Well, then.

I had a slightly surreal conversation with a student this afternoon. We had them doing mini-posters with music related quotes. A girl raised her hand and asked me what a word was. Her quote was Music is food for the soul, or something equally sappy-ish. She didn't know the word soul- said she didn't know what a soul was.

What a question to get! I think I handled it well. I sat down next to her, and said, "Well, that's a good question." I gave her a couple examples of what other cultures/religions think- but only in the basic sense, and I had no clue if she was Buddhist or Christian or what. My overarching answer was "It's what makes you, you." Not your body or your brain- but you. I think I handled it fairly well- not what I was expecting at all!

We actually had an orchestra rehersal today. Like, an honest-to god ensemble. And it went pretty well. I was conducting, because Kraig was playing his bari sax. That was kinda bad, because he and another teacher who plays the tenor sax are the entire bass-lower voice section at the moment. A teacher shouldn't have to play in the group for it to function. But they sounded not half bad for the utterly mixed group we have. The kids also don't know how to follow a conductor. I had two pairs of eyes on me- Kraig and our year 13 who plays with the Bangkok Symphony. Next week, conducted warmups where I'm going to mess with their minds. :D

I'll leave you with some quotes:

"When played properly, a bari sax should sound like a cello . . a cello of death!"- Gary Lewis

"Band prepares you for life"- Richard Saucedo

"My music is best understood by children and animals"- Igor Stravinsky

"Without music, we could completely destroy the structure of the space-time continum!"- Dr. Emmet Brown

"I can't listen to Wagner that much. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland"- Woody Allen

"School curricula that ignore the arts produce 'Highly Educated Barbarians'"- Edward Albee

"It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself"- JS Bach