Tuesday night was our Christmas concert, actually my first Christmas concert for guitars. I had 53 of 58 students show up which is very good for our rural school. I was very happy that there were enough instruments for everyone to play especially since a few kids didn’t bring their own after having said they would.
At our school, all of the kids can’t provide his/her own instrument. I have about 25 guitars that we use at school every day. We made up the difference for the concert with about fifteen kids bringing their own instruments, using a few baritone ukes that were here when I first came to the school, old guitars that I have here at school, and using a few of my own personal instruments.
All went well, and I had each class play its own piece sitting at the front of our seating arrangement. When they finished, they moved back to their permanent seat and the next group came and sat in front. When the third group had finished, we had everyone sitting on stage together. We played the nine pieces I listed in my previous post minus Joy to the World, which we didn’t have time to finish rehearsing
Tuesday night was the first time all of them had played together. That being said, it went pretty smoothly. I did learn several important lessons from this performance which I will be glad to share with you.
First, for a guitar performance, sound reinforcement is a very high priority. The day of the concert, I found out that the sound system I used for last year’s performance no longer worked. There was another PA in the auditorium but it only had one speaker and I didn’t have a lot of time to set up a new PA. I honestly thought, “I’ve got almost twice as many players. I should be good.”.
I knew that we wouldn’t be heard over the air conditioning (imagine a 747) without sound reinforcement. But I had run into the air-conditioning man in the hall that day. He showed me how to turn the fan off and said that he would program the unit it from his computer to turn off in time for the concert. Well, I didn’t get it done correctly and the folks in the back couldn’t hear much. Next time, I will definitely have my condenser mikes set up and have sufficient amplification. 
Second, there comes a time when one must sacrifice aesthetics and acoustics for practicality. We were really too big for the auditorium. It was darker at the back of the stage and parents can’t see kids back there anyway. Besides, with the loud air-conditioning factored in the acoustics weren’t any better than the gym. Our next concert will be in the gym. It may sound worse and look cheesier to this musician, but Momma will be able to see Sweetie Pie from the audience and that’s probably all she cares about anyway. 
Third, I would begin rehearsing the ensemble music earlier and lose the expectation of having everyone play everything. I spent a larger portion of the beginning of the school year just playing the stuff out of the book and really started working ensembles about three weeks before the concert. They did really well with this because of the simplicity of the music we did, but my students that were already way ahead could have been working on some more challenging pieces for a smaller ensemble performance.
I kind of geared this beginning of the year concert toward what everyone could do. My special needs students could play one of the parts on most of these pieces. Then, they kind of struggled through other pieces. When a couple of players are “off”, it makes the whole thing sound less professional.
For my spring concert, I’ve already chosen my “everybody” pieces. Then, I’ll have a few “average” pieces that all of my regular ed. kids will perform. Last, I plan to include many more small-ensemble pieces for my students that are more advanced. I think this will help fill out the concert more and give exceptional students a chance to really shine.
Finding music on this wide range of skill levels can be a challenge without just buying a ton of music to check it out. At the GAMA Teaching Guitar Workshop, this summer, I got five or six ensemble books. So, in my next post I’ll give reviews of the three ensemble books I’m using and their appropriateness for different skill levels.
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