“It’s Not What You Play, It’s How You Play It That Counts!” Ed Dumas I used to jokingly tell my students that I was going to get a giant banner made up that was mounted high on the wall and stretched from one end of the room to the other. The banner would have printed on it the quote above so that I didn’t have to keep saying it day after day. The students knew I was joking, but I was half tempted to do it anyway! In the first year or so of band class, beginning students are so very concerned with pitch names and fingers on their instrument, that dealing with the “How” of playing the notes becomes a challenge for them. Still, I would encourage you to take whatever opportunity you can with your young beginners to begin to work on this concept so that in the later years they are more open to ideas of changing how they play. Staying too long in the concept of “playing notes” means they will have more trouble when you ask them to “make music.” This concept is very akin to when students are first learning to read and convert those little black markings (letters) into words, sentences, and vocalizations (sounds) that have meaning to other people. To illustrate what I am after, I would often take a written passage and read it out to the students. BUT, I would read it out loud like someone just learning to read. The pitch would be monotone, the cadence would be slow, the rhythm would be messed up, and I would destroy all of the phrases by breathing in all of the wrong places. Most of the students would look at me with huge question mark eyes because they could not understand what I was saying. Here is an example in print form. Note that I have written it with heavy periods in the wrong places with only one short collection of words per line with a long space at the end of each line. Try reading it that way as a beginning reader would. It is a truth. U-ni-vers-all-y ack-now-ledged that. A single man in. Poss-ess-ion of a. Good for-tune must. Be in want of a wife. How-ev-er lit-tle known. The feelings or views. Of such a man may. Be on his first en-ter-ing. A neigh-bour-hood this truth. Is so well fixed in the minds. Of the sur-round-ing fam-i-lies. That he is con-sid-ered as the right-ful. Pro-perty of some. One or oth-er of their daugh-ters.   Now here is the original quote. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.” When you read the quote this time, did you notice how the meaning changed, likely rather dramatically? That quote of course is the opening two paragraphs of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin, a classic must-read for, well, everyone! Now, I would not use this passage for overly young musicians but chose this for adults who have likely read the book. In the same way, you could play for your beginning students a simple passage from their first-year book and play it similarly to a beginning reader. I often used “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” as this is a melody that everyone knows. Just by labouring over some notes, delaying others, and putting the breaths in all the wrong places, the students either would not recognize the tune that I played, or if they recognized it would immediately realize that they didn’t like what they heard. This is what their audience would often hear in a first-year band performance. Now, I am not trying to make anyone feel bad about that sound. We all needed to go through it, but the objective is to get past it as fast as possible. I would stress to them that they should not make it sound like a first-year reader, but make it sound like complete phrases. This opens up a whole new discussion with first-year players that has plenty of room for learning, even in the first year. In short, I wanted them to forget about playing notes, and focus on making music. One of the best “first band arrangements” that I ever found came out of an old series called “Band Today.” In that series is a book called “Concert Today” which had performance tunes for first-year players. The first tune in that book was called “Arch of Triumph” by James Ployhar. That arrangement was wonderful because you could give it to the first-year players within about 4 months or so of them starting in the band program. All of the wind and mallet parts had the same rhythm throughout the entire arrangement, but to get that unique concert band sound that the students loved, some players just played a different set of pitches even though the parts were all very much just step-wise motion with few leaps. This provided the first lessons in harmony that thrilled the students while they learned to play separate parts together, hence “Make Music!” The next tune in that same book, called “Slightly Misty,” was even more genius. This tune was in three-four meter and now started to break away from the total copying of rhythms across the band to a more instrumental role-like writing. The melody was now 6 phrases long, and it was presented three times, plus an introduction for a total of 19 phrases. The genius, though, came when you examined the phrases which had the following lengths – 4mm, 4mm, 4mm, 4mm, 5mm, 3mm. So, on the second piece of band music presented to the students, they were already beginning a discussion of melody, phrase lengths, and overall structure of the work! To top it off, the standard 4mm phrase lengths were already broken getting them ready for more advanced work in that area in future years. Now, I presented those two pieces of music as a way of getting your first-year players to break out of their confines of “playing notes.” If you can find other pieces of music that do a similar task, so much the better. I have seen very few, though, pieces of band music for first-year players that are so simple that everyone can focus on the same task of learning phrases while still enjoying a true concert band sound. Oftentimes, something else gets in the way of the phrases, such as counting too difficult rhythms, counting extended rests, big pitch leaps within the phrase, overlapping phrase lengths, or technical issues with their instrument. If there are too many challenges for first-year players in the band music, they too often spend great amounts of time dealing with those challenges instead of just “making music.” At some point, though, the teacher needs to focus the class attention away from those other technical challenges, and stress to students that they need to stop playing notes and instead play phrases.  One of the topics that I have often found useful in that discussion is the idea that breathing is like punctuation to musicians. This is where that “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” lesson can be so useful. If you play it for the students with your breaths completely messed up on purpose, they will understand that it changes the meaning of the sounds. Then, ask them to play it back to you with 4 measure phrases and practice it until it sounds like the three phrases that it is. This is where you can introduce the breath mark to them, and the fact that if there are breath marks written in the music, not only does it tell them where to breathe, it also tells them where they MUST NOT breathe! Negative Thoughts vs Positive Thoughts Here is a lesson from driver training, which I learned from my father who was a licenced and practicing driver instructor at the time that I was learning to drive. He taught me that when I was driving to not focus on “Don’t have an accident!” The human mind does not register the word “Don’t” as much as it registers the words “Have an accident.”  Therefore, the words “Don’t have an accident” cause your mind to focus on “Have an accident” which is now more likely to cause you to have an accident! Instead, focus on a positive action such as “Keep your distance” which will help you avoid that accident. In short, don’t tell them so much about what they should not do, but tell them more about what you want them to do! Many times I have heard discussions in the education system about “negative thoughts” vs “positive thoughts”, and wondered if this concept is misunderstood. While I most certainly don’t want students to berate themselves with emotionally destructive thoughts, maybe they would be less concerned with these types of “negative thoughts” if we instead focused on the positive action thoughts in terms of what they want to achieve instead of worrying about self-destructive harming by telling them what they should not do. It is kind of like that great old Far-Side cartoon which showed a crash cymbal player in an orchestra saying to himself, “I won’t screw up! I won’t screw up!” while he is holding one crash cymbal next to an open bare hand. Maybe he should be telling himself to “Hold two cymbals!” instead of “Don’t screw up!” Now extend this concept to your first-year concert band players. I found it valuable to help students think better thoughts while they played. The “negative” thought regarding phrases would be “Don’t breathe. Don’t breathe!” Since the brain does not work well that way it tends to focus on what you do not want it to do, which is to breathe. So what do the students do? They breathe, and most likely in the wrong places. Instead of thinking of a “Don’t” thought have them think of a “Do” thought. In this case, they should focus on “Extend the air. Extend the air!” This tells them what they should do, instead of what they should not do, and hence is a “Positive” action thought. “Extend the air!” will be far more successful at leading students to play with proper phrases.  Now fast forward a few years after the first-year band class. Students that have not been challenged on playing beyond the notes, will now show that they have a hard time making music with the band. These students will often continue to labour over notes, but often the sounds coming out will be out of time with the band or out of rhythm. Many times these students will be “following” the band, instead of “playing with” the band. Every note will be just a little behind, enough to cause a drag on the entire instrument section or even the entire band. I have often used a game to illustrate this concept to students. The game is that very annoying thing when one child will repeat back what the other says, but does it as it is being said. The follower does not know what is being said but is prepared to immediately ape it all back as a way to annoy the speaker. Students that are “playing notes” on their instrument are often the same ones that are similarly “following the band”. If there are too many of these followers, the band will continue to bog down, and eventually, fall apart. A way to break the followers of this habit is to have them memorize a short passage, say 8 measures. Then have the section play the passage back without the sheet music so that the followers now have a chance to feel what it is like to “play with” instead of “follow behind.” Emphasize this often. Taking The Concept to Extremes When students begin in concert band class, they usually begin with a heavy concentration on “getting the notes right” which usually means the pitches. I can understand this desire on their part, as it is likely the only thing they know about music. But, I still want to take them beyond this very limited understanding of music as soon as possible. As experienced musicians, you will know that there are three over-arching categories in the study of music. The first is “pitch” which is the highness and lowness of a musical sound and is usually described by letter names. Pitch can be measured very scientifically if one chooses to, and then expressed as vibrations per second. Multiple pitches are played together to create harmony. The second category in music is “duration” and is the length that a musical pitch is held. This can be measured in real-time, such as seconds, but is better measured in our music as pulses. The pulses in music are often measured in beats per minute, and the rate of these beats indicates tempo. This leads to all sorts of time discussions surrounding tempo, such as speeding up, slowing down, and so on. Check out the previous article on Concepts of Time for a better understanding of the time issues that students have to deal with. Finally, the third over-arching category in music is expression. This category includes concepts of dynamics (loud and softs), accents, effects, phrases, melodies, musical structure, and so on. This is the “How” part of playing the notes and rhythms. Students should be encouraged to move towards this end of the three categories as soon as possible to keep their minds open to playing with expression. To help students move away from “just playing the notes,” I have often used this description of a fictional band. My ultimate concert band would have approximately 72 musicians and would be made of the best players that the world could provide in each section. It would take at least a few million dollars to hire this band for just one rehearsal, as they would each need to be paid large money just to do it. These musicians would be so good, that they could easily manage whatever music I place in front of them. They could even manage when I give them two run-throughs of a piece of music, but with different directions on each. For the first run-through, they would be told to play every pitch correctly, but every note length would be incorrect (completely random) from the beginning to the end. Despite their obvious talents, this band would last only a few measures before they would utterly fall apart, crash & burn, and would have to stop because no one would know where we are at. On the second attempt, my ultimate concert band would be asked to play every pitch on the page as something different than what is marked. They would, though, still have to play every note length as absolutely correct and in rhythm. The result would be that the band would sound utterly horrendous, BUT they would be able to stay together from the beginning to the end. This would be a huge step up from the reverse process on the first attempt, and would be proof that time, counting, and rhythm have a higher priority than pitch!  I have used this hypothetical story many times to help students move away from obsessing about pitches, to concentrating more on time, and then on to expression. Of course, I don’t expect students to be able to play in either of those extremes, though sometimes a class will ask to do so. Still, even just attempting this as an exercise is time well spent to drive home a point. Any discussion you can have with your students about “how” they play will help them focus away from the “what” they play. Putting It Together Now, I began this article with the thought that “It is not what you play, it is how you play it that counts!” Students that are sometimes stuck in the playing notes mode are also still very obsessed over not making any incorrect pitches. These students need to understand that from the audience's perspective, correct pitches are not the audience’s highest priority in listening. From the audience's perspective, they want to be able to “get into” the music. This means that they need to “Suspend Disbelief” to focus their entire mind on what is happening in the performance in front of them. If you are not familiar with the concept of Suspended Disbelief, read a previous article titled “Why We Should Study Music” for a good explanation. When a student makes a pitch error, there is a chance that the audience will hear it. But, many in our rather unsophisticated audiences may miss the pitch error in blissful ignorance. Students that miss too many pitches, though, may still throw their audience out of Suspended Disbelief because there will be a limit to what an audience can tolerate. When this happens, we still need to work on the correct pitches. But, this should be more a student job at home, rather than a teaching job at school. In contrast to that, though, I have found that audiences are quite unforgiving when it comes to time and rhythm in music. A band that is playing slow, behind the pulse, rather dodderingly like a first-year reader will surely lose the audience's focus within a matter of a few measures. The audience may not be able to tell you what they do not like in the sound, but they know they cannot get “into” it. If you look back at your audience at this point, you will see plenty of folks sitting still, blankly staring at an unfocused point in the room with a half-smile on their face. When the music ends, the audience will give you that short, polite applause that means “Is it done yet?” Focusing on “How You Play It” rather than on “What You Play” will help your audience get into the music, and therefore give you a real and honest reaction at the end. 

Managing Band Instrument Inventory Ed Dumas When I was in university doing my undergrad work before dirt was a thing, we had a fifth-year that was more like an internship. I completed my bachelor of education at the University of Victoria, and back then in 1983-84, we were out in the schools working for a solid eight months of our final year. As soon as school began right after Labour Day, we were in our designated schools, and we did not end until the end of April.  I did my final practicum with Ted Ireton at Claremont Secondary in Saanich. Ted was a fairly “Old School” kind of band teacher, but he was an awesome example who provided some very good insight as to how the career should go. Many of the ideas that I still hold onto were taken from his teachings. On the first day of school when I showed up in Ted’s band room, I was assigned to manage the school’s instrument inventory. The school owned hundreds of band instruments covering all instrument selection, and each student was loaned one from the inventory of the school. My job was to check the inventory that existed up in the band “attic” versus the paper list of band instruments that I was given. I grumbled a bit to myself when I was assigned this task, but looking back I likely would do the same thing in those circumstances if I was in Ted’s shoes. Today, practicum teachers don’t get the same amount of time, so they must get right into the guts of leading a class, and sometimes the important, but non-teaching things are missed. Once I got my first job teaching, I quickly realized what a headache the inventory can be. Even later, though, I started to realize what a blessing it can also be, as that inventory list allows you to find things before you even get up from your desk chair!  The biggest change in attitude for me came when computers first started hitting the schools around the late-1980s or so. The first computers were terrible, as they were slow, had little capacity, had terrible screens, printed slowly, and everything had to be stored on floppy disks. (Hey, you young folks out there, go ask your parents what a floppy disk is!) Yet, it did not take me long to see that the advantage of a database over a hand-written inventory made all the difference in the world! Today, I would recommend a database file for each of the following: wind instruments, string & piano instruments, and percussion instruments. Also for your music library, I would recommend a database for concert band music, jazz band music, & choral music. I will leave a discussion about libraries for another blog entry. With the more sophisticated Excel programs available now, instead of a separate database file for each, you could use a separate page for each. So a file for instrumentation would have one page for winds, one page for strings & piano, and one page for percussion. Another file for the library would have similar pages for the concert band library, jazz band library, and choral library. With the use of multiple pages, you can even add more for differing genres, such as combo music for winds, or voices, and so on. Before we look at the kinds of information that are useful to keep in these databases, a note about backing up. By now everyone who works with computers must know about backing up everything and having redundant backups just in case. With the internet now so powerful most things are backed up automatically by the server where you are storing your data. Most people think that the risks of server failure are now acceptably low and that they need not worry about backing up anymore. Yet, one should also consider the consequences of such a server failure, and not just the low risk of it happening. Despite the low risk now of online server failures, the consequences of such a failure can grow exponentially with the amount of data that you have entered into a database. Ie The more you have to lose, the more you are going to want to cover off even the most minimal of risks. I understood this concept quite well when I was in the middle of a master's program. At that time, the internet was functioning well, but most people did not have online storage yet. Having multiple redundant backups was useless if all of the backups were stored in the same location. Failing to take one of those redundant backups off-site could have destroyed three long years of intense work in the event of a house fire. This could easily become a second disaster almost equal to that of the house burning down! While the risk is low, the disaster would be devastating if it came to pass. As you are creating your inventory database, consider storage loss likelihood and its consequences to determine your comfort level. Wind Instrument Inventory Begin your instrument inventory with the type of instrument first, followed by make, model and serial number. This process goes from the general to the specific to help you identify a specific instrument as quickly as possible. Create one column for each one of those categories, so that you can sort on any column. If that is all that you do, it is already better than what used to be hand-written on a sheet of paper.  Yet, you will find the downfall when you go to find the specific instrument which is stored in the back storage room. You may end up having to open a few cases to find the single instrument you want if you have multiple copies of the same make and model. To speed up this process, it has been common practice to paint a number on the case so that the desired instrument can be identified without opening it. Just about any number will do, but over the years this can become disorganized as various instruments are retired or lost leaving holes in the numbering system. I would suggest that you not reuse numbers that are retired but leave a marking in the database of the old instrument now retired. A Numbering System Before computers first came out, we always had to create our class attendance lists by hand using an attendance book that was designed just for teachers. Most teachers chose to write their class lists in alphabetical order, but I always preferred a different attendance order for the band. So, I took the time to put the flutes at the top, followed by clarinets, alto saxes, and so on down through the band following score order. That way I could quickly scan the attendance by section rather than having my eyes bouncing around the room to find each person. This also made it much easier for student attendance takers to do this for me. Later, when computers then entered the school system, we needed to create our attendance page on a computer program called Easy Grade Pro. This attendance page would have been created using the list that the office sent, and then printed out as the page that we would put neat little checkmarks into for each day. But this had the possibility of destroying my preferred organization of attendance by the instrument as the default sort was now alphabetical. So, I created a number system that forced the computer into sorting the student names in the way that I wanted. This allowed me to keep the attendance system by instrumentation. So here is the basis of the instrument numbering system: Flutes 100s Piccolos 150s Oboes 200s Clarinets 300s Bass Clarinets 350s Alto Saxes 400s Tenor Saxes 500s Baritone Saxes 550s Trumpets 600s French Horns 650s Trombones 700s Euphonium 800s Tubas 850s Percussion 900s   Note that some sections begin in the 50s when there were fewer of them, like baritone saxes. Flutes, then, would be numbered 101, 102, 103, etc. Each section would have similar numbers so that each student had a unique number. Remember that the objective here was to force a computer to sort the names in the manner that I wanted. The students never saw these numbers, did not know what their number was and were NEVER called by a number.   The reason that I present this numbering system is as an option if you would like to paint numbers on your instrument cases. You need not follow this system precisely, as you can develop your own. The point is that the number on the outside of the school instrument case can have some meaning as to what the case contains, as well as numbering off how many of those instruments belong to the school. Most band teachers that paint the outside of an instrument case also paint the name of the school.   Now going back to the instrument inventory, you might want to add another column at the beginning of the database. That column would be for the distinct number that is painted on the case which would allow you, or someone else, to quickly identify the correct case.   A Note About Student Name Tags   Over my career, one of the most frustrating things that I have found is convincing students to make sure their instrument case had a name tag on it with at least a phone number. I cannot count how many times I have heard, in a rather whiny voice, “But I don’t need a name tag. I can identify my case!” The obvious answer to that is “The name tag is not for you! It is for everyone else except you!”    I often got so frustrated with students obstructing this plan that I would then take all instruments without a tag and lock them away in a practice room until I heard another complaint that “Someone stole my instrument!” I would then let them in to find their instrument, but they could only take it out once the instrument had a tag on it. Here is the reason why this was so important.   One day part way into a school year I answered a phone call that turned out to be from the local A&W Restaurant which was about 2 blocks away from my school. Someone had found a clarinet in their dumpster, and it did not have a name tag to call, so they called me. I figured I could at least use the serial number to contact the various music stores to see whom they sold that instrument to, and then contact the specific music teacher or parent about the found clarinet.   Well, it turned out to be one of my young students, so I called the parent who was greatly relieved that the clarinet was found. After talking to the student we pieced together what had happened. After school, the student walked through the A&W parking lot with some friends, where they then sat down for a rest and maybe a snack. Afterwards, they got up and just left forgetting the clarinet now on the ground. Later someone else picked up the case and finding no name tag, just tossed it into the dumpster. Had that case had a name tag on it, the student might have been called by the first person that found it on the ground, or at the latest by the A&W staff that found it in the dumpster. Instead, the A&W staff did the smart thing to call the closest school who then forwarded the call to the band teacher, who then called several music stores to hopefully find an owner, to finally call a parent. There are just far too many opportunities for all this to break down when there is no name tag present.   Other Information In the Instrument Inventory Database   After the case number, instrument, make, model & serial number, I would also include the following information.    Purchase Date Purchase Price Current Condition – New, Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, Retired Student assigned to Location if not used Last service Work completed (in the last service) Servicing costs Notes   The “Student Assigned To” column in this instrument database is an extremely valuable entry, for it then quickly locates who is supposed to be in charge of a particular instrument. When the case is again without a nametag and it is a school-based instrument you now have a backup to find that information. It also helps you avoid assigning the instrument out twice.   The “Location” column was useful for those instruments that were not played that particular year. If you needed to find one of them it saved time by not having to look in every storage room in the music program. The repair and servicing costs are useful to keep track of to give you some basis for deciding when an instrument should be retired.   Other Inventory Lists   It will be up to you to decide if you want to keep string instruments on the same inventory list as the winds. I preferred separate lists for winds, strings (and pianos), and percussion. With Excel files now having the ability to keep a separate page in the same file, this seems to be the best option.   Using the winds numbering system, I found I needed to add some categories for piano, bass, and guitar in the jazz band. This would also be true when using this system for numbering the cases, though I would certainly avoid painting a number on pianos. Guitar programs usually have a class set or two of instruments that would need to be entered into the strings list.    Percussion lists tend to have their peculiarities due to the nature of many of these instruments. There are often many different types of instruments, and few of them will be assigned to any particular student. Still, it is worthwhile to enter these instruments to keep track of what you own vs what is missing. Many of the percussion instruments are not serialized, so it is also valuable to identify duplicates in some peculiar way if possible. Yet, I would avoid adding a highly visible number to any instrument that does not have a case, as this can affect the audience's response in the performance.   One Final Thought About Inventories   When I was a student in Maple Ridge Secondary, we attended school every day in a very old two-storey wooden building. That building was a total fire trap and had it started to burn, we would not have been able to run out of it fast enough to keep ahead of the flames! It has been completely rebuilt which helps everyone breathe a sigh of relief, but still, I hear now and then about a school somewhere that had a significant fire.   If this happens to you, you will be very grateful for an accurate inventory of everything that is housed within the music facility. This will include all furniture, stereos, amps, bookshelves, file cabinets, chairs, and stands. Everything that is brought into the bare bones of the school needs to be put on an inventory, for if that building goes up in flames, your best recourse to replace the equipment on an insurance claim will be an updated inventory list.   Now, completing this inventory is a HUGE undertaking, and it is no surprise that it is often not done. It is maybe not even an assignment that belongs under the umbrella of a teacher, but I have usually found that most administrators are unable to manage a wind instrument inventory due to a lack of knowledge of instruments. Maybe a discussion with a principal about using any open days or Professional Development days to complete this task might help, if you have nothing else available to do. Finally, maybe using some senior students as aides can help with completing an inventory, and some schools are okay with offering graded time to make this a possibility.   Once you have a good digital inventory for your music program, you will find it a blessing to use when looking for an item. Your first instinct then will be to turn on your computer to see what is available and where it is supposed to be, instead of going to the storage room to see what is left in there.

Why We Should Study Music Ed Dumas A long time ago, in a world far, far away, a movie was released that changed the course of history. The date was May 25, 1977, and of course, if you have not figured it out from the paraphrase above, that movie was Star Wars. Folks that are seeing the Star Wars series today may not realize that when there was only one movie, it was just called “Star Wars” to us. It was not until four years later did they add “Episode Four: A New Hope.” My friends and I went to see Star Wars at the Stanley Theatre on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver because of the big screen and the impressive sound system. This was a big night out for a bunch of Maple Ridge hicks, and we looked forward to this great event. We had heard so many wonderful things, but still, we were not prepared for what was coming up. We all sat in utter silence as this new sound just exploded over us. We were completely lost to this new world presented on the screen, and it seemed that time just stood still while we were enveloped in that amazing show. After we started walking out of the theatre, we were all just amazed at the differences between this show, and everything else that had gone on before. We just couldn’t stop talking about it, but it was not for the scenes on the screen. It was all about the amazing soundtrack. We knew instantly that the soundtrack was now totally different. It was no longer just some background kind of noise to fill in the holes where the dialogue was lacking, or maybe to add a bit of tension here and there. No, now the orchestra was THE main character! The orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra at that, was so important that the show could not be enjoyed without it. The whole movie could not be accepted by the audience and believed as real without that amazing soundtrack behind it. In short, the audience could not “Suspend Disbelief” without the orchestra guiding them through it. As an aside, if you doubt the power of music in visual presentations, consider this. Hollywood each year updates a list of all-time biggest box-office money-earning movies. One year in the early nineties, I saw a top ten list that immediately struck me as profound. Seven of the ten movies it contained had an extremely close relationship with music. These were the three original Star Wars movies, the three original Indiana Jones movies, and American Graffiti. The last three were older shows like Gone With The Wind and were blockbusters that had been on the list for decades. What immediately struck me was that Harrison Ford was in all seven of those named “music-based” movies. That is some kind of star power! But, John Williams composed the music for 6 out of 7 of those “music-based” shows, and the seventh, American Graffiti, contained a running 50’s Rock & Roll soundtrack that was an essential part of the show. That speaks volumes about the power of music. Going back to Suspended Disbelief, if you have not heard of this concept before, here is a synopsis. When you go into a theatre to watch a movie, musical, opera, play or whatever, you must suspend the disbelief that this world presented to you on the screen or stage is real. We simply do not believe that humans are yet capable of fighting in space using light sabres and some mysterious power called The Force. Everything that we know up to now proves to us that this is not real. To enjoy the show, we must suspend this disbelief temporarily. We must set it aside and pretend that what is on the screen is real. We go along with the pretense to understand the story. The use of that London Symphony Orchestra proved to be immensely powerful in getting the audience to suspend their disbelief, and Star Wars caused a massive change in entertainment from then on. Shortly after the beginning of Star Wars came a shift in musicals beginning with Cats (1982) by Andrew Lloyd Webber. While it was not Webber’s first musical, it is often considered the beginning of the huge productions accompanied by major soundtracks that acted more like characters in the manner of Star Wars. Others to follow included Phantom of the Opera (1986), and Miss Saigon (1991) among many others. The trend now was that the orchestra played a significant role in the musical, other than just helping the singers find a pitch. Now, here is another personal example of suspended disbelief in action. In the late 1980s, my wife and I were given tickets to see the touring version of Les Miserables which came to Vancouver. Just as my wife and I excitedly settled into our seats, the house lights went down, the curtain went up, and the show began. In what seemed to me to be only five minutes later, the curtain came down and the house lights went back up.  My first reaction, which thankfully I kept to my inside voice, was “Oh my God. Someone backstage has died!” You see, the production crew would never close the curtains and raise the house lights 5 minutes into a show unless something very serious had happened. I literally expected an ambulance gurney to be coming down the main aisle. My next reaction, again the inner voice, only a second or two later after glancing at my watch was “Oh my God! That was an hour and a half and it seemed to pass in five minutes!” My last reaction, now to my wife, was “Oh my God!! That orchestra played for an hour and a half and there was not a second of a break in the sound! Awesome!” I had so been “lost” to the musical that time just did not seem to pass for me. That is the ultimate in Suspended Disbelief. This is a critical factor in enjoying just about any kind of presentation and is one of the important elements to learn in musical studies. People that are talking or texting during movies or music do not understand that others cannot get “in” to the show when they are constantly being pulled back out to our current reality. Music students also need to learn that their music needs to be presented in a way that their audience is “allowed in.” If you are unsure if they are in or out of your music, have a glance back at your audience when you are leading your band. If the faces of the audience are kind of a blank stare off in the distance with a half-smile on their lips, you have lost them. The students should aim for some kind of reaction, any reaction. Leaning in, intense applause, gasps, and tears are all acceptable reactions. Polite, short, quiet applause does not cut it.  Here is another Star Wars story for you to better illuminate how powerful Suspended Disbelief is. Several years back, my wife and I decided to have a night out at a theatre when one of the latest Star Wars movies was being released. I think it was episode 7, or maybe 8. It was a bit of a stormy night, so we thought it was a good chance to spend a night out enjoying a show, at least for a bit. We didn’t count on the power going out. About 30 minutes into the movie, we found ourselves sitting in total blackness and total silence. No one moved because it was just far too treacherous to navigate the steep stairs in the dark. So, we waited. About 5 minutes later, the power suddenly came back on, as it usually does. To our surprise, the movie projector just rebooted and picked up where it had left off. It seems that the projector had an automatic reboot function for power outages. The sound system, though, did not have any such function and needed to be manually rebooted. It remained stubbornly off for the next 20 minutes until a projectionist arrived while we watched the show in silence. Well, anyway, it started in silence. To watch the Star Wars shows in silence is nothing short of comical, and boy, did we laugh! To see these men in little white armour plating running first this way and then that way in silence was kind of like watching the Keystone Cops! Very quickly some folks caught on that they should add sound effects to the images since none were provided by the sound system. Before we knew it, everyone was stomping their feet like little running men every time a stormtrooper squad came running by. Or, everyone made light sabre and blaster sounds to coordinate with the onscreen fighting. It was FAR more comical than just about anything else I have ever witnessed before or since, and I will remember the time fondly as long as I live. I would have gladly paid double the price had I known what fun we were going to experience. I truly love the Star Wars series, but this episode utterly drove home the power of the London Symphony Orchestra and John Williams’ music. That music can take some scenes that are so unbelievable as to be completely laughable and then turn them into something powerful, impressive and inspiring. That was Suspended Disbelief at its best! Now, I have another Star Wars story for you, if you can bear with it. In the summer of 1978, I attended Courtenay Youth Music Centre (CYMC) for 6 weeks as a student. We were all still in the thrall of Star Wars, and someone had brought along a vinyl record of the soundtrack. Some of us students borrowed a rolling stereo cabinet and moved it into the staff room of the school to listen to this soundtrack during one afternoon break. We closed the door to the staff room because we intended to turn it up a bit but did not want to upset anyone else. After listening to the album, we then packed it all up and began heading out with a smile on our faces and our heads in the stars. As soon as I opened the staff room door, I discovered dozens of students lining the hallway listening to the sound, and we had no idea they were there! I kind of blurted out, “What are you guys doing here?” The answer was, that they were listening to the orchestra rehearse! All they could imagine was that it was a full orchestra rehearsing and they did not want to come into what was actually a tiny staff room to “interrupt” them. They could not imagine another scenario, because the recording of the orchestra made them “see” the orchestra and the grandeur. Since they did not have images to follow, they made up their own. This speaks to the power of music and Suspended Disbelief. Hollywood has known this psychological trick of using music in their movies since the very beginning of their creations. They used it to make the shows that people watch more enjoyable and believable. Even in the silent movies, piano players were used in the small theatres, or full orchestras in the larger ones, to play behind the scenes.  It can be very jolting, though, when watching a movie to suddenly find yourself “outside” of the show because something “inside” does not work. An example that comes to mind is the movie Gravity with Sandra Bullock. While I love science fiction movies that are done well and I appreciate Sandra Bullock as an actress, I found myself constantly coming out of the show due to its bad relationship with physics. Watching the main characters attempt some transfer maneuvers in space between two different vessels in different orbits and vastly different speeds without something like “The Force” or even a jet pack to explain how this was possible was more than my intellect could take. After that scene, I was out and would stay out until the end of the show. Hollywood, though, has only the intent of selling movies to us for entertainment's sake. What if other more nefarious forces intend on adding musical soundtracks to different broadcasts to sell other ideas to us? As an example, there is a world of “Alternative Facts” out there in various political arenas right now. What if these “broadcasters” decided that adding a soundtrack to their “news” would help them convince people to rise up and say, attack Congress in the US for example? I have no idea if this is currently being done to these “news” broadcasts, as I do not watch these kinds of shows. I just cannot stomach the content. But, if this was ever done, would the majority of the population have the ability to separate fact from fiction once the soundtrack was added? Germany before World War II understood this concept very well. The Nazi Regime commissioned hundreds, maybe thousands of musical compositions solely for “Uplifting the German spirit.” The intent was to help the German people accept the new Nazi direction as something far more glorious than it was. Most of this music still exists in written or recorded form, but little of it is ever performed today for obvious reasons. Having the ability to understand how you are manipulated to enjoy an excellent Star Wars movie can also help a person understand how you are being manipulated to do something else against your will. Studies in music help our students understand the forces at play, and therefore nullify those forces once the show is complete. I still have in my head an early 1970s MacDonald’s commercial written by Barry Manilow and Sidney Woloshin that sang to us, “You deserve to get away, so get up and get away, to MacDonald’s!” I heard that bloody commercial so many times I am sure I will take that song to my grave. But, I can nullify its power over me by bringing it up, singing it to the students, and laughing at it. Over my entire career, and likely over yours as well, there has been a constant struggle for music teachers to gain enough funds to keep a music program afloat, whether it be elementary level or secondary. Constantly there is this justification that when times are bad, we must dedicate limited resources to the things that matter, like Math or English classes. So many people have been heard to ask “Can we afford to teach ALL of our students about the world of music?” With a real insider's look at the power of music, it is far more appropriate to ask, “Can we afford not to?”