Editor’s note: Online readers can see the original article written by Colonel Gabriel at the link below.

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    Winning a coveted position at a music school or professional ensemble has many of the qualities of good movie. You stand, heart pounding, behind a closed door listening to the sounds of your opponent. The door opens, you enter and nervously play for the tall, graying gentleman seated behind the table. You return home and wait for your fate. As elusive as that coveted college audition or orchestra job may seem, great auditions depend on several basic skills. True professionals have mastery over five elements: sound, intonation, articulation, rhythm, and style.

Sound
    While music may express that which cannot be said, Victor Hugo would be the first to agree that words help describe what makes a high-quality musical sound. Adjectives such as resonant or dull, focused or diffuse, and bright or warm can help us to perceive with a more discerning ear. For most playing situations, the ideal sound is resonant and focused, with pleasant balance of brightness and warmth. Resonance on a brass instrument does not depend about working hard or playing louder. On the contrary, it is based on keeping the embouchure relaxed so it can vibrate as freely as possible, producing a fuller sound with less air.

Intonation
    Good intonation is also essential. A perfectly tuned note amplifies all of the available overtones on the instrument, creating a warm and brilliant sound. Use lip bends and lyrical etudes (played slowly) to practice centering your pitches, working toward playing every note on center without adjustment.
    As your embouchure strengthens you will be able to produce a sound quality that was not possible in the first years of playing. During these years, do not blame your equipment or yourself. Strengthen your embouchure, and your sound will gradually acquire fullness and body.
    Use the long tones in Schlossberg’s Daily Drill and Technical Studies to practice correct breathing, steady airflow, and lip position. Practice the exercises using mouthpiece buzzing as well as on the trumpet. When mouthpiece buzzing, strive to achieve a gentle, easy-sounding buzz and a constant airflow.
    Take the time to make sure every note is perfectly centered, even if that requires playing each and every note on the page one at a time. A tuner is a musician’s best friend; there is no substitute for its honesty. Keep it on the music stand and turned on, and check it frequently.
    Be sure you are playing with sufficient air and that your embouchure is not too tight or loose. These embouchure problems can make it almost impossible accurate and consistent intonation.
    If you are still having trouble playing a given melody in tune, put down the instrument and sing the phrase with a tuner or piano keyboard to identify intervals you are hearing incorrectly. Once you can sing the melody accurately, you can easily and reliably locate these notes on the instrument.
    As an advanced player, not only will you need to play each note in tune, but you will also need to harmonize with others, requiring you to adjust some notes slightly higher or lower than usual to match the surrounding harmony. For example, your E will need to be 14 cents lower to harmonize with a C (a major third).
    In practice, when harmonizing with others, you will need to use your ear, not the tuner. However, you can experiment with a friend using the chart below to train your ear to accurately hear these common harmonies.

Articulation
    Articulations lend definition and character a performance. They must be intentional, clear, accurate, and well-suited to the given passage. Listeners should not wonder if your notes were legato or staccato.
    To refine your articulation, practice Clarke’s Technical Studies using the same articulation for an entire exercise at a time – whether legato, marcato, staccato, or accented. Be sure the tongue always hits the same place to give the exact same sound to each note.
    Slow, diligent practice will enable you to hear what exactly you need. Listen carefully to what you are doing; when you can hear inaccuracies, you can fix them easily. To attain the highest rank as trumpeter, you will need flawlessly consistent articulation.

Rhythm
    Rhythmic irregularities are just as obvious as out-of-tune notes. When performing, perfect rhythm is a must. Make sure you understand the rhythm – how it lines up with both the beat and how it is subdivided within the beat. This requires intellectual effort. Mark with a pencil where the beats fall; then turn on the metronome and speak the rhythm out loud, making sure that the clicks occur in the same places as the ones you’ve marked. Next, play the rhythm on the trumpet with the metronome, but on a single note. Finally, add the correct notes.
    Work daily with the metronome to maintain a steady tempo and clarify your understanding of the rhythm. While it is useful to train yourself to keep the beat with your feet or toes (this requires feeling the beat internally), there is also no substitute for the unerring accuracy of a metronome. To get the best of both worlds, try playing the passage while tapping your foot, with the metronome on.
    If you don’t already own a metronome, you can either get a stand-alone device or buy an app for smartphone or tablet. Whichever you buy, it should be able to play subdivisions of the beat, especially for complex passages. Once you can play accurately with the beat subdivisions, you are ready to work with larger beats.
    Make sure you practice with a pencil handy. Your music is for study and active engagement, not hanging in your living room. Effective markings allow you to not waste your chops playing the same passage wrong over and over again. Be specific, concise, and legible, so that you do not have to solve the same problems tomorrow

Style
    Often students play with one style:  loud and fast. Once in a while that sets the perfect mood, but unless your name is Tim Morrison, some nuances will be missed. When exploring this aspect of your playing, there are three main areas you should consider: the composer’s intentions, historical period, and mood.

The Composer’s Intent
    Look at the tempo marking in the music, dynamics, and any other markings. Research what each marking means. Listen to recordings of the piece, as well as other works by the same composer, to learn the appropriate sound and style. Learn to match your own playing to the recording. For contemporary pieces, you may need to contact the composer directly to obtain a recording of the piece.
    If you are an advanced player, it may be illuminating to listen to recordings of many works by the composer of your new solo, excluding recordings of your actual piece (at least for a few weeks). This will allow you to flex your creative muscles in forming a distinctive interpretation.

Historical Period
    From Baroque to Classical, Romantic to 20th Century, each period of music has its own palette of sounds. Learn about the composer and historical period of each piece you begin. For example, say you just got the music to Telemann’s Trumpet Concerto in D. The piece is Baroque, which means that its emotional qualities should be expressed tastefully and in moderation. This calls for clean, clear articulations and distinct contrasts between loud and soft. Once you can play the notes accurately, add musical ornaments such as mordents, trills, and appoggiaturas.
    After finishing the Telemann, your teacher assigns the Hindemith Trumpet Sonata. You consult a musical dictionary and discover that a sonata is essentially a duet between the piano and trumpet. You begin to learn both parts and how these fit together. In talking to your teacher, you learn that Hindemith wrote the piece in response to the genocide in Europe during World War I. You seek ways to express the darker qualities of the piece through dynamics, vibrato, and tempo.

Mood
    When a composer writes p or f in the music, it is up to you to discover what mood they may have in mind. Soft dynamics may convey mystery, suspense, or tenderness. Loud dynamics may convey passion, joy, excitement, or anger. Listen to a recording a few times. Try to determine if one feeling characterizes the whole piece or if there are many shifts in mood. Above each phrase in your music, write your ideas about what the phrase is saying.
    To express the mood, you may use sharp articulations to convey anger; dynamic swells and vibrato to convey passion and emotionality. As you gain intensity, the tempo could surge forward or remain steady to convey a sense of inevitability and impending doom.
    The speed and intensity of vibrato will reflect the mood as well as the historical period. You may vibrate more freely in romantic music than in Baroque pieces, where vibrato is used only occasionally as an ornament.

Using the Fundamentals for Success
    A long-legged freshman with a dream of being the next Wynton Marsalis, Chris practiced whatever came easily. He knew he would somehow become a great trumpeter, but in reality, his technical mastery stalled out somewhere around Barracuda Blues.
    Chris and I re-structured his practice around the five core elements, working through a tall stack of method books over the next few years – the usual suspects (Arban, Bordogni, Brandt, Clarke, Schlossberg, Stamp) as well as lesser-known ones (Brandt, Goldman, Irons, Bai, and Sachse). Each exercise was chosen to develop one of the five elements.
    In fall of his senior year, Chris was almost unrecognizable compared to the player I met four years before. Flying across the country for his Juilliard audition, he opened his Haydn Trumpet Concerto in Eb on the plane and mentally played through the piece, his concentration unbroken by the activity of travelers around him. A few weeks later, his acceptance arrived.
    It takes very little discipline to practice the things you enjoy, or to engage in last-minute for an upcoming audition. It requires considerably more intellectual effort and self-mastery to design your practices around the five core elements of playing. Consistent, structured study will give mastery over the instrument and long-term success.  

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    As band students progress to grade three music, the instrumentation for many compositions now includes a piccolo. A successful transition from flute to piccolo requires some additional instruction as there are some significant differences between the instruments.

History of the Piccolo
    In French music, the piccolo is called the petite flûte (pte. fl.); while in German music, the kleiner flöte; and in Italian, flauto piccolo or ottavino. In intermediate level band music, it will be referred to as the piccolo. The modern day piccolo descends from the military fife of the middle ages, and its history is similar to that of the flute. As keys were added on the flute, so were they added on the piccolo. However, while the flute is now made in three parts (headjoint, body and footjoint), the piccolo continues to be built in two parts (headjoint and body). In recent times, modern piccolos include a C# trill key and the split E mechanism that are popular options on student and professional model flutes. In the early 20th century, piccolos were pitched in Db, but now are pitched in C. 

Range
    The modern piccolo has a range of about three octaves from D5-C8, the top note on the piano. The notes of a piccolo part sound one-octave higher than written. The notes in the lower range are generally softer, while the upper notes are on the louder side. In ensemble settings, the middle to high range is most frequently used; however, composers often use the mellow, haunting quality of the low notes for certain effects.

Specifications
    Piccolos are made in a variety of materials, primarily of wood, silver, plastic (resin) or a combination of materials. Wooden piccolos are preferred for orchestral and indoor band work while silver or plastic models work best for marching band. Most wooden piccolos do not have an embouchure plate and this can be challenging for students.

How Many Piccolos?
    For indoor orchestra/band rehearsals and concerts, one piccolo is the best choice because of the difficulty of tuning two piccolos to each other. The exception to this is for Sousa’s Stars and Stripes where three or more piccolos often play the solo in the trio section of the march. A good rule to remember is to either use one piccolo alone or have three or more piccolos play together.
    In marching band, it is better to have all flute players play piccolos. Some university marching bands use dozens of piccolos rather than flutes on the field. This is partly due to the added projection a section of piccolos brings to the show, but also for the physical health of the flute players.
    To play the flute well, the proper  stance is to place the left foot forward and the right foot back; this is opposite of the feet-together stance required in marching band. In concert performance the flute is slanted slightly down, and the end of the flute is quite forward. This placement is due partly to the design of the modern embouchure hole. However, modern marching band rules require the flutes to be parallel to the ground with the end of the flute closer to the player’s body. This placement works against producing a professional sound on the flute; so many flute teachers prefer students  play piccolo in marching band. 

Getting Started
    Many band directors select one flutist to play piccolo for the entire year. It is better to assign a different flutist to play piccolo on each piece. Since the piccolo is about half the size of the flute, and the embouchure hole is significantly smaller, the piccolo is placed higher on the lip than when playing flute, and the aperture (hole in lips) is made smaller. If a student plays only piccolo for a school year, he will lose his flute sound because he will play flute with a piccolo embouchure. It is better for the progress of each student to take turns playing piccolo. Then each player has a chance to keep his flute embouchure in shape and also receives the added experience of playing piccolo. Professional flutists are expected to switch from flute to piccolo, alto flute, and bass flute regularly. 
    One student often plays piccolo for an entire year because the school has only a single instrument. Student-model piccolos are relatively affordable, however, and music stores and pawn shops often have inexpensive used instruments available. Never purchase an instrument that you have not played with a tuner.

Where to Sit?
    Place the piccolo player where the end of the piccolo will not be in anyone else’s ear. If your flutes are in the front row, place the piccolo player on the end of the row on the conductor’s left side (when conducting). During rehearsals and concerts, this means that several students will switch chairs between each composition. Each flutist and piccolo player should have his own music stand.

Assembling the Piccolo
    Carefully remove the piccolo from the case without bending any of the keys. With the cleaning rod, gently insert the rod into the headjoint checking to be sure that the line on the cleaning rod is in the center of the embouchure hole. This is the starting point for tuning the piccolo. When assembling the piccolo, align the center of the embouchure hole with the center of the right-hand keys. Pull the headjoint approximately ¼ inch from the body. Play a D6 (sounding a D7) with the tuner. If the D6 is in tune, this is probably the best amount to pull out or push in. If the D6 is sharp, pull it out a bit more. If flat, push in.

Seeing a Pitch, Hearing Another
    Since the piccolo sounds one octave higher than the written and fingered note, students have difficulty figuring out which octave they are actually in when first beginning to play. Start the student out by playing a D major scale, beginning on the lowest note (finger D4 of the flute fingering, but sounding D5) and slowly ascend the scale. Remind the student to place the piccolo higher on the lip and to make the aperture smaller by shaping the lips as if saying something like pooh or pure. A mirror is a powerful tool to see the size of the embouchure. A flat coffee stirrer straw placed in the lips will help students learn where and what to squeeze to make the aperture smaller.
    Have students go up the scale several times to become comfortable playing the piccolo without the added distraction of reading notes. Play this scale slurred and tongued. Since the piccolo is smaller than the flute, the response time is quicker. Most flute players say they can easily single tongue passages on the piccolo that on the flute they would double tongue. Repeat using an ascending chromatic scale beginning on the same low D.
    Repeat these scales starting a half-step higher (an Eb scale, E scale, F scale etc.) until students reach a C scale. At the highest notes, most piccolos respond better with the right-hand pinkie off for the top Bb, B, and C.

When to Play
    Some composers write a separate piccolo part. This is the best option because it is clear to the flute section and the piccolo player when each should play. Other composers present one flute part with places where a player changes to piccolo. If the composer wants the flute to change to piccolo, he will write muta piccolo which means change to piccolo. At this point the flute section is tacet, and only the piccolo plays the passage. It will be indicated muta flute when the player is to return to flute. At other times a composer will write add piccolo or piccolo out in the part. In this case the other flute players continue to play the passage with one of them taking the part on the piccolo starting with the add piccolo and changing back to flute at piccolo out.

Melodic Work
    While the piccolo part may be written to add punctuation or rhythmic intensity to a concert piece, many composers use the piccolo melodically. Practicing simple melodies will prepare the student for these places in the literature. A good place to start is a beginning flute method, playing the songs on the piccolo rather than the flute. Later most professional piccolo players find that Baroque sonatas (Handel, Marcello, Telemann) and the Telemann Twelve Fantasias on the piccolo produce an added dimension to their tone and expressive performance. 

Out of Tune?
    Every piccolo player encounters passages where a certain fingering that worked on the flute produces an out-of-tune note on the piccolo. Students should search online for alternate piccolo fingerings to try, checking the pitch with a tuner. Students should keep a diary of alternate piccolo fingerings for use in the future. Unfortunately all piccolos are not the same and what might be in tune on one brand of instrument may be out of tune on another. Remind students that the piccolo is a wind instrument, and it takes wind to generate the sound. A steady air stream is a valuable tool to have when playing piccolo.
    Since the piccolo plays the highest note in the ensemble, students should listen intently to the lowest pitches in the band to learn where to set the intonation.

Practicing
    Most professional piccolo players practice piccolo parts on the flute first and then practice them on the piccolo at the end of the practice session. Scales, arpeggios, scales in thirds, seventh chords and chromatic scales are good fundamental materials to review. Most etude books work well on the piccolo, and there are a few books devoted to the piccolo.

Vibrato
    As the top-sounding instrument in an ensemble, a tasteful vibrato enhances the entire sound of the group. So unless it is indicated non vibrato, the player should play with vibrato. The general rule is that as the notes ascend, the vibrato speed increases. Think about the vibrato speed that a cellist employs in relationship to the vibrato speed of a violinist. In other words, a piccolo player will vibrato a bit faster than the flute players.

Never be Shy
    Novice piccolo players are uncomfortable playing piccolo parts as they are written. Most want to play the piccolo part so it blends into the flute section sound. However, like other auxiliary instruments (English horn, Eb clarinet etc.), the piccolo is used for color and effect and should be heard. If the piccolo notes are not in the correct octave, (partly because of fear of being heard), encourage students to be brave and play the piccolo part out strongly in the octave where it is written. As students get more control of the instrument, they will become comfortable with the instrument’s role in the ensemble.

Safety
    The piccolo’s has a high range and loud volume, so piccolo players should always wear an ear plug in the right ear. Many players have had good success with foam ones; however, students who want to eventually play professionally may want to have a custom ear plug made by an ENT doctor.

Piccolo Care
    Wood piccolos should be kept at an even temperature. A piccolo should not be left in an automobile in the summer or winter. If brought into an air conditioned rehearsal room, the piccolo should warm up naturally before playing. The goal is to keep the wood from cracking.
    Just as in playing the flute, students should wash hands and brush teeth (or gargle water) before playing in order to keep the inside and outside of the piccolo free from sugars or grime. At the end of a practice students should swab the piccolo out. Silk swabs are the most absorbent; however, do point out that it only takes a very small amount of cloth to fill out the inside of the piccolo. If the swab is too big, the silk will get stuck inside the piccolo and a repairman will have to take off the keys of the piccolo to get the swab out. Silk swabs are available for purchase. Another option is the Flute Flag which allows piccolo players to swab the instrument during rehearsals without taking it apart.
    In recent years the piccolo’s popularity as an instrument has increased tremendously. Contemporary composers write piccolo solos and concertos, and the advent of the flute choir has added performance opportunities for flutists to play piccolo. Encourage all of your flutists to learn to play this exciting instrument.  

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Recording Rehearsals
    Rehearsal recordings should be a snapshot in time. A student might have a bad reed or a school bell might ring, but such things should be little concern. In case of a major interruption, simply restart the tune.
    The easiest method to record rehearsals is with a portable digital recorder with built-in microphones. There are several manufacturers from which to choose. Some of the biggest names are Zoom and Tascam with others being made by Sony, RCA and Korg. Handheld recorders range in price from less than $100 up to over $600. All of these recorders use solid-state media, meaning the recorder has no moving parts but instead records to a memory card just like a digital camera. SD cards are the primary method of storage but some use micro SD cards or memory sticks. The quality of many of these recorders is actually quite remarkable. If you own an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, the Tascam iM2 is a stereo microphone that will plug into the dock connector of your device. In addition, a search for audio recorder in the app store of any smart phone will produce many results.
    If you can place the recorder in the front center of the performance space so the microphones on the recorder can pick up the entire room without being obstructed by other students, equipment, or music stands, it will offer a fairly realistic representation of the ensemble’s performance that day. Finding the correct distance is important. A microphone that is too far away records extraneous room noise and an ensemble level that may be too low. If a mic is too close, certain players may dominate the sound. This is especially true with outstanding players. Sometimes outstanding players cause grief because they play with such exceptional tone and rhythmic accuracy that they stick out. Distance mitigates that and gives you a more blended sound. Try to leave enough space between the ensemble front to back, or by height, to avoid such a thing.
    Most recorders can record in WAV (Wave Form Audio file) format, but another option might be a compressed MP3 file. WAV files offer the highest sound quality, but are the largest size. MP3 files are smaller; using this format will means more music can be recorded at once, although some of the quality is sacrificed.
    Using a handheld device makes it easy to play back the recording immediately by plugging the recorder into a PA system or stereo in the room. Some also offer the possibility of plugging in external microphones that may enhance your recording. In addition, any of these devices can download their files to a computer for trimming or cutting into tracks (songs) for easier sharing with students, or other directors or staff members.

High-Quality Recordings
    Directors planning to make a high quality recording for an audition or to sell as a fundraiser will need better equipment than a handheld recorder. There are two types of microphones: condenser and dynamic. Recordings should be made using condenser microphones. A condenser mic is more sensitive and requires external power. In the old days condensers would have a battery built into the microphone, but these days, most mixers, even low-priced, two-channel mixers, have a feature called phantom power that runs electricity through microphone cables to power these mics.
    Condensers produce better tonal characteristics because they are more sensitive. With dynamic microphones you lose much of the crystaline clarity that condensers give. In addition, the extreme high ranges are lost with dynamic microphones; they cannot reproduce sounds in the extreme high register as well as a condenser. Such softer instruments as bowed strings, flutes, clarinets, and guitars can be recorded with dynamic microphones and will sound okay, but they sound exceptional with condensers.
    Two to three condenser mics will be sufficient to produce a good recording. Avoid recording with two different microphones. Use two identical mics. It is easy to fall into the mistaken logic that the side of the band with all the woodwinds should have a stronger mic than the side with the brass, but in your ears the resulting recording will sound unpleasant. It is better to go with one microphone and get a mono recording that get a stereo one with mismatched microphones. Good condenser microphones include the Shure SM81, the Rode NT1, and several options from MXL if you are on a tight budget. Take care using condenser microphones. Condensers have an extremely fragile diaphragm that looks like a piece of onionskin. Never blow into or tap on condenser mics to test them. It will create too much pressure and rip the diaphragm.

Microphone Set-Up
    If using two microphones they can be equally spaced across the front of your ensemble, dividing the group into thirds, or set up right in the center of the group behind the conductor. If spaced in thirds, the mics can just be faced straight to the back of the band perpendicular to the front of the group. If placed behind the conductor, I recommend they be crossed in an X pattern facing opposite corners of the group. (As shown left.) This allows for a uniform recording that will sound very much like what you hear standing in front of the group. Try both setups and see which version sounds better to you. Everyone has a favorite. If using three microphones, place one behind the conductor and the other two equally spaced in front of the band facing straight to the back of your group.

Ensemble Set-Up
    If I know something might dominate the sound, such as an extremely high piccolo part, we start recording right on this section of the music and immediately listen back. If the sound is dominant, we move the student to a different location, play that section again, and listen back. When I’m satisfied with how that section sounds, we leave the player in the best spot and record the entire piece. This keeps pacing going, and students enjoy this part because they get to hear their results right away and be part of the discussion. It makes them feel like they are in a studio setting and have input into that final product. With a rehearsal recording, I do not worry about such things because I just want to hear how the group sounds.
    To keep track of multiple takes, when I make recordings, I always say which take it is. I start the recorder, let it run for a few seconds in silence, check it to make sure it’s running, say the date and which take it is, then give it three to five seconds of silence before starting the tune. We might record three takes of a piece. The silent space around the take announcement makes an easy-to-spot visual marker when I look at the waveform on the computer screen. It is also a good way to check which take of a piece I am listening to.
    When choosing which take to use, I sometimes include students in the decision. I can identify from up front how I felt about a take, but they know better how they played. If there is a difference of opinion, we can discuss why one take was better than another; this is an excellent educational tool that forces students to analyze and defend their opinions. A student might admit to poor tone on a high passage or complain that the tempo felt unsteady in one section. Sometimes students are more critical of their performance than their teachers, and that is a good thing.

Tweaking Audio
    An audio interface will be necessary when recording directly to a computer. This is a basic mixer with one, two, four, or eight channels made specifically to hook into a computer via USB, Firewire, or Thunderbolt ports. It is not a device that you would hook into a professional audio system or use to mix a performance. M-Audio, Lexicon, and PreSonus manufacture great audio interfaces that start at about $50. When purchasing this type of interface, get one with at least two microphone inputs.
    The audio interface controller allows control of the microphone volume and sometimes offers control over additional parameters. Sometimes you can adjust the tone or equalization of the microphones. This should be rarely used; it is best to capture the natural sound. If you use too much equalization the sound will be a bit unnatural. Usually, it is better to record with equalization flat and neither add to nor detract from the original sound. Then you adjust it after you capture the sound.
    These controls are best used to warm up the tone slightly by giving the recording the tiniest bit of low end or take a bit of edge off shrill upper woodwinds by tweaking the equalization slightly. If you capture poor-quality sound by adjusting too much beforehand, it is unfixable. Just because the controls are available in the audio interface, that doesn’t mean they should be used. Think of them as the fine tuners near the bridge of a violin rather than the tuning pegs by the scroll.
    Sometimes more advanced interfaces have compressors or limiters to control the overall volume coming into the microphone. If the incoming sound is too loud it can ruin a recording. Microphones have a limit to how much volume they can handle, and limiters help keep sound under control so a loud bass drum attack doesn’t splat on the recording. Normally when purchasing one of these controllers you also receive bundled recording software allowing you to record your group as well as edit, enhance, and fix errors in performance.
    There is little that can be done to fix a recording of a large ensemble, because most bands and orchestras will be recorded at two or three tracks (left, right, center) at most. This is the time to brighten or darken the sound slightly by adding equalization. If a recording was made in a relatively dead space you might add some reverb to imitate the sound of a concert hall. Unfortunately, the only way to fix something like a squeaking clarinet is to rerecord the entire piece. Unless you are multitracking with a mic and channel for every instrument or section, there is little else to be done.
    For those with an iPad, Alesis came out with a device called the iO Dock that has two microphone inputs, two instrument inputs, and a headphone out jack. It is touted to work with any recording app downloaded separately from the iTunes App Store.
    The final piece of the recording puzzle if using a computer or other mixer, is setting the correct pan position. Pan is usually a control on a mixer, and will be a knob labeled L on one side and R on the other. If a microphone is panned all the way left, all the sound that mic picks up will come out the speakers or the headphones on the left side only. This is one control to check before the group plays. Panning gives a recording a realistic sound by allowing the microphone facing right to be recorded on the right track and the left mic to the left track. Think of the microphones as ears. Having our ears on opposite sides of the head means that each ear picks up a different mix of sound. If you set up two mics but pan them both center, the recording will be extremely lifeless; it has no depth. When you pan them out left and right, it’s like the flower has blossomed and there is color again. In a three-microphone set-up, the mic in the center of the ensemble should stay panned center.

    Recording an ensemble can be incredibly useful for both students and teachers. With a little experimentation and practice, you can create wonderful recordings.   

The post How to Make Successful Recordings appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

Gregariousness
    Gregarious band students love to be in a crowd, have many friends, and dislike solitary or independent tasks. They are leaders and joiners. Their gregariousness can be positive as shown by their popularity and friendliness or negative when they challenge authority or become the rotten apples that spoil the whole barrel.
    Band offers a haven for gregarious students and plays into their natural instincts; band events themselves are great motivators because these students get to be in a crowd. These are probably the easiest kids to motivate. However, a conscious effort is necessary to nurture these types of students. Give them organizational responsibilities where they work with others on important projects like fundraising or organizing a trip or band party.

Autonomy
    Autonomous band members prefer to work independently where everything depends on their own actions. Autonomous band students are often quite productive and focused, but prefer going it alone so they have more control and can make their own decisions. They cannot tolerate the indecisiveness and debate involved in group decisions.
    Unfortunately, autonomous types can have difficulty seeing how they fit into a group that often depends on finely-tuned cooperation between individual members. Sometimes first chair players have absolutely no interest in being a section leader or a leader of any kind. I can recall pushing a good player to pursue a leadership position and immediately regretting the move when it became obvious that he was not motivated to lead. Some students benefit from a push toward leadership, but at some point a director has to accept that leadership is not for every student. Autonomous students are best motivated by tasks that they can do alone, whether it be composing or arranging a piece for the band or preparing a solo.

Status
    Students who are motivated by status have self-esteem that is directly tied to the opinion of others. They worry about what others think and are sensitive to criticism. They often need reassurance and praise. The effectiveness of praise has been debated in educational circles for many years, but there is a happy medium between lavish, undeserved praise and withholding praise completely.
    One alternative to praise is encouragement. This is often thought to be synonymous with praise but it is not. Praise is largely conditional; it recognizes success, but is withheld in response to failure. Encouragement, on the other hand, is a positive acknowledgement of a child’s effort or progress. Praise works, but encouragement is better.
    In his autobiography Cellist, Gregor Piatigorsky tells of his first meeting with Pablo Casals. The nervous Piat played a Beethoven sonata, making several mistakes. Casals praised Gregor and gave a detailed review of all the sections he most enjoyed. Gregor knew that he had played poorly and was greatly disappointed at what he saw as Casal’s obvious insincerity.
    Some years later, the two men had become colleagues and friends. One evening, Gregor reminded Casals of their first meeting and told Casals how disappointed he was by his lack of candor. Casals responded angrily, “I praised you for the passages you played beautifully and musically. Leave it to the ignorant and stupid who judge by counting on the faults.”
    Besides encouragement, other are good substitutes for praise are interest, gratitude, and enthusiasm. Lavoie speaks of what he terms “the power of interest.” More than praise, just expressing an interest in the lives of our students beyond band can foster motivation; people love talking about themselves. Expressing gratitude to a student underscores the importance of their role in band. Enthusiasm, regardless of personality type, is a necessity for a teacher.

Inquisitiveness
    Inquisitive people are extremely curious and have a need to learn and know. They continuously ask questions. These are often the students who drive a director crazy. Their main form of communication is through asking questions about anything and everything. The good news? Inquisitive students often volunteer, love information, and enjoy experimenting. The key to working with these students is channeling their creativity. These are the type of students who would love to publish a band newspaper or set up a band website. Some may even try composing.

Aggression
    I had a student several years ago who was quite outspoken and opinionated. She often approached me and started her sentences with “Will you please tell everyone that….” As I tired of this, I decided that if it needed to be said I would let her get up in front of the band and say it. It made her feel better, lessened her aggression, and was probably better received from her since it was from a peer rather than me.
    Aggressiveness is not necessarily a negative trait. It can be channeled from bullying and intimidation into positive aspects like leadership. Aggressive people are willing to confront perceived injustice or unfairness, and they are interested in expanding their sphere of influence.
    If an aggressive student is challenging you, there can be problems. However, if a director judiciously redirects the student’s energies, the aggressiveness can be of great value. Aggressive students are power-driven and relish responsibility and authority. This should not be viewed as a negative trait. A child motivated by power is among the most feared and misunderstood in bands. Sometimes we may believe that they want our power. That is not the case – they just want some of their own. It’s like a candle: I can touch a wick of mine to yours without diminishing mine.
    Aggressive students believe that every situation should have someone in charge even if it is not them. If a leader fails to take charge, power-driven children will take charge because they need structure. Seek the power child’s advice, give him responsibility, let him help others, let him help generate solutions, and step in to negotiate when appropriate.

Power
    A couple of years ago I had two junior high students locked in a real power struggle. They were friends, but very competitive friends, and both really liked taking charge. Unfortunately, there was only room for one president, and the vice-president kept wanting to take over the president’s responsibilities. This was actually a good problem because in some years no one wants to take charge. I solved the problem by defining their roles more clearly and expanding their responsibilities so they both were able to have some measure of power independent of the other.
    Many power-driven students have leadership potential. Coach them on leadership skills because they often have negative traits that prevent them from achieving leadership positions. Guide and direct, do not thwart.

Recognition
    Most people are driven by recognition for their accomplishments and efforts. Recognition-driven people are not necessarily braggarts preening for attention. Some, for whatever reason, have a greater need for recognition than others.
    I had a parent tell my assistant that her daughter didn’t believe she received enough credit for the things she did for the band. When he relayed that comment to me I was incredulous. I easily rattled off several times I had recognized her work both privately and publicly. The stubborn part of me wanted to stop recognizing her if she was going to be difficult about it. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that recognition was the fuel that kept her going, and that in terms of motivation she was a gas-guzzler as opposed to a fuel-efficient hybrid. That’s okay. She was a hard worker, and if it took extra encouragement to keep her going, that was fine with me.
    For some students, particularly girls, public recognition is abhorrent to them and more of an embarrassment than anything else. A kind word or compliment given individually is all that they need and many actually prefer. I regularly compliment individual students on the way back to the band room after marching practices.

Affiliation
    This student thrives on connection with others and with organizations, movements, and institutions. They seek a sense of belonging and particularly value the attention of the director. While some players never set foot in your office, these kids seem to never leave. By their senior year, these students have collected mountains of band-wear, enough to fit them for an entire month.
    For some kids, affiliation is not important, and this can be a source of frustration for the affiliated-minded director. I had one class of students that rarely hung out in the band room in their spare time and infrequently wore their band shirts or anything else that connected them with band. This irked me a little, but they were some of my most dependable band members. It was just that affiliation was not the driving force of their band experience.
    Like the gregarious child, students with a strong need for affiliation are the easiest to motivate. Despite this, an effort needs to be made by the director to take advantage of this positive trait and provide opportunities for them to socialize and bond beyond the typical band practices and performances.
    Determining a child’s motivational type is not an exact science. It is complex because traits are often reflective of various categories. The important thing is to be attuned to individual students personalities and characteristics. If this is done, a pattern will surface that directors can use to motivate each one most effectively. So before considering a kid lazy, view him as a challenge. Make every effort to discover what gets his motor running. Speaking of motors, I need to go check the oil and steering fluid in my minivan; I should have done it weeks ago.

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With your background in marching, why do you focus on concert band?
    Concert band is the hub of our program. It is a controlled environment without the additional environmental or physical responsibilities that come with marching or the articulation and improvisation concerns of jazz. In concert band, we work on a fundamental sound, articulation, and balance, and dig into those concepts through many different styles, composers, and genres. Once these basics are ingrained in concert band class, they naturally transfer to the field or jazz ensemble.
    Indoors and outdoors, the pyramid of sound is important, with bass voices being strongest and the tenor, alto, and soprano voices fitting within that. It should not stop at balancing these four voices, however; there should be balance within each voice as well. In rehearsal I might ask only soprano voices to play and work on the balance in these instruments. In a forte passage, trumpets might have to play mezzo piano to produce a desirable balance.
    This gets more complicated when trying to balance a major chord. The root should be loudest and the fifth just a little bit softer, but the third should be much softer. This is because in the overtone series, roots occur most frequently, followed by fifths, and finally thirds. Science says the third occurs less often in nature, so we naturally want to hear it less in a chord. Sometimes I look at an orchestration and see that most of an ensemble has the third of a chord. This makes a chord sound strange, so you have to back these students down. At the same time, try to figure out why the composer made that choice in orchestration.
    Marching band is no different. If students learn these sound and style concepts during concert band, they will only need review on the field. This is why I have never have to transition from an outdoor field sound to indoor concert sound. My indoor sound is my outdoor sound.

How do you maintain order in rehearsals?
    I love teaching and hate having to be the disciplinarian. As a new teacher, I would feel bad when I got angry and had to get after students. After four or five years of teaching and a few trips to the Midwest Clinic, I realized that a few students causing trouble were depriving the other 95% of the class of an education, and discipline meant defending the majority’s right to learn. Directors can often avoid problems with consistency, structure, and clearly defined class procedures. If students are engaged in the rehearsal, they will not look for other ways to entertain themselves. When there is a discipline problem, I look to myself first to see why some students might have lost interest. To engage such students more I might get off the podium and teach from the middle of the classroom or give announcements next to chatty students.
    Every now and then there are those students who desire lots of attention. I learned a great discipline trick from Todd Ryan, our visual caption head at Blue Devils. When he first got there in 1994, there were veteran lead sopranos who had been there a long time, did not want to change the marching technique, and gave Todd a hard time. I asked how he got everybody to accept and do what he wanted, and he responded, “I praised the heck out of the third sopranos. After weeks of hearing about how wonderful the thirds were, the lead sopranos wanted to be praised too, so there were only two outcomes: the leads were going to do what I wanted or age out.” Everybody wants a pat on the back. If you have a troublemaker, praise everyone around him. The students getting the praise feel great, and the troublemaker learns a better way to get attention. The first time the troublemaker does what you want, lavish him with praise. Be sure that the praise is genuine, however.

How do you keep students interested during rehearsals?
    One way is to teach students how the band should sound from the front. As a percussionist, I never knew how a band sounded, because I stood in the back. Sometimes I bring the percussionists or other sections to the front to listen to the ensemble, and ask them to compare our band to what they hear on recordings. I also bring them up while working on a balance problem or a difficult wind passage. This is a great way to keep the percussionists engaged. I ask them what they hear, and they all comment that the band sounds completely different from in front than it does in the back.
    When I am working different sections of a piece, I talk to the sections that aren’t playing. If I work with flutes, I will ask, “Trumpets, what did you notice? If you were the director, what would you suggest?” Get students engaged. Many of these ideas came from being bored out of my mind in rehearsals. Often the percussion are doing okay, and directors, including me, can become focused on inconsistencies in the winds. Forcing myself to keep the percussionists involved reminds me to keep all the winds interested as well, even when I am not working with their sections.
    I also encourage students to be street smart about learning. Just because they are not being taught directly does not mean they cannot learn. They can learn a great deal by watching the mistakes of other students and listening to my instructions. If I teach a stylized rhythm to one section, the street smart players had better notice that they have the same rhythm later and make the same adjustment in their parts.

How should competition be handled?
    Competition can be good, but I do not think winning or beating other bands is a good carrot of motivation. In marching band, I tell students that I know the show extremely well from having written the drill and worked closely with the design team. With that level of knowledge, I know where the problems are likely to come up. My students’ job is to compete against me and the staff to shut us up. I tell the Blue Devils the same thing when I work with them. I demand a lot but then tell them to think of how good they will be when they can march and perform at the level where I have nothing to fix.
    I also encourage students to compete with each other. I ask one section to march and play a portion of drill, then ask the rest of the band what they observed. Then the next section is up. The goal is for students to see and hear what I see and hear. On Wednesday nights, our one full-ensemble night rehearsal, we have the section of the night, an idea I got from a great friend Roger Brooks. During the last 15 minutes of rehearsal, the staff texts me their vote for section of the night. We look for such factors as rehearsal etiquette, enthusiasm, and overall improvement, rather than which section has the best performers. The reward is that section is announced, and they get to call everybody to attention for dismissal at the end of rehearsal. There is no trophy, just recognition for a great job. The competitiveness between the sections is all in fun, but it makes the rehearsal just incredible.
    At marching competitions, the bar we set is to perform the show as well as they did at their best run-through so far. The next week the bar will be higher because there has been another week to practice. In competition, students know when they did not do their best. A first place trophy is nice, but if we win a competition without performing as well as we can, then it means less. Conversely, if we have the best run we have had all year but finish seventh, the placement isn’t anything to be ashamed of; it simply means that was where the judge ranked the performance compared to the other bands. Performing our best and rasing the bar at each outing is our goal and worth much more. Playing the best you ever have is worth much more. If the scores do come out our way, that is just a bonus.

How much sightreading do you do?
    We sightread as much as possible. The jazz band reads 100-125 tunes a year, and the concert bands read 20-40 pieces each. I occasionally sightread the score right along with them, hoping I won’t fall on my head. When I do make a mistake, we simply stop, collect ourselves, and keep going. Students see this and then feel comfortable about making mistakes and learn to move on as I did. Sometimes we don’t even talk about the music ahead of time; I pass something out, we read it, and then I collect it. This forces me to make sure I communicate my intent through conducting.
    I teach students to look at the title and composer for descriptive hints about the piece when they get new music. With some composers, such as Grainger or Sousa, students should have a good idea of what to expect ahead of time. If not, play more recordings. Students should check the obvious things, such as style, tempo, dynamics, and key changes. They should be able to guess whether they have the melody. For example, if a part has tied-together whole notes, it probably isn’t the melody; if the part looks interesting, it might be the melody or at least a prominent line and should be brought out. They should also look at where composers write in articulation and phrasing, because that is where they really want it. Where there is nothing written in, students must decide what to do with the phrase, and doing nothing is an incorrect choice. I encourage them to notice the high and low points of the piece and to watch me if there is an unfamiliar word on the page because I will do something different with my conducting to indicate what that word means.
    All ensembles should sightread as much as possible. If you only have 30 charts in your jazz library, read them all. It does not matter what grade they are, just read. Then call a school in the area to borrow some charts to sightread some more.

Why do young jazz players struggle with improvisation?
    They do not listen to enough jazz improvisation. Just as with developing tone, the best thing you can do for jazz students is to play jazz for them. Students have to listen to it. If I put French words in front of students who had never heard the French language before, they would have no idea whether they were pronouncing them correctly or even with the correct dialect. Listening is essential to playing jazz authentically.
    Young improvisers fall into the trap of thinking a solo is creating something from scratch. Frequently students start a good idea in the first few bars, but instead of slowly developing that idea over a chorus, they start a completely new idea every few measures. A solo should be one story that lasts throughout the improvised section. It should have an intro, development, tension, climax and resolution. I explain this idea with a short story: “I was late for a rehearsal and foolishly going a bit fast. I passed a police car hiding in the bushes, who quickly pulled out and chased me down. I slowed way down, and he followed me. I changed lanes, and he still followed me After trailing me for miles he pulled alongside me. I anxiously looked over, and he glared and shook his head before slowly driving past. Relieved, I exhaled and sank back down in my seat and did the speed limit all the way to rehearsal.” As I tell the story, I start with a calm, low voice. As I continue, I speak faster and faster, changing my tone and raising my pitch as I approach the climax of the story. I become most animated at the climax, and on the resolution, I become relaxed, my tone lowers, my pitch drops and I speak slower. I ask the students what the climactic part was, what the development was, and what the resolution was; all of which are easy questions to answer and essential elements to a good solo. Then I show students how to tell that story with one note. I start singing something simple, then get more active, change volume, change tone, and change velocity, just like I did when telling the story. Then it is their turn, using only Bb.

How do you select and use student leaders?
    There are approximately 30 student leadership positions between our Instrumental Music Council and Regiment Student Leadership (marching band), and I have high expectations for each. The application is lengthy and some students look at the packet and decide not going to apply. This weeds out many, but someone who is unwilling to do the work to apply is probably unwilling to do the work of the job as well.
    Students write a resume that explains why they are qualified for the position and provide two letters of recommendation, one from a peer and one from an adult. There is an essay that changes topics every year; this year, one choice was “Who is the most influential person in your life and why?” I do this to see how they write and to get to know them better. The application also has 16 questions to be answered in 50 words or less. Some of these are “What are your academic goals?” “What is your most significant contribution to the program?” and “What elements of this position interest you the most and least?” and 
“What elements of this position are you most and least prepared for?”
    Students also fill out a self evaluation given to me by a former booster president who works in human resources. The categories are position knowledge, communication, accountability, interpersonal skills, problem solving, and innovation, and there are three or four questions under each category, for which students have to rank themselves on a scale of one to five.
    The final phase is an interview with a panel of up to ten people, including me, our assistant conductor Mike Gangemi, the booster president, the current student IMC president, the drum major, several members of the high school faculty, and a community member who has never met these students before – usually someone from the corporate world. Each member of the panel has a copy of the application materials. Students come in one by one, and the first question is “Please introduce yourself and tell us why you are the most qualified person for this position.”
    From there, the panelists go through their notes and ask questions. Sometimes students write something in their applications contradictory to what one of the student leaders has heard them say. We are not there to make anyone upset, but the questions can become direct if dishonesty is detected.
    I have had freshmen go through the interview not quite aware of what they are getting into, but they apply again at the end of their sophomore year and nail it because they have already had the experience and are now more prepared. Students who have gone through this process and then gone to college interviews report back that their college interviews were easier because they had already had the experience of talking about themselves and felt comfortable. College graduates say our system was similar to their job interviews, and looking back, they valued the experience tremendously.
    When I first arrived at Westlake, we had parent boosters, with a president and a vice president. As the program grew, more tasks developed. We split up the booster vice presidency, and then created the same positions at a student level, so each booster had a student shadow. At the Midwest Clinic I attended a seminar in which the clinician said he tried not to do anything that didn’t require
a music degree. Someone else can make copies, fold programs, alphabetize forms, and clean out a storage area, but the director is the only one who can study a score, work with someone on their clarinet embouchure, and program a concert. Getting students and parents involved in the program allows me to focus on more director-specific tasks.
    Student leaders in charge of recruiting go with me to visit middle schools. They talk to eighth graders about what high school band is like. I also bring these students to eighth grade parent meetings. Last year one of my students accidentally took over the meeting. She spent 15 minutes answering questions from parents before I stopped her and commented, “A 14-year-old is running this meeting and fielding your questions rather well. These are the opportunities your students will have, and the mentors who will surround your children next year.”   

    Brian Peter has been teaching for 11 years in public schools in Southern California. He earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Southern California and a master of music in conducting from the American Band College. His has been on visual staff with the Blue Devils for 14, and earning six DCI World Championships – three seasons undefeated. Westlake Band consists of four concert bands, three jazz bands, four jazz combos, marching band, winter guard, and winter drumline. 

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