It’s five weeks until our Winter Concerts! If you have spoken to a music teacher lately, you know that they have been in holiday season prep for a few months already. I had a lot of bumps in my road last year and I didn’t prepare for my worst case scenario. Of course it would happen for me. I learned why you need to order concert music early in the season! The Bumpy Road My first year at this school was still during the pandemic. We couldn’t really play any instruments, we couldn’t share equipment, we couldn’t even have assemblies. But thankfully, my music room is big enough so we could sing. I got a few microphones and set up my computer by the piano. We decided that we would turn the music room into a recording studio. We learned a few songs for each grade and then recorded them. After that, the school emailed the final products to the appropriate families as a holiday newsletter or greeting card. It was an experience, I am planning on doing more recording in the future! The Speed Bump Once the pandemic ended and restrictions were officially lifted, we were finally able to play, sing, create and assemble together! I found a reputable website that had amazing repertoire of holiday musicals for my early years students. I spent a few days listening and researching each piece that caught my attention and eventually picked three- one for each grade. But low and behold. . . I quickly learned that I should have picked four. . . or five. . . six would have been safe. I ordered the three musicals at the end of September, thinking that shipping and such wouldn’t have been much of an issue. By the end of October, I learned that I should have definitely planned for it being an issue. My musicals were delivered the weekend before Halloween. Cue the panic! I ripped open the package and much to my dismay, there were only two musicals in the wrapping. I looked through all of the packaging hoping I missed the third or a notice that it would be delivered at a later date. Instead, I found an invoice that had every component listed and counted for inside the package. The One-Way Street The musicals I had purchased came in teacher sets. There was a band score, a teacher booklet and CD that was included for each musical. The third musical never came and the second one never came with a CD! I immediately sent emails and made phone calls. I even had my adminstrators making calls and sending emails. It was coming close to the second week of November, I was running out of time! I also never got a reply from the company. Frantic, I had to come up with a way to have three performances and also decide which grade to give the musical to. I seriously wished that I ordered my concert music way earlier. No U-Turns There was no turning back. I could not decide which grade to give the musical to because I had all of these ideas for characters I didn’t want to forfeit. My stress was increasing and I needed to take action. After reading, listening and practicing the musical by myself for the week, I figured it out. There was a way to make it work for each grade. It had many adequate speaking parts, part singing, and a story line that everyone loved in the end. I rewrote bits and pieces of it to make it more age appropriate, but overall, it was a success! It took some time, but we were ready to go by the second week of November. Our performances were to be the third week of December! This was the musical that all my students performed. They LOVED it! It is about a moose named Marty who wanted to fly with Santa’s reindeer and all of the characters make fun of him. I also love this musical and will perform it again in the future. You can find this musical here (a completely different company from where I originally ordered). Merge with the Traffic There were three sections of grade 1s so it was the perfect number to have groups say the lines. I eliminated the part singing and just taught the melody. For grade 2, I also had the lines performed in groups but we focused on the part singing. Grade 3 consisted of independant roles in addition to the part singing. This performance also had soloists and they were amazing! The music program had a lot of positive feedback about this. The community understood the happenings of the logistics and the parents enjoyed the fact siblings could practice at home. There was an added bonus when the grades performed for each other. It was different enough between the performances that it kept their attention. They were able to see how interpretations were different and the creative decisions that contributed to the shows. The Destination We had our final bows, cleaned up and returned all the props and things to the music room. I tidied up, got some things together and drove home. When I got there, instead of going to bed, I turned on my computer and purchased four musicals for the the next year. Then I went to bed. I learned my lesson and now I will learn my musicals during Spring Break. Always order your concert music early.
