Different ≠ Worse

Written by Taha Ahmed, RMS Educator

“How can we get back to normal?”

This is, inherently, a loaded question. What is normal? ‘Normal’ changes, ‘normal’ adapts, ‘normal’ is an artificial paradigm that we’ve created based on popular beliefs. If we take a look at our own history, we can notice how many ‘normal’ trends have changed.

Bootcut jeans and Walkmans were a sign of status when I was in middle school. I’m not sure either of those things still exist. 

Trends come and go, but people who adapt to the changing times can pave the way for what could become ‘normal.’ Reflecting on how we can adjust our path to accommodate the limitations from COVID-19, we’ve realized that creating new solutions is an easier route than trying to go back to ‘normal’ marching arts after COVID-19 is ‘done.’ COVID-19 won’t ever be done. It is a novel virus that will now exist forever. It will only become manageable, not extinct. For the students’ sakes and for our own sanity, let’s find a way to work through it.

Let’s approach this with the Scientific Method:

The Problem: COVID-19. A pandemic. A virus unlike anything we’ve seen before. It took everything about the marching arts that we know and love… …and cancelled it.

The Hypothesis: If we view this as an opportunity to reevaluate how we do the marching arts, then we can potentially create solutions to forever simplify and craft the future of the marching arts.

The Prediction: Some of our current teaching methods are outdated and restrictive. Instead of “shutting it all down,” we can utilize new COVID-prevention standards to adjust how we structure our process, therefore making it more convenient for both student and educator.

Testing: COVID has created many problems within our teaching methods. Instead of dwelling in those, the Percussion Director at Cy-Fair, Kazuomi Motoike (“Moto”), and I came up with a multi-layered plan at the beginning of this pandemic. We knew the situation would be fluid and constantly changing, so we planned…. And planned, and planned, and planned. Each time we thought we had it, there would be a new mandate and we were forced to change the plan again. Was it frustrating? Absolutely. Was it worth it? We hope so. At this point, we had several “branches” that we could take depending on where the world was at the moment.

For example:  

The plans were carefully intertwined so that we could jump from one to the other depending on the most recent mandate. As the pandemic worsened, we concluded that it’d be safest (and most controllable) to go “all virtual” for the entirety of the summer. This route gave us the most control and organization of the situation.

We were able to accommodate all aspects of the Percussion program in a very detailed and regimented schedule. While this was much more stressful and time consuming for us (the educators), it was much simpler for the students. 

For the battery, we focused on building skill-sets and primarily discussing motion and mechanics. My thought was: if the students can understand how to move the stick the same way, they will produce relatively similar sounds that we can refine, detail, and clean when we get the chance. The summer was structured in a very academic nature with clear guidelines, timelines, and deadlines. 

PROCESS:

Moto and I divided the summer into individual weeks. We wanted to ensure the students were receiving their “Percussion” training (as per the curriculum established by Moto) in conjunction with their Battery training. We utilized the ZOOM platform to congregate all students into individual and group settings. For consistency, we broke down the “Weekly Zooms” into individual days: 

With this general guideline, we broke down each day further into time slots. We would work around the staff members’ schedules while trying to keep a consistent schedule for the students: 

The summer started with a lighter workload / fewer sessions, but increased and intensified the workload as we got closer to the school’s “opening” date. The example above was the most involved week of our “summer band camp.” The greatest benefit of Zoom sessions was the ability to record the lesson. We recorded and posted each session in our Google Classroom - this allowed the students to revisit the class or watch it if they were absent. 

I created an individual practice rubric for the Battery to guide their practice sessions and follow their progression. Due to the amount of “new” battery members we had (6 of the 12 Battery students, with 3 of the 6 were Freshmen), this step became integral to our success. The rubric detailed the weekly Musical, Marching, and Physical goals that the students should focus on. We tried to follow the natural progression of note densities and muscle groupings in our long-term plan, then worked retroactively to create each individual week’s plan. Here is an example of a weekly practice breakdown: 

DATA COLLECTION / ORGANIZATION: 

Google Classroom:

We used the Google Classroom platform as our home base. We were able to keep all of our resources organized into tabs: The “Classwork” tab had all class materials (music, documents, rubrics, assignments) for student reference. The “Grades” feature allowed the staff to give detailed text feedback and numeric grades (as relative achievement standards) on the students’ videos. If the students did not meet a certain grade point average, they were given extra assignments to regain a passing average. The “Stream” allowed for students to openly share their thoughts about assignments and the arts as a whole, which built camaraderie and familiarity between peers and staff. The students also utilized Stream to keep each other accountable and post small videos of their practice sessions, workouts, or any other inspiring material. This created an opportunity for the more experienced students to lead by example, and allowed newer students to receive feedback from their peers (before posting their assignment for staff review on the weekends). 

Variables: 

As with any experiment, there were a myriad of variables - some controllable and some uncontrollable:

I. Instruments - How could students practice if they did not have instruments? (Especially the Front Ensemble) 

i. Solution - We had an ‘instrument pick up’ day with a Google spreadsheet where students would sign up for time slots. It was a contactless pickup where we would set the instrument outside on the curb and the students would pick them up. Moto also rented a truck and delivered Keyboards to students’ homes.

II. Vacations / Family Trips - What if students had family trips planned throughout the summer? Would they be penalized for missing assignments?

i. Solution - The summer assignment document was sent at the beginning of the summer - the students had a definitive guideline of lessons to practice / record. If a student missed a Zoom session, they could ‘take the class’ on their own time via Google Classroom. When the students communicated their needs in advance, we were able to be lenient with schedules. 

III. Marching - How were the students supposed to learn marching / step sizes / reading a field? How would ‘Visual Zooms’ work?

i. Solution - We created instructional videos on an actual field to teach our marching technique and demonstrate step sizes. This was paired with a written document (with images) to show the visual process. Visual Zooms were conducted similarly to online workouts.

IV. Technological Issues - How do you deal with Audio / Video / Internet issues while using Zoom?

i. Solution - This is the most challenging variable. It is impossible for students to play virtually and have synchronized audio. We created a process to allow the Zoom sessions to operate efficiently, while giving us the proper information to give feedback to the students.

(a) Full Group Zooms i) We treated the Full Battery Zooms as Masterclasses. I had prepared subject matter on specific skill sets. The students were all ‘muted’ and I would play every rep and they would play along. I also would ‘share my audio’ to allow the students to play along with click tracks and music (which gave me the opportunity to observe).

(b) Individual Lesson Zooms i) We utilized 1-on-1 Zoom lessons to give specific individual feedback. We followed the format: I play - We play - You play. This allowed the student to observe one rep, then the student tried to match me the second rep, and the third rep I observed the student.  

Analysis:

After going through an entire summer of this type of instruction, we found moments of success and opportunities for improvement.

PROS:

We were able to provide much more individual attention and feedback to each student. Instead of considering the line’s cleanliness, the focus was on each individual’s quality and execution. The students were able to learn at their own pace rather than trying to ‘keep up’ with the line. If the student struggled with a certain skill set, they had unlimited access to that specific Zoom session and could rewatch / relearn as necessary. Weekly video assignment submissions held the students accountable but also provided the staff with a tangible view of their progress, and the students were able to review previous assignments to view their improvements.

I cannot overstate the importance of detailed feedback. The feedback was not only important for the students but for me as well; it made me a better teacher. I had to be more concise, cogent, and understandable with instructions and feedback. As a staff, we couldn’t say “do it better,” “listen in,” or give any other blanket statements. Having to type out specific feedback forced me to get to the point and helped me recognize the verbose, non-essential commentary that could potentially waste rehearsal time. 

CONS:

We were unable to drum together. Creating music together was put on hold until it was safe to meet (while practicing social distancing). I tried to be as mathematical in my explanations of rhythms as possible while we were virtual, but that didn’t yield immediate clarity when we did meet in-person. It was close but not perfect; perfection of interpretation is much easier achieved when all together. Further, we were unable to have a standardized presentation of the concept of sound. Virtually, I could explain what I was listening for in the sounds that the students produced, but due to audio quality issues, the students would not be able to get a true, accurate reading of what it is supposed to sound like. Also, the students were unable to build the same type of relationships and camaraderie that they would while working hard in the summer heat. 

Conclusion:

Was the situation ideal? Absolutely not. COVID forced us to do things differently. Not having any sort of reference or guideline for the situation forced us to pave the way for our own teaching methods and pedagogy. We are sailing uncharted waters. This forced us to grow as educators. We had to abandon our old ways and start thinking outside the box. “That’s how we’ve always done it” became an invalid rebuttal. The curriculum became much more academic and much less repetition / imitation based. It allowed us to explain the ‘WHY’ rather than just the ‘WHAT.’ At least for me, personally, there was more time to focus on the fundamentals and foundations without the fear of running out of time. In previous years, it was always a race against the clock - we had to make certain sacrifices to get our music ‘good enough’ to learn drill, to allow the band to function, for us to be clean, etc. This summer, we did not have to move on from a concept until it truly felt like the students understood it and how to practice it. 

We can complain and be disgruntled about how COVID ‘messed up’ the marching arts, or we can accept it and pursue further ways to continue the marching arts through it. The students deserve it; the students deserve for us to continue working for them. I believe seeing the silver lining, acting quickly, and creating a plan behooved us at Cy-Fair. We were able to put together a completely virtual “summer band camp” project over a span of 4 weeks. Once school started in-person again, we were able to complete a full marching band show - without there being a major discrepancy in training or skill-level between this year and previous years.

Different does not equal worse. I feel this sentiment can be applied to everything. If someone drums differently than you, it does not mean they’re worse. If a group plays a different style of music, it does not mean it’s worse. If something is different than how you would do it, it does not mean it’s worse.

Different is just that - different. We can’t ever go back to ‘normal’ because that doesn’t exist anymore. All we can do is adapt and invent a new normal….

…for now.