Resources for band directors

Thank you for your interest in our program and methods. Special thanks to those who attended our conference session. Please don't hesitate to reach out with comments and questions.

Band room procedures and processes

AMS Band Student Handbook (designed with a free Canva account)

Band room signage - mostly printed on 11x17 paper and laminated

Instrument Care Sheets (also designed in Canva)

Positive student communication through "Director's Notes"

General tone development

Amplified Warmups - differentiated by level and year of band; includes long tones, low range, lip slurs/octave slurs, pedal tones

An example of a low long tone exercise included in Amplified Warmups for second-year bands.

Instrument-specific tone development

Flute: Pneumo Pro, play on head joint only, harmonics

An example of a flute harmonics exercise we use with our students.

Clarinet: mouthpiece and barrel only - should sound a concert F-sharp; high range tuning exercies for embouchure development.

A clarinet high range tuning exercise we use with third-year (7th grade) clarinet students.

Saxophone: mouthpiece and reed only - should sound a concert A on alto sax mouthpiece, G on tenor sax, D or D-sharp on bari; long tones on difficult mid-range notes, as well as low- and high-range exercises for embouchure development.

Saxophone exercises we use with third-year (7th grade) students.

Brass: mouthpiece buzzing, pedal tones, lip slurs

Third-year (7th grade) trombone lip slurs.

Rhythm development

Teaching Rhythm Logically, by Darcy Vogt Williams

This method teaches a comprehensive system of writing and counting rhythms, introduces new rhythms systematically, and provides a mechanism to give students adequate repetitions for success.

An example of a rhythm chart from this system.

Unison sheets (example)

For band music rhythms that go beyond our fundamental base, we often project images with the notated rhythms so the band can learn them together.

LOTS of metronome

We use Yamaha Harmony Director HD-300's in two of our teaching spaces as well as tracks programmed in the Tonal Energy app.

Intonation development

Drones

Drones are sustained, resonant sounds that model in-tune pitches. Sources include:

Yamaha Harmony Director
Apps like Tonal Energy (example of a programmed track with drones)
Cello drones playlist

Passing a concert F around the band

Each section of the band plays a concert F for eight counts, matching pitch and resonance.

Key tuning exercises

In 8th grade, we use a series of key tuning exercises for different keys and chords found in our repertoire. This gives a good introduction to pitch tendencies and adjusting thirds for just intonation.

Individual tuners

We purchased a class set of Korg TM-60 tuners and contact mics, so entire lesson groups can use them simultaneously. They are great for teaching students awareness of pitch, how to tune, and instrument pitch tendencies.

Ensemble Balance/Blend

BBI: Balance, Blend, Intonation

As taught by Alex Kaminsky (VanderCook College of Music), BBI is an approach to creating transparency within sections. First, get everyone playing the same volume for balance, matching tone for blend, then matching pitch for intonation.

See the band room signage link for a printable poster PDF.

Concert F Around the Band

Each holds a concert F for 8 counts, with the goal of playing it with perfect blend and no interference beats, passing the note seamlessly to the next section.

Music Learning Process

This 5-step process is adapted from Darcy Vogt Williams and Chris Grifa. It provides manageable steps that isolate rhythm, articulation, pitches, and fingerings before playing the music.

Click the image to see more in a Google doc.

Scale technique

After introducing a one-octave chromatic scale in 6th grade, we start building toward a full-range chromatic in 7th and 8th grade. Each instrument begins with five-note building blocks, then gradually combines those blocks.

Click the image for the full 7th Grade Flute Chromatic Progression.

Our curriculum introduces three major scales in 6th grade (C, F, G), adds five more in 7th (Bb, D, Eb, A, Ab), and the last four in 8th grade. We start all instruments on C, F, and G for their instrument (not concert pitch) in order to clearly communicate the concepts of naturals, sharps, and flats.

We also incorporate a major scale component that has students write the key signature, note names on the piano, notes on the staff, and note names in tetrachords - four-note patterns.

Stand tent stickers

We use "stand tents" that fold and hang over music stands. Each tent has the student name on both sides along with places for stickers awarded for given achievements.

For our incentive system, we ordered custom stickers from stickeryou.com.

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