MR. DICKSON'S BAND STUFF

Whether your band has full instrumentation, or just 7 saxophones and 2 flutes, these simple chorales will work for you. All 6 chorales are based on the first one, and in fact all 6 can be played at the same time. But each successive chorale uses more complex rhythms and texture, so that concepts like "ties across the bar line" or "dotted rhythms" may be reinforced as your students learn them. Each chorale has 3 voices. Like a "flex band" concert piece, the parts may be played by any instrume

These are templates you can use to quiz your band students on the names and fingerings for their notes. Just print the page, write up to 15 notes on the staff that you want to assess, and then photocopy that paper. Save your originals to reuse them year after year! Use cases: Assess the fingerings for new notes that students are learning in class. Assess the fingerings for a new scale that they are learning. Assess the fingerings for notes in new key signatures. Assess the fingerings for

Download the PREVIEW to view the entire curriculum ;-)I wanted my middle school band students to have the opportunity to be creative and compose their own music. It is, after all, one of our curricular standards. But I did not want to put them through a needlessly prodigious music theory unit, nor do I have time for that. I also did not need to produce a class of 30 new Mozarts. I wanted something we could do once a week, that would teach them everything they need to know in order to start w

This is a printable template to assess students' understanding of Key Signatures, and help them understand what the key signature actually means for them while they are playing music. In my experience, it is all well and good if a student can "name" a key signature (two sharps is D major, etc.). But they need to understand what a key signature actually does, not just what it is called. They need to understand that there are 7 notes, every key signature has 7 notes in it, and every key signatur

Let's keep it nice and simple for our babies. This is a fingering chart for just the "first semester" notes. Print it and photocopy it, front and back, to have one paper to give every kid in the class. Flute, Clarinet + Bass Clarinet, Alto + Tenor + Bari Sax, Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Baritone, and Tuba. No oboe or bassoon. If they are smart enough to start on oboe or bassoon, they are probably smart enough to deal with a full fingering chart. Also, I did not have room on the paper ;-)

This is a complete fingering chart I made for my own students with the help of several professional horn players. It is straightforward and a little ugly, but it works. Much like myself.