kind of got tongue-tied on myself, but my point is the effort in rehearsal has to be 100%.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And uh for all those Ted Lasso fans out there, I just love that show. And they're coming the new one's starting. Have you seen the new season coming out? He's got he's got a girls' soccer team.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna be awesome. But he he gives the speech about being a goldfish. Yeah. And I I like to tell bands and clinics that in a performance, you need to be a goldfish. You need to have a short memory. You've got to, if a mistake happens, you if you're in rehearsal, you cannot be a goldfish. You cannot be a goldfish in rehearsal.
SPEAKER_02Or elephants in rehearsal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. I'm gonna steal that. I've never I never used another another animal for that. But yeah, you have to be an elephant in rehearsal. You've got to remember every mistake you've made and try to work on making it better. Okay. Um, you have to self-correct immediately as a performer. Um, bands tend to wait for staff members or staff member or drum major, whoever, to tell them what's wrong. And uh kids are a lot smarter than that. They know when they miss a note, if they're listening, you know, and they know if they missed a step off. They know if they and and sometimes I guess they don't know, but most of the kids, they know when they make a mistake. If you missed a step off, work hard to fix it the next time around. You know, if you didn't get quite to your set point, then maybe you need to take a bigger step. If you got to your set point on count 12 and you had 16 counts, guess what? Maybe take a smaller step. Think about that. Think about what you have to do. And I tell you what, in rehearsal, you have to go through that process with them because we'll get into it when we talk about teaching drill, but when they you move 16 counts and then they freeze. You got to teach them to freeze. They don't move anywhere else. Okay. And then they at that point, their job is to freeze and start thinking about are they in the right spot? But they can't move their feet yet. Think about that. Okay. So then you go check. When they say check, they still have to have their horn up if it's a horns up position, and they can move their head and they can look at the people around them, but they can't move their feet yet. Their brain has to be engaged. So you have to go through that whole process and go, now think about are you in the right spot? Don't move. Think about it. Now think about your own solution. Is it a curvilinear path? Is it a straight path? Is it a bigger step, a smaller step? Are my hips at the right angle? Think about what you got to do. And then we say the magic word adjust. When we say adjust, they can move their feet. And then they adjust where they're going. You've got them, you got to have them live in their wrongness.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, I get it. Living in your wrongness. You know, you get little band directors out there. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_02Just listening to some of the things that we're saying this morning. I think that one of the things I would say is that I'm hearing from you, and correct me if I'm wrong, is I think it's human nature to try to hope nobody sees your mistake. Oh, I hope you didn't see that. Oh, I hope I don't want to get called out. Blah, blah, blah. If that's the uh if that is the culture, then nobody's ever going to, they're gonna spend more time trying to be sneaky about mistakes. Wouldn't we rather have a freedom to fail? Ah, I messed that up. I got it. I know how I can fix it. Yeah. Doesn't that feel more positive? And I think it lines up with what you're saying, that it's not who can I put in the sights of my crit critique as opposed to all right, everybody stop, look at where you are. Are you where you're supposed to be? Give them the accountability, give them the responsibility to be correct without the the fear of go sit your butt on the sidelines, put somebody else in that spot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. No, those old days are gone.
SPEAKER_02You know, no, I get it, but you understand what I'm saying. I just think it's healthier and will accomplish the standard faster if they're part of that process, as opposed to, you know, I can remember speaking of the old days, always feeling like contest was the easiest judging that we we had on the marching field because every day it felt like we were getting judged to a perfectionist standard.
SPEAKER_00And we should be judging ourselves in rehearsal, but a performance we're not judging ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00That's why it seems like a and that's a that's a whole different podcast. It'll be a lot of fun when we get to it about the aspects of how we approach performance in regard to uh comparing it to rehearsal each day. And I always like to tell the students don't wait for someone else to care more than you.
SPEAKER_02There you go. That's that's kind of what I'm saying. Yeah, don't you know? Because you get buy-in when they know that it's on them and they can correct their own mistakes if you'll allow them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and they have the freedom to correct mistakes. And uh, and if you have a once you develop that culture, then they can start correcting each other and not get in a fight about healthy, right?
SPEAKER_02Healthy.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's because you know, you we all know that routine. We don't want to be a marine gunny sergeant, you know what I mean? Out there, some trumpet player section leader just waylaying his section. It's like, come on, this is this is stupid. It's this is this is banned. We're not we're not going into battle today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But uh, but you know, that they can do it in a healthy way. But I think that's the main key to that whole thing is don't wait, kids and performers and assistant band directors, and you don't wait for someone else to care more than you. That is that's directed at the directors, too. Do not wait for someone else to care more than you do. Um, another idea is to keep the pace of rehearsal high. Um, your transitions must be fast. Um reps must be focused and efficient. And we've talked about how we're gonna do that uh because dead time drains intensity. Leaders must move with urgency. And I know it's uh the consistency has to be there, and we're not talking about, you know, rah-rah, rah, and you know, gunny sergeant, you know, get it, get it, get it, get it, do this right, or there'd be 20 push-ups, boys. Let's go. Let's go. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about just that dead time when all of a sudden one kid's horn, and I'll tell you, this is an this is a truthful statement. This will blow some directors' minds. I was at a clinic for a marching band, and a bass clarinet ten and cork thingy was messed up. Actually, it was a regular clarinet, sorry. The ten and cork was coming off. The director stopped rehearsal, got the clarinet, fixed the ten and cork, put some tape on it, put the horn back together, gave it back to the kid, and then we continued rehearsal. So, meanwhile, we've got a hundred kids sitting on the field for 15 minutes with nothing going on. How stupid is that? Think about how stupid that is to take a hundred people and waste 15 minutes of a hundred people's time but on something you could have said very quickly, said, Hey man, I understand the problem here. Just do the fingerings for right now and give me your horn at the end of class, I'll get it fixed for you by the next rehearsal. Done. Right. You know, and uh so and kids are really you directors know what I'm talking about. They're really smart, they'll get you chasing rabbits quick. They know when they don't want to work, and they'll come up with all kinds of things to have you do as the director. You know, I don't have this, I don't have my coordinate sheet, I don't have this. Uh my UDB app's not loading. Can you help me? You know, there's things you've got to just keep pushing forward because the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
SPEAKER_02Right. In inmates asylum.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So that they will they will push you because I'm just as bad with my administration. Sorry about that, administrators. You know, I'll I'll make up things to keep them busy just so they won't be picking at me, you know. And we're all that way. I mean, we're all that way, okay? Um close every block, whether it's a little like warm-up block, a body movement block, a music performance block, um, uh a sectional block, whatever it is, and each block with your best rep.
SPEAKER_02Right. We're talking scheduling blocks at this point, things that you do as part of the schedule, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So it's already set up in your lesson plan. And uh, if you have a make sure there's enough, and this is so hard to do, you cannot rehearse to the bitter end, or you're gonna catch yourself with a really bad moment of the band sucked. They sounded horrible, no one's in the right place, but we got to go or everybody's in trouble. Everyone's gonna be late to class, principal's gonna be mad at me. Um, don't put yourself in that situation. Give yourself enough time that uh if it's a really bad rep, then maybe you can just say, all right, we'll we'll come back and work on that tomorrow. Everyone play the last chord of part two. Play it for me. Very nice. Okay, a little more volume, really good. Now listen to it resonate on our practice field. Play it and do a really cool release. Really a good release. Boom. Man, you guys are awesome. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Yeah. It doesn't have to be like the show is a perfect run through. Find one thing, even it's a section. Hey, mellowphones, play that that lick, play that run you've got in part three. Because I've heard you playing on the field. It sounds pretty good. Play that for us. They play, just knock it out of the park. Hey, everybody, give a round of applause to the to the mellows, man. That was really cool. And to keep it short and efficient, this is kind of a band hack thing. I say, a round of applause is one clap. Give them two rounds of applause. That's two claps. Three rounds, you get the idea. So the kids all know it's kind of funny. It's like, give them three rounds of applause. The whole band does that, and then they're back instead of all this weird. You know how kids are. They'll all start clapping, and there's always that one kid who's a joke.
SPEAKER_02Who could be the last one? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you just want to go down there and just slap the taste out of their mouth. You know what I mean? Um, but it's like it eliminates that. Because then if some kid claps after the first round of applause, who did that? Who did that? Why'd you do that? Can you not count to one? Okay, let's do that again. One round of applause. Oh, there you go. Good job. Good job. You know, so you know, just end with a win. Leave every section of the show, whatever blocks you're working on, everything has to be better than when it started, if at all possible. I'm not saying that's always going to happen, but you can find something within that block that's better. Okay. And a big time thing, this is a quote to live on. Never end on a rep that reinforces a bad habit. It's not just that it's a a sucky uh performance of that 16 counts of music. It's like, oh, they're they're overblowing right here. That is not the quality sound we want. If I end right here, we're reinforcing a really bad habit for this band. And uh, and I have to warn myself about that too, okay? You know, when I practice my trumpet, you know, that I can't end my practice on a really bad habit. If nothing else, I'll go and play my Remington warm-up thing again, and I'll play with as pretty a sound as possible, and I'll get out my tuner and I'll make sure my concert F's really well in tune. That might be that might be the only thing I improved today was I played my concert F better in tune. Right. Kind of sad, but but I can't happens. But I can put my horn away. Uh uh, it was the great Dizzy Gillespie that said, uh, um uh every every day as a trumpet player, you get your or as a musician, you get your horn out and you play, and sometimes nothing works and the horn wins. And sometimes you get your horn out and you practice, and everything works right and you win. Eventually you die and the horn wins. I thought that was a great quote by Dizzy Gilleski. Yeah, so no matter what you do, the horn's gonna win in the end because because it's gonna outlive you. You know, you'll you'll be you'll be ashes, and some little sixth grader is gonna be playing your trumpet somewhere.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00It'll start again. That horn will live on, okay? Um, and some things to kind of you know, kind of tie some of this together for our little podcast. You know, repeat it every day. Winning isn't a one-time choice, it's a daily decision. How we're doing this, now we're setting this up, is a life, it's a life skill. It's a life skill. I mean, I was working with a person that helps me with my training for weightlifting. And it was really interesting how when they were working with me and telling me to do things, how they were asking me questions and saying, why don't you feel that in your lats? Hmm. Oh, it's I'm not putting my elbows back far enough. And they said, That's exactly right. What a band director moment, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, the the trainer asked me, he said, Why are you not feeling that? So you're feeling that in your biceps, aren't you? Not your back, not your lats. You are correct. You know, it could be something that's simpler when you do a tricep pull. Said, you know, said, Why is that why is your shoulder, why are you feeling your shoulders and not your triceps? Because my leg's not extended all the way back and I'm not pulling the dumbbell all the way back to my pocket. And they're like, that is correct. Why don't you do it correct this time, Mike? Yes, I will. I'll do it correct this time. You know, so education, it's a life skill, man. So it doesn't matter whether you're in a corporation or whatever you're doing, this all works. Okay. You repeat all these behaviors until they become automatic. Something as simple as them freezing at the end of a section that they're performing, that's hard to get to be automatic unless you do it consistently every day. It's not something you can just tell someone to do because our habits take over. You know, they they they get to the end, their horn drops, they start wiggling around, they say something to their neighbor, they move their feet to the correct position, and you're like, no, no, no, we freeze first. Everyone freeze, you got to live in your wrongness. Okay, you drill them until they hold up under pressure. Ho ho, this is where it becomes fun. This is the gunny sergeant moment, Derek. This is the marine gunny sergeant moment. They hold up under pressure, fatigue, and stress. You find the hardest part of the show, and you wait till the uh 75% until you're into your rehearsal, and you just work them dearly. It's like, okay, for 15 minutes, we're gonna work on these 16 counts of music and drill, and we're gonna make it as good as we possibly can over and over. You're mentally stressing them on purpose, you're physically stressing them on purpose, but then at the end it gets better, and then you go, man, what a great job. Now shake it out and go get some water. Stack your horns on the sideline, you know, do everything in our procedures, and then that they operate under fatigue and stress because you know, when you're at aerial marching and you get on that bus at three in the morning in our, especially in our West Texas uh universe, you get on the bus at three in the morning and you march prelims at 10 o'clock, and then your finals don't start till seven at night, and then you might not even march until 10 o'clock that night. We're like almost 24 hours after the time they got up in the morning. Right. Right. And so they've got to be able to operate under fatigue and stress somehow. You know, feed them right, get them nutrition. Water. Yeah, I would always send. And that was a big faux pas of mine, my first time at area marching in our area A. Had my band, we finished, and I just sent them all to them all after prelims. And I was like, I didn't think anything of it because it's what we always did, because we were we were in area B before. And so we got moved to a different area. So we're like, I think it was Lubbock, maybe, or might have been Plainview. And all of a sudden I look up when they're announcing results, and every band in my classification, besides my band, is sitting in the visitor stands, and all the bands are seated, like Crane was sitting seated with a in a C, and uh Lubbeck Cooper might be an LC, and they're they're all perfectly aligned up across, and I've got three drum majors in me. I'm thinking, oh man. And the next band with marching finals is Wiley. Yeah, there weren't even any parents in the stands. They all know that we don't stay for that. We just leave the drum majors for the for that part. And uh I was like, oh my God, I've blown it. And I did catch a lot of flack, but I kept stuck to that because I wanted my kids to go to the mall. I wanted to be in air conditioning. I didn't want them to be on the, I call it the allsips hot dog cooker. You know, those are tisseries, right? You know, so I don't want them sitting over there for two hours in that. And and and I will I'll text them. I'll okay, uh, you need to be back on the bus at this time because we just drew our pre our final slide, it'll be at this time, or we didn't make finals. Um take another hour, you know, we're we're gonna leave and we're gonna go straight home from that. So, you know, drill them until they hold up under pressure, fatigue, and stress. That way they can handle it when it's time to be ready for contest. If it's not consistent, it's not ready. Okay. And this is a really bad habit of mine, Derek, as a as a teacher. We'll do it wrong 15 times in a row, then we'll do it right once, and then I'll move on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_02You'll leave it at that one right time. You don't repeat success, right?
SPEAKER_00So guess what's gonna happen Friday night? They're gonna do what they did the first 15 times, more than likely, not the 16th run. So I'm not saying you have to do it 15 times to validate 15 mistakes, but at least do it three times, yeah. And tell them so, okay, you did it wrong 15 times, you did it right three times. Think about it, you know. Um, and then we kind of finish up with this with a director self-reflection moment. Doesn't that sound great? We're gonna sing kumbaya and we're gonna sit around the campfire and play guitars, okay? Um, think about which one of these steps would help out your band the most that we just talked about. Kind of go through them in your mind. What order would you implement them in your program? Would it be the rehearsal technique? Would it be setting the standard? Well, what would be the easiest, fastest thing for you to do as a band director for your band? Um, some of these steps are not really doable at this time in your program, possibly. Or maybe not even worth the effort at this point. You know, if we if we're just trying to learn fingerings and step off with our left foot, we're gonna waste a lot of time talking about how we're going to crescendo to a dynamic level that's gonna be artistic for the audience to understand the concept of our show.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00No, second valve trumpets, it's a be natural. Okay. Step off the left foot. I understand that completely. It's triage, okay? This is a question in the idea of marginal utility. Marginal utility. That's a concept that people kind of ignore. But um uh marginal utility is kind of the concept of is the effort we're putting into this going to pay off in the long run. Think about that. Right. I always used it as a kid who's like a 10th chair trumpet in my top honor band has marginal utility for me, but is irreplaceable in the second band. Because that kid could be a leader, be a soloist, or they could be 10th chair in my top band. So two things would happen. One is we had kids that liked Mr. McMillan better than me. So we would have tryouts and they would make my band and they'd come in, Mr. Loney, we don't want to hurt your feelings, but can you put me in Mr. McMillan's band? I know I'm sixth chair clarinet, but it's like I pretend like it didn't hurt my feelings, but it's like, oh, that hurts. You know, dagger. But I always remember my marginal utility because that sixth-chair clarinet can help me, but it can be a lifesaver for Luke McMillan's second band. Because that kid might be an all-region player and want to do it. Or sometimes I would talk to the kid and be like, hey, I've got you as last chair flute in my top band. Would you rather be last chair in my band or be section leader in the second band? Your choice. Think about it, tell me tomorrow. And sometimes they'd come back and go, you know, I thought about it, Mr. Lenny. I would like to be section leader in the in the second band. I don't want to be last chair in the top band. And because I want to, you know, they some of them are really smart. They'd go, because I want to develop more leadership skills because my goal is to be a section leader someday. So if I'm a section leader in the second band as a sophomore, maybe as a senior.
SPEAKER_02You might give it a position in the top end, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So uh think about that marginal utility. Okay. Um and so just a comment or two for directors or for directors to give to their students, you know, just some buzz phrases. And I kind of hate buzz phrases, but I kind of like them. You know, winning is a choice, so is losing. You know, you choose to lose, you choose to win. Yeah, yeah. Every rehearsal is an opportunity to win or lose by choice, not chance. This isn't a roulette wheel. Okay. You, the student, you control your standard. You control your effort, you control your culture. Winning is in your hands, but so is every excuse not to win. Okay. So that's what we talk to our students about. But do you see how this self-reflection turns right back on the director? The standard is in your control as the director. You control the effort of your band. I know sometimes people say, Oh, I have they're apathetic, I can't get them to do anything. You better figure out either a way to do it better on your side or find a better place to work. I don't know. Um, but you're the one who's going to hold the blame for it, okay? Um, you control the culture of your band, and winning is actually in your hands. I'm not saying winning is making a one, okay? Um that it's two whole different concepts. If you get to the end of football season and marching band season, and you you've had a great marching band, and the kids enjoyed what they did, and they love each other, and they've had a great time doing it, and they've created a very beautiful artistic show, and it makes a two because you kind of fell on your face at contest. That's not losing. Right. The winning and losing happens every day, okay? And so they've also got every excuse not to do it. Right.
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, I I listened to you say that, and one of the things I think that it would be worth reinforcing again. Uh you know what sometimes you have to figure out where the battle actually is. Is it a student want-to issue? Is it a educator teaching issue? As you said, the self-reflection here. Because you said earlier in the show you can't force anybody to do anything.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So so don't let yourself hear you have got to don't don't hear what Mike said as you have got to force these kids to do this if you want to be successful. What you have to do is figure out what motivates them and how are you contributing or not contributing to the positive motivation of your group to become a winning ensemble, a a positive environment where everybody learns, everybody contributes, everybody feels safe to be part of the process. How are you? Because some of us old school people, without even thinking about it, because that's the way we were, we tell you what to do and we expect you to do it without ever explaining the why. This is going to help you, or this is going to help our entire group if we do this because this is why we do this this way. This is how a high-level performance organization operates. We are talented, we are able, but we have to adopt practices and principles that create a culture of excellence. I'm shying away from that winning word. It doesn't bother me, but I just don't want people to stumble on the thought process of, you know, well, maybe I just want a good program. Great, that's winning. That's what we're talking about. But Mr. Miss Band Director, it is important as you listen to this episode today, and before we move on to the next episode, that you kind of consider my methodology is what I'm doing fostering this environment for my kids to be able to do the things that Mike's talking about. If not, it's not them. It's me. That's the self-reflection I think that we we're encouraging here is uh are are you as an educator offering an environment that your kids can become the success that everybody wants to be? Is that a fair statement, Mike? Yes. So that's your homework. Reflect. And if you got questions, ask Mike, he'll tell you. That's right.
SPEAKER_00I'll tell you, there is no reflection for you. You're a vampire.
SPEAKER_02It is what it is. So uh I appreciate you starting us on this journey at this point, man. I I look forward to uh hearing some more uh on this. You know, I just don't think we hear it enough sometimes that there is remember the reason you fell in love with band. What was it that made you excited? Now let's go excite the next generation that's under you, Mr. Miss Educator. So uh thanks for helping us remember, Mike. You bet.
