Thanksgiving, ABRSM exams and Concerts

The end of November and beginning of December have been a blur. Once we got back from activity week, it felt like a race to the finish… We had Thanksgiving, ABRSM exams, music evaluations, end of semester concerts and now finally, grading.
I guess I’ll start with Thanksgiving. This was the first time in my whole life that I had to go to school on Thanksgiving – it was pretty strange. Although the school did make a “special lunch” for the holiday. It was roast chicken and potatoes. It was alright – the gravy was definitely Indian gravy… The kids all knew it was Thanksgiving and some of them thought we shouldn’t have to have band rehearsal because of it--- I squashed that dream right away. That night the Bovens had invited a bunch of the “younger” teachers to their house for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. Beth and Emily/Jared made chicken (you can’t really get turkey here) and there were mashed potatoes, green beans, bread, more potatoes – I made stuffing (way too much of it) and lots of other things. It was a really fun night, there were probably about 12 people there. The only bummer was that we had to go to school the next day, no shopping here!
Also during Thanksgiving week, the music department was hosting ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) examinations. An examiner flew all the way from England to spend Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday testing our students. There are eight basic levels of examination on all the different instruments – plus a few higher levels that correspond to the university level in the UK. We had students testing from level one, all the way up to the diploma level (beginning of university). I had three clarinet students and one flute player testing at level three, on sax student on level four and two flutes and one clarinet player at level 5. Each student had to prepare three pieces of contrasting styles that came from the ABRSM list (two with piano and one unaccompanied), memorize selected scales and arpeggios, be able to sight-read at the appropriate level, and have a certain level of proficiency at a number of aural skills, including melodic memory and sight-singing. I believe all but one or two of our students participating passed and all of my woodwind students passed – several with merit and one with distinction. I was a little worried about instrument troubles going into the exam week, but I only had two minor catastrophes. The first one happened to the most adorable little seventh grade clarinet player on the night before her exam. She had been having problems with her barrel getting stuck on her clarinet and it happened again that evening and THEN her moveable thumb rest was extremely loose, because the screw had been stripped. We managed with her barrel and then, as much as I hate to admit this, I glued her thumb rest to her clarinet… Her exam went fine the next day. The other instrument problem happened to a 10th grade flute player in the middle of her exam. She was in the hall playing her scales for the examiner, when suddenly her flute “stopped working”… Luckily, it was nothing too difficult, one of her key adjustment screws had been bumped or something. So all I had to do was grab a little screw driver and put it back in place and then she continued her exam. BUT for the first couple seconds before I figured out what was wrong, I was pretty nervous about having a “broken” flute in front of me while this student was supposed to be in her ABRSM examination…
The next week was music evaluation week and concert week – BUT before that, Megan, Jeanne, Mandy, Stephanie, Tamara and one student went to a village wedding that Saturday night. It was a double wedding and I did not know either of the brides or grooms, but we all got invited through Tamara – who taught at Woodstock last spring. It was pretty fun, even if the cab ride down made us all a little sick…
When I say we went to a wedding, I really mean we went to the wedding reception. Traditionally, the ceremony takes place in the girl’s village in the morning and then the bride and groom make their way to the groom’s village for the festivities of the reception. Someone said that there were over 1,000 people at the wedding reception, it could very well have been true, because everywhere you looked, there were people. I didn’t get any pictures, because my camera battery had died – but I think Megan got a couple. It was pretty amazing to see the brides and grooms process in with people pushing and shoving all around them. Both of the brides looked exhausted and not very happy. I asked Tamara about this and she told me that they probably were very tired and they were not supposed to look happy – for two reasons; one being that they should be sad that they had to leave their family and old village to come live with a husband and new family that they didn’t know and two; if they showed even a hint of a smile it would mean that they were happy about consummating their marriage that night – and that would be BAD.
The majority of the night was spent waiting for the brides and grooms to arrive. Apparently, even the younger groom and his bride had to wait outside the village for a while until the older one (the grooms were brothers) arrived. Once there got there they processed into the village where they could sit in their “thrones”. There was a TON of food, we had the chance to eat inside someone’s home, which was nice. The food wasn’t great… most of us found goat hair in with our meat, not so appetizing… but I did kind of like the paneer. After we had eaten, a lady (maybe the grooms’ mother?...) ushered us into a small room where the two brides were sitting. They wanted to get a picture with all the “important” white people, even though they had absolutely no idea who we were… lol. Then as we were trying to leave, Jeanne encountered some people from another village that she visits often. They wanted to have some pictures taken AND one of the women “gave” some puffed rice snack mix to us – aka poured a bunch in each of our hands and then tried to shove more in our jacket pockets. I did not eat mine, because it really didn’t seem very sanitary, but both Mandy and Stephanie said it tasted like stale dry rice…
Ok, so the next week began with music evaluations. These were a little bit like juries in college. The students who had not performed at a recital or taken the ABRSM exams came in to play scales and perform a piece for a panel of music teachers. It was kind of fun being on the other side of the table for something like this! Although I didn’t have a chance to see all of the students that I teach, because we had two separate evaluation rooms ( I guess you can do that when you have 8 music teachers!).
Then it was time for concerts. Wednesday was the beginner concert, beginner orchestra, beginner band, elementary choir and junior strings. This year Emily is teaching beginner band, so I didn’t conduct anything in this concert. Friday’s concert included intermediate band, middle school choir and advanced orchestra. Saturday’s concert was intermediate orchestra, high school choir and advanced band. All in all, I think the concerts went pretty well. It’s difficult to know exactly how the groups (especially the ones Megan and I are doing) did, because we are not quite sure where they were last year. But I was happy with the results and I think the kids were too. (Although I did have to tell one girl that she could not play in the concert on Friday, because she skipped our compulsory dress rehearsal… I bet she won’t do that again…)