Beginning Band Retreat
Organized by Whom
All – City Band Society, Senior Concert Band and both Directors
When
9:00 am Thursday, March 29th through Noon, Saturday, March 31st, 2012 at the Caserne Boyle Cadet Camp in the Mary Lake Subdivision
Beginners require special support while learning how to play an instrument and they benefit from working with/learning the “tricks” from very good players. Therefore, we have an annual event (3 days and 2 evenings) of clinics, fun activities, and playing with the Porter Creek Sec. and F.H. Collins Beginning Bands. As this is a curricular trip (which is equivalent to 3 weeks of classes), we expect all students to fully participate on both days! Beginners will receive excellent information in workshops, the thrill of performing in a large ensemble (3 new pieces) and advanced instruction by the same clinicians they worked with at “Squeak & Squawk”. Each participant will pay $60.00 to cover food, transportation requirements, music, accommodation costs, honourariums, and prizes and our High Schools and the ACBS will subsidize the balance of the cost.
Retreat Goals
Over 2.5 days, the team of very qualified Musicians will teach/ demonstrate: reed placement, strong embouchures, tricks for success on each instrument, correct breathing and posture, different styles of tonguing / articulation, playing chromatic pitches and reinforce the Care & Maintenance schedule. The Grade 8 musicians will be placed into separate classrooms, sorted by like instruments (e.g. flutes in one, trumpets in another). Throughout the weekend, activities are organized not only to build individuals’ confidence, but to promote the sense of team - concepts essential to having good sounding Bands.
Students will have the opportunity to get to know each other by performing some physical team activities outside and by completing a variety of visual and numerical puzzles in smaller, mixed groups inside. The students will also work with both Ms. Bell and Mr. Johnson, which is important for learning how to work with different Directors. As well as performing for each other, the students will have ‘unscheduled time’ to hang out in dorm rooms or to play a game in a large or small group setting, with the options of playing inside or outside.
Friday afternoon, all the teaching musicians and their students will assemble in the large ensemble room, to incorporate new concepts learned in their clinics and to play 3 new pieces. The total group (last year’s was 58 Grade 8s and 26 teaching musicians) will perform together for approx. 90 minutes before returning to smaller groups. In May, the massed band students will then perform the same pieces in the Final Concert at the Yukon Arts Centre as well as perform together at two Whitehorse Elementary schools in April.
An event as large as this requires the involvement of parents - as cooks, overnight chaperones, fun activity supervisors and/or for first aid support - so please see the parent support list on the next page, to plan what you might help with. A similar package with all the details will be sent home in the second week of February with forms for you to fill out/return.
