Updates

Tomorrow is our students' first performance check of the year! What does that mean? Each student, depending on their class, will be playing an exercise from our Tradition of Excellence book.

• Beginning Band (First Year Students): 5. Away We Go

• Symphonic Band (Second Year Students): 54. Rio Con Brio

• Symphonic Band (Third Year Students): 99. Skill Builder

When they play, they will be graded on their tone production, rhythm and pulse accuracy, and pitch and intonation accuracy. You can see the full rubric here.

FAQ

• What if my student gets a low grade? Can they try again?

  • Yes! If your students is unhappy with the grade they received, they can retry as many times as they like outside of class time. This means they can come in before or after school, or they can email or text me a video of their performance. I cannot, however, change their performance check grade after the end of each nine week quarter.

• What if my student misses a performance check?

  • If your student is absent for a performance check, which under the circumstances is very possible, it is their responsibility to make it up outside of class time. Again, this means coming in before or after school or emailing or texting me a video.

• My student got their instrument much later than the other students. Do they still have to do it?

  • Yes. We have to begin holding all students accountable for practicing. I understand of course that they are at a disadvantage, but, as mentioned above, they have the rest of the quarter to get caught up and try again.

As always, please reach out with any questions.

Mr. Robinson

This year has already proven itself to be quite difficult. In the past weeks only about half of the band and guitar students have actually been here, and the groups have changed just about every day. This makes progress very difficult in class. I'm sure you've also wondered what students should be doing for my class while at home. Hopefully this update will clarify some things

As always, please reach out to me any time at jeffrey.robinson@polk-fl.net or (863) 968-6349. I am always happy to help out with anything.

Make-up work

Any written assignments I give out usually involve writing music symbols in some form, meaning it can't be done on a computer. Since many families do not have a printer readily available, I will have missing work for you student when they return. If you ever notice a "Z" in the grade book, your student is missing an assignment. If your student did not receive the work from me, please let me know so I can get them their copies. It's very difficult to keep track sometimes of who needs what, and sometimes I overlook a few students.

Beginning Band (First-year students)

Some students still do not yet know what they're playing or how to get their materials. All I can say for that is please be patient. I will get you the information about your student's instrument when they return and will get them started as quickly as possible. I must be personally with them to properly guide them through the process to make sure (A) Nothing breaks and (B) They have a good understanding of proper playing technique.

If your student does have their instrument and I've already got them started, the best advice I have is to just practice what we were doing in class before they left. That way when they return they can pick right back up without having to re-learn the basics. Please do not let them work too far ahead of what we have done in class. We don't want them teaching themselves something wrong and then having to unlearn and relearn those concepts later.

Symphonic Band (Second/third-year students)

All I ask is that you make sure your student is playing their instrument for about half an hour each day they are home. They are more than welcome to call/email me with their pass-offs.