Next concert event will be the Southern Wells Community Christmas Sing.  That event will be held on December 18th at 6:30 PM.  Join us in celebrating the Christmas season! 

Fall Concert Well Attended

The Fall Concert this past Thursday night was very well attended.  All the groups performing put on good performances for the audience.  Mr. Yencer (@southernwellshs) tweeted pictures throughout the event to the school's Twitter following.

Combined 7-12 Choir Performs

HS Band Performs - Fall Decorations courtesy of Drennen's Pumpkin Kingdom

HS Choir Performs

Junior High Band Performs

Our next concert event will be the Southern Wells Community Christmas Sing.  That event will be held on December 18th at 6:30 PM.  Join us in celebrating the Christmas season! 

Congratulations October Challenge Winner!

Congratulations to October Challenge winner, Allyson Hamilton from piano/keyboarding class for winning the October Challenge.  The competition included naming as many notes as possible in a 2 minute period on a grand staff.  To see how well you might do, try it yourself.  Click here.  Allyson won a small bag of candy and chose the candy corn.  Watch for a November challenge coming in a couple of weeks.  This challenge will last through November and will be awarded a small cash prize.

Parent Teacher Conferences

It's Fall parent teacher conference time again... There is a huge correlation between success of students in school and the amount of interest that a parent takes in his students school related activities.  I usually have a fair number of parents who seek me out to talk about the progress of their child in band. I am also available to meet with parents at other events throughout the year aside from Parent/Teacher Conferences, and your attendance at concerts (if your paying attention) can tell you alot about the progress your kids are making in band class.  That being said, I always enjoy sharing about the band program and other classes that I have the opportunity to teach with anyone who will listen. But most importantly, we can talk about the specific behavioral and/or musical challenges your student may be having in my classes.

In this time in history there are more ways to "stay in touch" with your kids progress than ever, but nothing is more effective than face to face contact!  This is the opportunity we have before us next week.  Parents and Students welcome.

The following times have been set aside at Southern Wells Schools for parents to meet with their child's teachers.  Please take advantage of this opportunity or call the school for a specific appointment with Mr. Haigh

TUESDAY, OCT 22nd  from 3:15 - 7 pm in the Raiderdome

WEDNESDAY, OCT 23rd  from 8 am - 12 pm in Classrooms

The Ultimate Patriotic Sing-Along

Here is a high school band performance of the piece handed out to the high school band on Monday...  Video quality is very poor for the most part, but the audo is fine.

2013 Band Fundraiser

8 Items ORDERED before I see you on Friday!  I will put your name on a list and send it to TODD.  If you are not in school on Friday, please snap a picture of your order form for confirmation of your eight items!  Quick Start Prize items are pictured below.

Music Challenge

MUSIC CHALLENGE for OCTOBER

I am challenging anyone in Mr. Haigh's music classes to compete in a note naming contest.  Please visit a link to MusicTheory.net and submit a challenge.  How many notes can you correctly name in 2 minutes?  The winner will receive a prize at the end of next week.  Below is an illustration of how to submit a challenge.

STEP 2: Progress Report

STEP 3:  Enter Name

This made me chuckle...

My musician friend Ralph Tuttle posted this on his facebook wall and it made me laugh.  I also thought it fit the time well as we grow our repertoire for the many athletic events that we will be playing, so I thought that I would share it with you...

Now, as I reflect on this past week, a few things come to mind...

The piano class continues to work hard on improving their skills on the piano and finding new resources and pieces to play online.  Continue to stay focused as we head into the recital next Tuesday during class.  I will be publishing the recital schedule for the second nine weeks soon, so you can plan your work.  Pace yourselves to have pieces prepared by the time the recital date arrives.  Have easier pieces and harder pieces that you are working on for variety as well as continuing to work through skills taught in the binders.

Junior High Band needs to continue to work on good rehearsal practices and self discipline.  Use the time at the beginning of class upon your arrival to be productive by getting your instrument ready to play and practicing at a reasonable volume level, so as not to annoy others... especially if you are a drummer.  Be sure to check out ClassDojo.com and customize your avatar!  If you didn't get login information from me on Friday, then email me and I can get it to you.

High School Band is improving in your rehearsal practices during class.  Your repertoire is growing at a nice pace, so we should be ready for basketball season when that gets here.  There is a lot of time to fill with tunes, so we need to keep diligent in growing the selections that we can choose from. Continue to encourage one another and remember to prioritize your calendar so that we can represent ourselves well at athletic events!  I would like to do some playing between plays of the 2nd quarter for our last home football game.  We will work out some of these details next week during class.

Preliminary Street Booth Report

Street Fair Poses some new unique challenges, but was overall successful!  It was learning experience to be sure for this year's new officers, but I would say that they passed the test with flying colors.  Booster president, Kelli Schriver, Treasurer Donna Geisel, Jean Hughes, Tracy Hughes were all insanely busy prior to and during the street fair this year.  Several new faces volunteered their time and contributed to the completion of this major fundraiser undertaking!  Students owe a debt of gratitude to all the individuals who are too numerous to mention by name for the money that will soon be credited to your incentive accounts.

We will see some changes next year as we evaluate the experience this year and implement improvements for 2014!!  Profit amounts will be reported at a later time and a link to incentive account balances will be posted here as well.  As always, thanks for everything that our music parents do to support the SW music program through the Southern Wells Music Boosters.

Mike Haigh

Food Booth Preparing to open.

The Street Fair is around the corner... around the corner at Main and Market streets in Bluffton INdiana during the annual Bluffton Free Street Fair.  Come see us!

 

Not sure when you work???  Look Below.

Click here...

Elementary Band Starts...

Well it is FINALLY time to start up this year's sixth grade band!!  I think that we have a very nice group of kids out for the band this year.  We are looking forward to getting started this Tuesday after school until 4:15.  We are still hoping to add a few more kids to the group, but we can still be successful.

Use this blogspot page for new information and postings related to past and future band events as we go through the year.  Also, stay in tune with the Music Boosters (our parent group).  Come visit us at the Bluffton Street Fair next week as we serve great food on the corner of Main and Market Streets, Bluffton.

Here is the full Music Department Calendar below.

Viewing Assignments

Hey Band Students:  Here are the videos for viewing soon.  Junior High Band should be sure to watch this one today at the beginning of class.

And, the high school band should check out this one!  This one contains many aspects to consider as you prepare for our upcoming parades in September during the Bluffton Street Fair.

These videos can be "found" by anyone with a swraiders.com domain by looking in your shared with me location on your Google Drive.  For help with this, ask another student or seek out Mr. Haigh outside of rehearsal!  Also, remember to check your email frequently.

Nice example of parade style marching.

Hey High School Band... check this out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9hvorFtGSM&list=PLnMA5X9s1ESKC7D9Ws_s3-UBU71Swe1Bu

Anyone else OCD or wanna be?

When it comes to my stuff, I prefer to be OCD.  Most people would say that I am not, but I wanna be. Some people I have worked with are this way and I am sure that I drive them nuts.  I don't often have time to keep my stuff organized, but I often going on "cleaning binges" where I purge my desk, dresser, office or any other space of anything not necessary.  More often than not, I simply reorganize "my junk."  I feel accomplished when I do this and it makes my space more welcoming I think.  How does relate to the music room?  I need your help as members of the music department.  If you are in one of my classes, I would like for you to fill in the form below about how you can help me make the room more organized.  Feel free to further comment on your disposition under this post.

Survey

The adventure continues

Well, I spent a period of time today learning and.exploring around the world of the Google form.  And spent a lot of time looking at scripts.  Didn't find what I was looking for, so I may have to commission someone to do one for me.   Any takers?

Day One...Survived

Well, overall today was a success.  Everyone showed up for class today and we should have some pretty good groups.  High School Band has the best instrumentation in years, Junior High Band has some new members, and the Piano Class is a studious group.  I was pleased at how well the Chromebooks worked on day one.  Remember that for now we will communicate plans through this blog.  Simply click on the page for your class to the right of these posts.  Mrs. Tucker will be my sub on Tuesday as we move my daughter Vanessa into her apartment in Ft. Wayne.

Getting Ready & Excited!!!!

Well we have spent our first day together as a staff on our 2013 staff development day.  We met some new people and some familiar faces returned.  I spent most of my "free" time working in the high school room and getting things into shape hoping to create a more conducive atmosphere for study and work.

Fortunately we are getting an early start to class and have some time to prepare ourselves for the first performances at HOME football games and the Montpelier Jamboree parade  So high school band come ready to work on DAY ONE!

More Training

...well it was a very busy day at school today as we explored more of the power of Google and other online resources.  As I have considered the options for delivering content to classes, I am coming back around to the use of a teacher created website for this purpose.  Other options considered and falling out of favor include Edmodo, Blogger, Google +, Twitter, and any other site that could be classified as "Social."  Edmodo seems to be the frontrunner in the race among "social networking" style sites due to its safer UI and the fact that it's image hasn't yet been tainted by abuse.

Some of the online resources being considered for collecting resources for my classes include the following:

View Site

View Site

View Site

One more time from m. 13...

This was shared with me via Facebook from Vanessa Drennen on my Wall.  I must have made her play it over one too many times for her taste.

Experiment with a potential class portal.

We'll see if this is a viable option for communicating with my classes.  This is a sample post for experimentation.  I am considering a few different options including google.sites and Edmodo