Lesson Materials

As your student begins fifth grade band, you might be asking yourself...what does my child need?

All Students

• Measures of Success, Book 1 specifically for your child's instrument (ex: if Johnny is playing the kazoo, you'll need a kazoo-specific book). These books can be found at any music store. If you are renting your instrument from a music store like Quinlan & Fabish, you've probably already ordered one.

• Instrument!  Seems silly to mention, but you will need to provide an instrument for your child! You can rent one from one of the music stores listed here - otherwise a family member, friend, or neighbor may have an instrument for you to use. If you decide to use an instrument that is not from a music store, make sure you get it checked out by a reputable music repair shop. Most music stores have repair shops associated with them. We do not provide instruments for any students

  • If you are renting from Quinlan & Fabish or Consolidated Music, they will drop your student's instrument off at their elementary school the day before the first lesson.

  • If you are renting from another music store OR you have your own instrument already, please make sure your child has it for their first lesson.

• iPad  Students will need their iPad for every lesson.

• Pencil  Every student must always have a pencil. Students will be rhythm diagramming their music in and out of class and making notes during lessons, so it is very important that they always have pencils with them. It's usually easiest to just leave it in their two-sided folder.

• Earbuds/Headphones  Now that elementary students have their own iPad to use, they can utilize the accompaniment music to the Measures of Success books (the CDs in the book) during lessons. If your student owns a pair of headphones or earbuds that you are comfortable with them bringing to school, they should bring them to lessons. They will not need these for rehearsals before school.

• Music Stand  Students will not need music stands for their weekly lessons at school, but they are incredibly useful for home practice and are necessary for the practices before school. As a personal story, I never used a music stand growing up so I would always have to look down at a coffee table to practice. This developed some bad physical habits (neck always arched, bad embouchure placement) and definitely didn't do me any favors in focusing.

Woodwind Players (flute/clarinet)

• Reeds (Clarinet only)  Reeds are so important to clarinet players! Please make sure you always have at least one extra reed available in case the one you are using breaks. As beginning musicians, I can tell you that you'll go through a lot of reeds throughout these first few months. They can very easily get caught in shirts, your neighbor's elbow, and even your hair! As long as you always have an extra reed handy, you'll be fine.

  • Recommendations:

    • Clarinet - size 3 Rico, Rico Royal Orange Box

• Cleaning Cloth (Both) and Cleaning Rod (Flute only)  After practicing, you'll notice that the inside of your instrument starts to get a bit moist. You'll need to make sure you have a cleaning cloth/swab for your instrument. I highly recommend getting a cloth made out of silk, as it absorbs moisture better than cotton and also won't get stuck inside your instrument. You need to swab out your instrument every time you finish practicing, otherwise mold can start to grow inside your instrument.

• Cork Grease (Clarinet only)  Cork grease is an essential for clarinets. Cork is used to help put the pieces of your instrument together and sometimes the cork gets a little dry. In this case, you'll use some cork grease to help the pieces fit together without any difficulty.

• Some other items that might make things easier on your clarinet player would be a Thumb-Eez (a thumb cushion) which pads where the right thumb rests. You can also purchase a small reed case (for 2 or 4 reeds only) to store reeds as an entire box will not fit in their cases.

Brass Players (trumpet/trombone/euphonium/baritone)

• Oils  If you are a brass player, you will always want (and need) oils to help keep your instrument in the best working order you can. Oil helps prevent slides and valves from getting stuck and unnecessary trips to the repair shop. For trumpets and euphoniums/baritones, you will need valve oil (Blue Juice or Al Cass are both excellent brands). If you are a trombone player, you will need slide oil or slide cream (Yamaha or Trombotine are great).

• Slide Grease  Every brass player needs slide grease so that their tuning slides remain movable and their instruments stay tunable. Superslick makes a nice slide grease you can use.

Percussion Players (drums/bells)

• You need to make sure you have both a drum pad (not an entire snare drum) and a bell set as part of your percussion kit. We will be playing both instruments and you will have to make sure you can keep up with two sets of assigned band homework.

  • Included in these kits should also be one pair of snare drum sticks and one pair of hard rubber mallets.