Thursday’s are early for me this year, so I head for the train at 6:30 am.  Arriving at school, I have to chase down someone to open my classroom.  They hadn’t given me keys yet, so it takes time before I’m able to set-up for class.  Classes go well.  We’re working on rhythmic reading, and I have their attention right now, especially when I single out individuals for counting.

After class, I begin to work on ideas for my kazoo performance tomorrow night.  I have the rest of the day to kill before Orchestra Club at 4:00.  It’s not going to be good enough to just play a few snippets, so I’m trying to figure out how to get an accompaniment I can play with.

I decide to use “Stars & Stripes Forever”.  I’ve taught it, and worked on it enough times that I have most of the parts memorized.  I start working with an iPad app called “Loopy” to develop some 16 measure percussion and bass loops to accompany the kazoo.  It takes a while for me to figure it out, but I begin to make progress on verbalizing a snare drum and bass drum part, and then singing a bass/tuba line to go along with it.  I have to figure out what key works best for me on kazoo, and then make sure the bass and the chord changes work in a range I can hum it in.  The whole act will only be entertaining if I can get into some extreme low and high ranges in parts of the song.

Along with “Stars & Stripes”, I decide to use a simple “Blues” progression I can improvise on top of.  I setup a second “session” on the Loopy App, and start recording the loops, trying to make sure they’re in tune with each other.  This is way too much work and serves me right for agreeing to do it.

After lunch, I record some loops for Michael Jackson’s “Dirty Diana”, in case the others don’t seem to work.  I’m beginning to get quicker at the recording process.  I don’t sound any better, but it’s happening faster.  Later in the afternoon, I finish up an arrangement of “The Pink Panther” for the Orchestra Club.  I get all the parts edited, printed, and copies ready for the students.

At the rehearsal, we work through our performance piece for the Club Fair next week.  It’s beginning to sound decent (for such an odd/eclectic instrumentation).  Then I passed out Pink Panther, and we began to talk about swing style, etc.  They’re really good students, and a few of them are truly great musicians.  It’s a shame I can’t offer them more.  They are so busy getting ready for all their tests and college entrance exams, they have little time for music.