Episode 3 honors two giants the band world lost that week — Eddie Green and Robert Spradling — then digs into a topic every veteran teacher under-uses: going back, reviewing, reinforcing. The featured guest is Aaron Cole, the master middle-school band director from Tapp Middle School in Georgia and a Hal Leonard educational clinician.
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Inside this episode
The episode opens with remembrances of Eddie Green and Robert Spradling, two icons of the profession who passed that week. Paul recounts working with Eddie on Essential Musicianship: Ensemble Concepts, the book of fundamentals widely used across Texas. Steve Smith — taught by Bill Watson, one of Eddie Green’s best students — explains how Eddie’s way of teaching flowed downstream into a generation of band directors he never directly taught.
From there the hosts turn to what teachers should actually do in the first weeks back: not race ahead, but go back. Paul talks about how reinforcement was deliberately built into the EE books — a concept introduced at line 17 returns at regular intervals so it doesn’t reappear cold near the end. Replay the lines you taught last spring. Use the percussion book like the musical workout it is. Tim’s working definition of motivation — it comes after you do something, not before — is the through-line.
Steve drops in with the most-requested partnership news of the month: Essential Elements material is being added to Noteflight Learn (a Hal Leonard company) and its SoundCheck assessment tool. Then the heart of the episode — Aaron Cole. Aaron walks through how she dips teachers into EEi (“it’s incredibly user-friendly; the kids know how to use technology better than we do”), why this fall is the right tool at the right time, and what the team of co-authors learned from Eddie Green’s old TMEA clinics. Paul closes with the rule he learned from John Higgins: “good books aren’t written. They’re rewritten.”
Read the full transcript
Remembering Eddie Green and Robert Spradling
[00:05:00] Tim: We lost two great ones in our profession this week. Eddie Green, a Texas icon with a book published by Hal Leonard — he is a giant. And Robert Spradling, who was at Syracuse and then the University of Idaho. Two people who helped shape our band profession.
[00:06:01] Paul: Eddie was a game changer, particularly in Texas. We worked together on Essential Musicianship: Ensemble Concepts — basically the Bible of fundamentals widely used throughout Texas. There’s also a wonderful book about Eddie Green’s career called On Teaching Band by Mary Ellen Cabot.
Review and reinforcement to start the year
[00:11:00] Charlie: We’re going to need to take some time and do a review with students who’ve been playing a year or two. Teachers regularly overlook going back and reviewing the lines they’ve taught previously. We’re in a rush to get to the new line and teach new notes, new concepts, new keys, new rhythms. Going back not only solidifies the concepts — it shows students how far they have progressed.
[00:11:42] Paul: We built reinforcement right into the exercises. If a concept is introduced at number 17, we methodically bring it back in subsequent exercises so it doesn’t all of a sudden show up near the end of the book and the teacher has to teach it all over again. But it has to go beyond the book — teachers need to go back, review, and let it pay off.
[00:13:25] Tim: The percussionists have books? When I told my dad I wanted to be a drummer, he said you can’t have both. Percussionists often become professional rest counters, but in Essential Elements that part moves — it was written musically, not just as an add-on. Charlie: It’s amazing how many great band directors and conductors were percussionists growing up.
Motivation comes after action
[00:16:01] Tim: Motivation comes after you do something, not before. The key is to get them to do something, anything. Once there’s action, they get excited about it, and then you pour gasoline on that fire. If there’s no connect, no communication to start with, it may be aimless hoping. There’s got to be action to derive motivation.
Steve Smith on getting started with EEi
[00:17:17] Steve: Start simple. Get the kids in there, let them play around with it. For teachers — try to get yourself a student account so you can see what it looks like from the student side. Then have them do a simple assignment, just submit one of the easiest lines. The first time the feedback should be: hey, you submitted it, awesome, great job. Super positive feedback just on the fact that they submitted.
[00:20:00] Steve: If kids go through the effort to send in a video, it’s incredibly important the teacher take at least 10 seconds and send a comment back. Otherwise the kid thinks the teacher doesn’t listen. So even just “got your recording, great job, look forward to the next one” — you’ve got to communicate with them.
[00:21:14] Steve: We just announced a partnership — we own Noteflight, a Hal Leonard company. It has a tool called SoundCheck, a way for kids to play and get assessment back in a unique way. We’re putting Essential Elements materials into Noteflight Learn as part of SoundCheck. A lot of teachers got excited when it was announced.
Eddie Green through Bill Watson
[00:24:32] Steve: Eddie was Mr. Green, really — I feel like I should say. The first time I heard those Lake Highlands High School recordings, the band played The Rite of Spring — the Rite of Spring. The way they did band there permeated the entire state. My mentor, Bill Watson, was one of his best students. That is how Eddie really affected my life — he taught Bill how to teach. I see stories of Mr. Green on Facebook with all my friends and that’s exactly what Bill meant to me.
[00:25:46] Steve: It’s clear Eddie had an impact personally on so many people. He had his own special way of caring for you that just left you really knowing who you were, and that he loved you in his way, and that he was going to help you exactly where you needed to be helped. He had a way of doing that where you still loved him for it. He was a special guy.
Paul on Eddie Green’s favorite film score
[00:27:24] Charlie: I saw Mr. Green a few times at TMEA. The room was always packed, standing room only. He had his signature green baseball cap on. He’d read his notes copiously, then stray from script and tell a story. Everybody got to the edge of their chair. He was one of a kind.
[00:27:44] Paul: I got to work with him a lot. We were sitting at a meal once. He knew I was involved with film music. He told me, “Paul, do you know what my favorite film score is?” Of course I thought, this is going to be good. Myself and whoever else — we leaned in. He looked at me and said, “Spaceballs.” That was his favorite movie score of all time. The comedy. I just thought, how profound was that. That was Eddie Green’s favorite.
Aaron Cole on becoming a master teacher
[00:28:35] Charlie: Speaking of favorites, we’ve got one of our favorites on here right now. Aaron Cole — one of Hal Leonard’s educational clinicians, plus a fantastic middle-school band at Tapp Middle School in Georgia, with performances at Midwest and state conferences. Aaron: I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Tim my entire life. He’s a significant mentor to me. Through Tim I was introduced to Paul several years ago.
[00:31:00] Tim: She’s a dynamo. Every time I hear her share her story and ideas, I learn something. And she was one of our early EEi adopters — she’s spent a lot of time refining it with Steve Smith.
[00:35:00] Aaron: In the early stages I used the music studio, the recordings, and the videos a lot. (Note: machine transcript looped briefly from 32:09 to 34:59; resumes here.) Paul: Those videos that Steve produced with great care have proved to be very helpful. And if for some reason you as a teacher want to post your own video, EEi has a mechanism for that as well — if you have your best practices of how to put the flute together or form the clarinet embouchure, you’re welcome to use yours.
EEi as a one-stop shop
[00:35:49] Paul: Aaron, if somebody hasn’t been using EEi, it can look daunting from the outside. How would you tiptoe into it? Aaron: It’s incredibly user-friendly. It’s so easy as a teacher to set up your own account with the code in your book. And for a student — the kids know how to use technology better than we do. I made it easy on myself by giving students their own login and password using their student ID or lunch code. With a lot of teachers teaching virtually, the easier the better. It’s a one-stop shop.
[00:36:45] Charlie: By golly, it’s sure the right tool at the right time. Aaron: It’s a no-brainer. This is a tough time for teachers having to navigate — thrown into it in the spring with no notice. For somebody new to EEi, it wouldn’t take you long. If you’re finding out you’re starting the fall virtually, you have a little luxury of time right now. Set up a demo account, dip your toes in.
[00:37:52] Paul: We used to have a joke when teachers first looked at this. They’d say, where’s the manual? Where’s all the documentation? Our joke, although it wasn’t a joke, was: we have a three-word manual. The manual was: ask a kid. The students could just tool around like this. It was second nature to them.
The blueprint and the construction worker
[00:38:50] Tim: Aaron, you prove what I talk about all the time — we can put together the best blueprint in the world, but it’s going to take a construction worker, and in this case, a teacher. I think you could probably teach from Kleenex. To have this kind of toolbox in your hands with a master teacher like you — congratulations.
[00:39:15] Paul: We’re trying to do everything we can to make access this fall even easier. The book itself will be available as a virtual book, and the access code will be part of that book. Whether you buy a physical book with the code or the virtual book, you and your students will have very quick access to EEi.
Signing off
[00:40:02] Charlie: Aaron, keep up the good work, girl. You’re doing great things. Before we dismiss today’s class — restate what you’re hearing from teachers and the intuitive way that EEi works. Aaron: Better days are coming. Charlie: Thanks so much, Aaron, for joining us. To Dr. Tim, Paul, Steve, and to you, our listeners — thank you for taking time to join us for Essential Elements Band Talk. This is Charlie Mangini, saying thanks for listening.
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