Episode 5 makes the case that beginners need to perform — even badly — and that the parents in the audience are the most forgiving room you’ll ever play for. Featured guest Lorinda Davidson teaches at the Brisbane Girls Grammar School in Australia, bringing an international perspective from a country that has been back to in-person band rehearsals while most of the U.S. is still virtual.
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Inside this episode
Paul walks through the Hal Leonard Flex Band series — about 150 titles, grade 2.8, designed 15 years ago for programs with severe instrumentation and now perfectly tuned for whatever Monday-vs-Tuesday combinations directors are actually getting this fall. Five-part flexible writing, hundreds of thousands of possible instrument combinations, everything from Lincolnshire Posy movements to pop songs.
Charlie pulls out Book 1’s Performance Spotlight on pages 12 and 13 — a built-in warm-up plus six beginning-band arrangements, what he calls a concert in a box. The conversation circles into Tim’s reminder that parents in the audience aren’t there for a Grammy-worthy performance; they’re there for their child. Paul’s tuba-player aha moment — “we’re not all going to play the melody every day” — is the moment a Book 1 ensemble becomes a real piece of music.
Steve Smith returns with news of a Google Classroom integration coming to EEi (Canvas and other LMSs on the roadmap), more on the play-along tracks as a “friendly metronome” and modeling tool, and how self-assessment plus multiple-take recording (eight accompaniment tracks per exercise) builds error-detection skills students can’t get any other way.
The anchor segment is Lorinda Davidson, calling in from a 9:25 a.m. Tuesday in Brisbane (it’s still Monday evening in the U.S.). Lorinda walks through her background — Queensland’s 1970s state-wide instrumental music program, starting flute in grade five because the girl at the next desk played, a $35 saxophone her dad picked up at a yard sale (formerly under water in a flood, polished back together) that became her main instrument. Then her path through the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, postgraduate study with Ralph Holtgren, and seven years at Brisbane Girls Grammar building a beginner program from scratch — now seven concert bands from absolute beginner through grade 5. Australia is back to in-person rehearsals (with limits: one ensemble rehearsal per week outside school time, one lesson during school time). When isolation hit, Lorinda’s students had no learning gap because EEi had been live for them since Week 1 of the school year in January.
Read the full transcript
Flex Band for severe instrumentation
[00:06:42] Charlie: Hal Leonard was way ahead of the curve when they started Flex Band. Paul: We started it 15 years ago for severe instrumentation. Here we are now and it’s going to probably be the right recipe for so many directors who, by no fault of their own, have severe instrumentation — they don’t know what their group is going to be on a Monday or Tuesday.
[00:08:25] Paul: It’s typically five parts and one of my colleagues, Jim Dagny, calculated it in hundreds of thousands of instrumental combinations. About 150 titles, grade 2.8 — between a two and a three. Everything from serious literature like Lincolnshire Posy movements to a pop song and everything in between. Could very well be the best tool we hand directors going into this fall.
Concert in a box: Performance Spotlight and Book 1 arrangements
[00:09:44] Charlie: Book 1’s Performance Spotlight on pages 12 and 13 — it’s a built-in warm-up and six beginning-band arrangements. A concert in a box. Tim: The first time I did beginning band and during that first little concert I was like, don’t turn around, this is the worst sound in the world. When I turned around, it was a standing ovation — because the most important thing in their life is their child.
[00:11:00] Charlie: There’s something about us band directors and performances — we’ve got to have the auditorium full or the gymnatorium full, 62 ensembles, the concert’s too long. We’ve got to remember the parents are there to support their kid. They want to hear their kid play, and then they want to go home and watch TV. When their child moves on from band, guess what — the parents stop showing up. It’s about the child.
[00:13:35] Paul: There’s 12 arrangements in the book. As a tuba player, the moment I figured out that we’re not all going to play the melody every day — I get my own part — that was an eye-opener. Kids will find that when they play these arrangements in and around their method book. Most of the Book 1 arrangements are by John Higgins — as good as it gets.
EEi: Google Classroom, play-alongs, and self-assessment
[00:18:04] Steve: A lot of teachers have asked us to integrate with different learning management systems, and we’re working toward Google Classroom integration. Canvas and others are on the roadmap. Districts are choosing platforms and requiring teachers to use them — we want EEi to fit.
[00:18:58] Tim: A kid that’s learning three notes can play with professional musicians who play in tune, in style. Steve: I always envision a little Jeffrey sitting in his family room with a split screen to a guy in a tuxedo on a concert stage. They can match that sound, match what that player is doing. Paul: Now there are about eight tracks per exercise — counting the melody, traditional, classical, and various styles. We very cleverly trick them into practicing.
[00:22:01] Steve: A kid records themselves and then compares to the professional player. That error detection is something else. We watched Terry Little’s kids — one made a recording, listened back, her face twitched a little at one mistake, and at the end her friend said do you want to save it? She said: can I try again? Try again should be the motto when you’re teaching music.
[00:24:20] Charlie: A bunch of extra performance PDFs are available — songs, duets, trios. Steve: A lot of additional things were put into EE even before EEi, and we’ve carried them through. We’ve added more — instrument-specific sheets, rhythm studies, music-theory pages. This coming year we’re beefing up Book 2 and 3 with rhythm studies for sixteenth notes and additional fundamental songs.
Lorinda Davidson from Brisbane
[00:26:22] Charlie: We welcome the band director at the Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Mrs. Lorinda Davidson. Lorinda: Thank you so much for having me. It’s winter here in Australia. Paul: I want to clarify for our American listeners how far away she is. She’s talking to us and it’s tomorrow there. Lorinda: I’ve been at school since 7 a.m., had a jazz ensemble rehearsal, and it’s now 9:25 on Tuesday. Charlie: We’re recording this on a Monday evening around 6.
[00:27:11] Tim: You’re at the front of the pack teacher, you’re the best. Lorinda: I’ve been fortunate to meet Tim on a number of occasions when he’s come to Australia. We have a great music teachers conference held in Maryborough, this little town about three hours north of Brisbane. Maryborough is actually the home of Mary Poppins.
A $35 yard-sale saxophone and the Queensland system
[00:28:53] Lorinda: I grew up in Brisbane. In the 1970s, Queensland set up this instrumental music program so that all students in the state school system had access to instrumental music. I started flute in grade five — mainly because the girl at the table next to me was really cool and she was playing the flute. I was good at it. My dad is a bit of a garage-sale person — yard sales over there. He picked up a saxophone for me, $35 at a garage sale. A very old silver SML saxophone — World-War-II era. It had been underwater in a flood. God bless Daddy, he took all the keys off it to give it a polish, put it back together, and I taught myself saxophone. When I went to high school they had lots of flute players and needed saxophone players. Saxophone became my instrument through circumstance.
[00:31:36] Lorinda: I studied at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University, for three years. Then postgraduate studies in instrumental music pedagogy and conducting. Ralph Holtgren has been a great mentor to me for many years — my postgraduate mentor and lecturer.
Building a beginner program from scratch at Brisbane Girls Grammar
[00:32:15] Paul: Tell us how you arrived at the Brisbane Girls Grammar School — a grade 7 through 12 private girls school. Lorinda: This is my seventh year here, and every day I’m eternally grateful. Fantastic colleagues. The school is so supportive of instrumental music and the arts. The campus itself is amazing — a six-floor creative learning centre with instrumental music on the bottom floor and bathroom music above it, then drama, then visual arts.
[00:34:01] Lorinda: When I started, they didn’t really have much of a beginner program. People are lining up to come to this school — students come from many different primary schools and we audition them at the end of year six. We’ve got seven concert bands from beginner right through to grade 5 level. Starting the beginner program here has been the best thing I’ve done. I brought Essential Elements with me — we use it for our bottom four bands, from beginner through to grade 2/grade 3 ensemble music.
[00:36:36] Lorinda: Being a girls’ school we really focus on building our brass section because we inherit a lot of flutes and clarinets. Two types of beginners: the ones we inherit from primary schools, and the ones we start ourselves. Different levels of band for each — there’s a place for everyone.
Why Essential Elements — from CD accompaniments to EEi
[00:36:36] Lorinda: Doing my postgraduate studies, one assignment was investigating method books. Essential Elements was the one that rose to the top for me. I bought a whole set for my school back then — a little Catholic primary school an hour and a half north of Brisbane. That was when it came with a CD of accompaniments — before any sort of technology. The CD was the bee’s knees. I wasn’t a great piano player; before that I’d been faking accompaniments from chords as a jazz musician. The CD let these students have these little performances that sounded so professional.
[00:38:11] Charlie: Are you teaching virtually right now or how’s the school doing? Lorinda: We are back, live and in person. We came back end of last term for a couple weeks. I’m so grateful to be standing in front of my students and my ensembles again because they’re so grateful to be back — more grateful, person on person now after Zooming for so long.
EEi as a lifesaver during isolation
[00:39:03] Lorinda: When we found out we were going into isolation, my boss asked what I was going to do. I said — we just keep on doing what we’ve been doing. We set all our students up with EEi in Week 1 and Week 2 of the school year (which begins in January for us). These students were already hooked up, already doing assignments online and sending them to us. The transition was seamless. For being away for so long, they don’t really have any gaps in their learning because they’ve just been using the book as we normally use it.
[00:41:13] Lorinda: Here in Australia we’re only allowed one ensemble rehearsal a week outside of school time and one lesson during school time. I was Zooming band rehearsals — kind of crazy. I’d upload the music we were listening to into the resources section of EEi. I could quiz them: what did you like about it, what did you notice. They could play along with it at home. No replacement for real life, but a lifesaver in that situation.
[00:42:48] Steve: One of the things about EEi is you can make it your own kind of treasure trove of stuff. A lot of teachers were giving their students things to listen to or play along with before they got to the Zoom. You can send by instrument — something for the clarinets goes only to the clarinets.
Signing off
[00:53:00] Charlie: Lorinda, thank you so much for being on with us. Thanks to Steve Smith, and to Dr. Tim and Paul. And special thanks to you, our listeners. This is your host, Dr. Charlie Mangini, saying thanks for listening.
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