This year the pre-festival concert will include the 6th grade, the 7th grade, the 8th grade and the High School Bands!The date is Feb. 21 at 6:30 PM in the Jaime Performing Arts Center. High School Students need to be in the band room at 6:00. Middle School Students no earlier than 6:10.Wear the proper uniform for concerts. 

Today in class you need to do several things

1. Go to MusicTheory.net (the link is in the blog roll) and get ready to do the trainer. Set your notes and pick your cleff.
2.  Use the school network to find the Instrument History word document.
3. Use Wikipedia to find information about your instrument
4. Use Microsoft Word and the school network to change and save your information into the Instrument History document
5. Make sure you save the document into your folder on the network with you name as part of the file name!

Farwell sent Liz Schaeffer, Sara Wilkins, Jayzman McJames and Rebecca Holley to Roscommon the first weekend in February to participate in MSBOA District 9’s Solo and Ensemble Festival. Each person performed a solo for the judges in exchange for 5 minutes of comments, suggestions and critiuqe from a professional who plays the same instrument as the student. The students are also then given a rating and possibly a medal. All of the Farwell students earned the best rating available on Saturday on their main instrument. Rebecca Holley also played a second solo on a instrument she picked up just for pure enjoyment and she earned the second best rating for that extra work.Mr. Shimmons, Farwell’s Band Director,  spends a little time working with each of the students in preparation but the majority of the work is done by each student, outside of class time. This is an “extra” that each student has to take responsibility for themselves. Mr. Shimmons is very proud of the commitment and dedication to perfecting a piece of music like this. It takes hours of practice to work out the technique and musical problems each solo. Not only does each solo take work but these students have proven that they had the musicianship to play more than just notes from a piece of paper. They went beyond that and created music. Since these students all earned a Division 1 rating they have qualified to participate at the State Festival as well, Rebecca Holley on Tenor Sax, Jayzman McJames on Clarinet, Liz Schaeffer on Flute and Sara Wilkins on Clarinet. Congratulations.

Today you have a timed music test - How many notes can you get correct in 2 minutes? Then you have to get your results to Mr. Shimmons through the use of email.Also you will be writing a comment to post about either John Phillip Sousa or on how to count music. You must use microsoft word to type the comment in first, be sure to check your spelling, THEN save that file. THEN you may copy and paste it into a comment and ask Mr. Shimmons if it is O.K. post the comment to this web site. 

You all need to do your part to make sure we are ready for Band and Orchestra Festival the end of February! That means you need to practice and improve your playing skills - that’s your duty to each other and your grade.Each week you need to record one podcast. Use each podcast to show improvement in your playing, knowledge of your music assignments for that week and to highlight what you do well. You were all given instrucitons in class as to how to do your weekly podcasts. If you would like to have access to see feedback on your podcast or to listen to your podcasts online, email Mr. Shimmons for instructions.