Hope you are all well and settling into this new schedule. I know in my house, my lunch meetings with my kids and wife have been some of the highlights of my weeks.
Our instrumental students have been working hard and finding time to improve their playing, even while at home in the early hours. Thank you all for your support in keeping the music flowing through this difficult playing environment. Music makes all things better.
Wednesday night we will hold our opening information meeting about the instrumental music program. It’ll be an overview of the program and the Music Parents Association and how you can help support our great program. We will also try to give some insight into the year’s plans, even though everything is in complete flux.
Have a great week and I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday night!
Thank you all for a great first week of school! We are working hard to figure out this new teaching environment and working to get the best music training and performance out of each student. Look for our hard work this Friday as the band, guard, and percussion are featured in our first assembly of the year. I am amazed with the professionalism that our students are working in to learn, record and turn in such great work in such a small turn around. Thank you all!
This Wednesday night at 7pm we will be having the first MPA meeting of the year. I invite everyone to come and sit in on our virtual meeting and see the great community of supporters who help make this Instrumental Music Program great. Come and join in and find out all the ways you as a parent can work to support your kids in our program.
Welcome Back! Summer is over and we are all back in school… still at home… but back in school! I am looking forward to beginning undoubtedly my most unusual start of school in my 24 years of teaching. The challenges will be spread out to everyone, but I am excited to try and overcome many of them, if not all of them, and still create some great music and even greater community.
7:40am Orchestra and 8:25am Band will be a major shock to all households, including my kids’ schools, my wife’s work, and the two dogs all in our house. Should be an exciting year!
Students should be linked into their Google Classroom and Remind system for links and info, and we will try to keep a clear line of communication through our weekly emails. Please look to these for the answers you seek. If we miss something, or you need greater clarification, please don’t hesitate to ask (email).
Finally, last week, the Band and Color Guard worked hard on their new fall show Influencers: Black Artists Who Impacted the World. The premiere of the show will be sometime in October, but we wanted to give you the Preview Show feeling, so we have a video for you. All of this was recorded by your children in their own homes, away from anyone else in the band (well.. except for siblings). So we hope you enjoy!
I would say this is a strange way to begin our year, but in light of the past four months, strange takes on a whole new meaning. Regardless, we are hoping to continue our growth in musicianship and performance techniques to bring you a whole new fall show in a unique way. The show will be announced to everyone on Monday and the staff and I are very excited for the possibilities and learning opportunities of focusing on the music and movement moments, without the judges perception and being “competitive” being a factor in our creativity. Our fall season will last for the first two months of school and will culminate with a video rendition of our show (with a live version possibly during the possible Feb-Mar football season). We will not be holding regular Tuesday and Thursday night rehearsals, but there may be opportunities in the evenings to better our show, connect with each other and continue the things that make band the best (those things are music, friends and fun!). As we move through the year, we will be taking all precautions to keep everyone safe, while still trying to bring everyone together with music.
Thank you all for your patience and resilience (you’ll need it at 8:25am band period 1) as we work through this online opening and what’s to be an odd and unforgettable year. Keep looking to the constant contact emails we send out each week for updates and upcoming events as we want to keep everyone informed and engaged as possible. Take care and see you soon!
Hope everyone is enjoying the summer and staying safe. While the final details of what the opening of school looks like in August is still being determined by the district, LA County of Public Health, and the State, there was an announcement by the Western Band Association, our marching circuit.
With lots of input from the directors in the association and looking at the current climate, WBA has decided to cancel all of their fall marching season events. While that brings great sadness to me, I think it’s the right decision at this time to keep everyone safe. However, we will continue to pursue our musicality and musicianship in spite of the cancellation.
What does this mean for the fall Mr. Stone?!? (I know that’s the next question.)
I have been thinking a lot about this and we will, with staff help, come up with a plan to incorporate some of our marching skills we’ve been honing in all summer and continue to build our musical abilities as well. However, we are going to put our current proposed fall show Diamonds on hold and try it again for next year when we can give it the proper treatment it deserves.
Please stay tuned for more posts in the coming weeks as more information about the fall comes about. We will still have band in the fall no matter how we start. Music is the thing we need in these crazy times.
Congratulations to the Graduating Class of 2020! We are going to miss your music, hard work and smiles that you’ve shared with us over the years! Good luck moving forward and know that it’s okay to look back and visit your music teachers at any time!
Thank you to everyone for making our first ever virtual Mini-Camp a huge success! As strange and odd as that environment is for all of us, we accomplished some great work towards our future success. Thank you for being positive, hard working and amazing in this crazy camp.
It is now summer! A time to relax, practice your instrument, take a lesson or five, swim, play video games, improve your marching skills, connect with your band mates, Thursday game nights, Saturday watch parties, and generally just have fun. Please find time to have fun, even though we will continue to ask you to think towards the fall. Section leaders will be contacting their sections for sectionals (both for work and fun) and staff will be sending out summer challenges to improve marching and musicianship throughout the summer. Remember that we would love your participation, but understand that you are entitled to have fun as well, so please try and balance these as much as you can. All work will help our success next season, but all the fun will be an equal partner in that success too. Balance is the key so that the work will be fun and the fun will be funner (I know it’s not a word… it just makes me laugh!).
For our fall plans, we are meeting Monday, August 3rd to begin our band camp at LCHS. However, all those plans are contingent upon the District’s plan for opening school in the Fall. There are no clear answers at this time, but we will have a plan and relay that information to you as soon as the District makes their announcement for the Fall, which could be late July. I’m keeping my positive, happy outlook on this situation to keep hope alive that we are meeting in person soon, but I will defer to the District’s decisions and protocols and make sure everyone is safe and secure in whatever we do. Thank you for your patience in all this, I know we are all waiting to see what the future holds.
Congrats to the Class of 2020! I know it wasn’t the end you wanted to see, but it is an ending you won’t forget! Good luck as you move on to college and whatever life has in store for you! I know you all will be amazing!
Congrats to the rest of you for moving up a notch and getting ready for another memorable year in the Instrumental Music program. I can tell you that it will be a year unlike any other. For starters, Mini-Camp is online this year, which will give us the chance to continue the training and work we have been doing at the end of this school year, and to get our newest members included into the Instrumental Music Family! While I have zero answers to what August will look like, I do know that we will continue to prepare like we always do and build our musical and visual skills for future use. Thank you all for your professionalism, optimism and dedication to the program and your own growth. I look forward to seeing you all face to face!
The light at the end of the tunnel is getting closer! End of school, start of summer is a great time. I hope we all get a chance to enjoy the summer, and relax, and not have to look a computer all day long. I’m looking forward to more time to actually talk to my kids and play games, instead of the small moments I get between emails and texts. I am sure some of that will still go on, but summer is always the best!
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the awards ceremonies on Tuesday night! It’ll be a great way to celebrate the end of a great, but unusual, year. See you all there!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! Thank you all for what you do in all our lives!
Next week we will be holding our annual awards ceremony in a most unusual way. We will send out all the details at the beginning of next week and we hope to see you all at our awards presentation on Tuesday, May 19th.
Have a great week and great job with everyone keeping up on all the preparation for next year.
In an effort to be normal and optimistic about the future, we are going to be meeting on Monday night to discuss and answer all the questions you might have for the 2020-21 Marching Band season and beyond.
At the meeting you will see all that the program offers, calendar of events, and be present for the show reveal for the 2020 Marching Season. It’s a great time to get together and look positively to the future, a future I hope includes a marching band season.
So come join a mega zoom meeting at 7pm and be ready to find out all you can about the instrumental program. If you have questions during the meeting, please use the google form to ask you questions. I’ll be able to answer them in a less chaotic manner. Looking forward to seeing you all there on Monday.
(Zoom meeting details and google form for asking questions below.)
Show Reveal Meeting Info
Here are all the details you need for the zoom call on Monday:
Marching Band and Color Guard informational meeting discussing the program, calendar, etc. Will talk about how we are operating in this COVID environment And the show reveal for hopefully the 2020 Fall Marching Season.
People will be placed in a waiting room and then be admitted into the room at the start of the meeting. Keep your mic muted to help with hearing the presentation.
