Festival, Resources, and Hello Dolly!

 Man has it been a busy time for our bands! The DCHS band participated in Concert Camp on Tuesday and the 7th and 8th grade bands participated on Wednesday. These are all day events that include getting to have sectionals to work on better instrument technique followed by being directed by a guest conductor. You know that old bit about telling someone something a million times and then someone else walks up, says the same thing, and suddenly everyone gets it? It's a real thing and all of us need to hear the same thing in different ways for it to sink in. Guest instructors not only do this, but teach so much more. We learn as much as the students! In the end, loads of pizza and cookies were eaten, new information was learned, and amazing progress by the ensembles happened. It was a great time! From here, the bands will continue to work on the same music to make it even better to go perform at Concert Festival in March. A letter and blog update will be coming out in a couple weeks about this event. Don't forget to keep up with the calendar on dcband.org to see concert dates and more. 

The 6th grade band has begun learning a new scale. That's #2 in the books. The goal is 12 total major scales, one for each note. The better students know their scales, the better a performer they become. Please encourage them to practice their scales. But don't stop there! There are so many free resources on the internet! So here are just a few to help students want to practice. Why is that so important? You only get better and better the more you practice!  Every DMS student has a book (Essential Elements or Measures of Success). These come with free resources to play along, listen to tracks, correct missed notes/rhythms, and more!

The almighty Google Search! Type in the name of your instrument and the song you are looking for. Chances are you will find it and for free.  Musescore.com has 1,000's of songs! The band has an account and can print a part for you, just let us know.   Flutetunes.com all free flute resources!  Check out the links listed on the website as well. Find a new, great site? Share away and we will share with everyone!

This weekend was the GMEA District 7 Honor band. The Dade County Bands had three students participate: Jax Higdon (DMS), Makaela Chance and Landon Ramirez (DCHS). We are super proud of their hard work to represent Dade as some of the best musicians in our District!

The annual DMS Band and Chorus Dollywood trip letter has gone home! It is also at the bottom of this blog. Please send these back by next Tuesday, Feb. 21 with a deposit. In order to have our group reserved and get tickets on time, we have to have this sent in early, this is why the payments are scheduled for February and March and the trip is not until May. The Dade County School Systems bus policy states that only students and staff may ride buses. Only band and chorus students and school staff will be allowed on the buses. We have very limited room on the buses and encourage families to travel together to meet us at Dollywood. There will be a Remind for this trip. We will post the code asap for everyone to join. We are super excited to celebrate the bands hard work with a big fun day!