Jenny Jordan

MUS149

Observation Reflection #25

December 1, 2020

This class was a high school band. The front of the classroom had a whiteboard with a

blue wall and pictures on the wall with a title that said “Pride of Paoli Marching Band.” The

students were set up in the typical band formation with the teacher on a podium in front of them.

The environment of this lesson was relaxed and yet still task-oriented. I couldn’t quite gauge

how the transitions during the class felt, as there were a couple of edits done to the footage, but

the lesson as a whole felt as though it moved at an appropriate pace. The students were very

respectful and didn’t disrupt the lesson, even when leaving the classroom and coming back.

The class started with the students doing a few warm-ups, including a “Lip Bender” and a

Bach Chorale. They then moved on to a tuning exercise to help with intonation and sound quality

in the ensemble. After this, they worked on a piece called “Malgueña” and ran through it once.

The class then examines certain spots in the piece for rhythmic accuracy, specifically for triplets

at one point. They also go over expression in a slower section of the piece. Later, they return to a

more “jazzy” section of the piece.

The teacher’s conducting style is very precise and matches the expression of each piece

he conducts. He was also very direct and gave students specific objectives to do every time they

went over something. For example, when they went over the Bach Chorale in the beginning, the

teacher instructed the students to listen for a moving line whenever they weren’t playing. The

teacher would begin to count out loud briefly whenever the students needed extra help with

certain passages while playing. At one point, the teacher went over specific rhythmic passages
for different parts. To help students understand how the rhythm sounded, the teacher would

speak the rhythms out loud by himself while conducting to provide an auditory example. This

way, the students will be able to hear the rhythm in their heads easier than if they were just

sightreading it. At one point, some of the brass instruments were having trouble with a certain

passage, and the teacher demonstrated a lot of patience and attention to detail. The teacher made

sure these smaller sections were understood by the students before putting them together with the

entire group and eventually with a larger passage.

I liked how efficient this rehearsal was run. Everything was well-organized and the

teacher was able to bring out the finer details of the piece in a relatively short amount of time. I

admired how clear the teacher was with both his instruction and his conducting.

Link: https://youtu.be/XmqsbuqYSWo

Honor Code:

I affirm that I will uphold the highest principles of honesty and integrity in all my endeavors at

Gettysburg College and foster an atmosphere of mutual respect within and beyond the classroom.

-Jenny Jordan