India is loud

Yes I am still here. I apologize for the late update. Things have been pretty hectic around here for the past two weeks. Before I go into my brillinat insite for this entry, I'll guive a brief update about what has been going on with my teaching.

As a re-cap (mostly because I don't remember If I told you all this or not) my teaching falls in three areas; directing the band, teaching private lessons, and teaching a grdae 10 general music class.

To preface all this, it is important to mention that the music deaprtment here in Kodai is extremely short handed, now more so that the last time I updated. We are currently three hands short due to the no replacement for one staffer who left after the year, and two staffers who have left. One of those staffers will only be gone temporarily on personal business, which is a relief, but it still makes it hard on us for the time that they are gone.

Lets start with 10th grade music. I took this class from the first staffer to leave Kodai. So far it has been going extremely well. After finnishing some presentations, which the previous teacher assigned, I was finally able to take the class in a direction that I want. Due to a lack of explicit expectations, both for myself as well as for the studetns, I decided early on that the presentations would not be graded, but rather used as a wamr up of sorts for a larger project, which I assigned the next class period. The class is about the classical era, and basic music theory like circle of fifths, major/minor keys, chords and cadences, and classicl forms (minuet and trio, Soanta form, Symphony, Concerto Form). I chose to focus the project on forms because I think that this topic does the best job of bridging the gap between classical period msuic, and basic theorr. Also because, after spending a months studying sonata form in depth, I felt the most attracted and able to teach form.

Jump ahead to this week and we had our first lesson on form. I chose to teach minuet and trio because, in some repects, it is the simplest of the four forms offered. It also has a very clear link back to the baroque period, which I want the students to study in their projects. It also gave the easiest opportunity to teach line graphs, which I think the kids grasped to some extent. I surprised my students by giving them a homework assignment (a short bibliography assignment related to there projects, a reading about minuet and trio, and a line graph assignment). naturally they all cried and whined, saying the assignment was too long, but really the bibliography assiingment was only for they to find two sources and cite them properly (citation has been a big issue at Kodai this year), the reading was barley three pages, and the chart was far simpler than anything we did in class. My biggest concern is they simply don't do it. Benn, my host teacher, gave his class an essay, and no one turned it in. We'll just have to see what happens tomorrow.

Next is private lessons. I spend by far the most tiem during my day. The teacher who took a temporary leave was one of the primary lesson teachers and because of their absence, I will be teaching 21 students per cycle. Interestingly, the majority of these are clarinet players (9), mostly beginners (. My quasi-host teacher, stu, has said a number of times that beginning clarinet is the most difficult thing to teach simply because of all the squeaking. motivating the studetn beyond that point is quite difficult. For that reason is its been very good for me to take on these students. Its giving me lots of experience teachng an instruement I don't know very well (its not very difficult to out-play my on the clarinet right now), as well as giving me a reason to re-learn the instrument. In general all of these lessons have gone really well.

The final portion of my day is spent directing the bands. This has strangley been a mixed bag. I have loved my time with the intermediate band. They have been making wonderful progress, I seem to have all of there respect, and in general leading them has been alot of fun. My time with the wind ensemble has been a little more frusterating. I don't feel like I command their respect like I do with the intermediate band. They feel a little more incredulous of me (especially the percussion). With that being said, Wind ensemble is the one who needs my focus more. With the department so short handed, much more band responsibiliy has fallen to me. The band is playing at the Indian Independence day celebration at school on monday morning. I am leading the entire thing. Muscially its pretty simple, but its my first experience taking this much charge of a performance. I need to make sure the student are there on time, dressed, and wth their instruments and music. I need to make sure the proper percussion and other band equipment is their at the proper time and in the propoer place, and I need to make sure the band is musically ready to play the show. A bit of responsiobility there. I thnk I have my boxes checked, but we'll just have to see when monday comes.

The wind ensemble is also taking a trip to bangalore during the last week of august. Most of this trip has already been taken care of, so i'm not getting much responsibility for the logistic side of it (thank god, I'm not ready for that), But I am responsible for reparing my own piece for the conert there. The band will be playing a suite from the Hans Zimmer score to the movie Gladiator. It's been fun watching this piece develop with the band. I think today parts of it finally clicked for the ensemble. Really cxool to see. Hopefully we can have it performacne ready by the end of the week. Thats the deadline.

Ok, my insite for this entry: India is loud. I first heard this statement from Benn when I first arrived here. I found it interesting to think about this because, as Benn pointed out, it is true is every possible sense of the word. The smells, tastes, colors (oh my the colors), the sounds, and surprisingly the people are all very loud. One of the lasting images from this experience will be the India lorry. I LOVE the indian lorry. Its big, loud, pwoerful, disgusting in pretty much every way, looks like its held together with thumb tacks and chewing gum, and abover all is painted obnoxiously bright colors. Some even have multi-colored flashing lights in them. Even things that are supposed to be quite, like nice hikes int he woods, are anything but. Indian people, especially men, love to whistle when they are in high, or open places. perhaps its because they are not used to it. Im honsetly not sure. All I know is that the last time I hiked to a mountain top or majestic overlook, I was accompanied by at least 100 other people, and about ten of them were makeing very loud, high pitched whitles. Very obnoxious and has taken a while to get used to.

Well, I think thats abotu it. Hope this finds you all well.

Kevin