Observation at Arts HS

During my observation at Newark Arts HS, I observed three different blocks and three different teachers. The blocks were sophomore band, music technology, and choir which are all within the content area that I am studying. I really had an informative experience during my visit. It is also quite interesting to take a step back from the college level classes that I am in and view them in a high school setting.

Mr. DA is the band director at Arts HS. I honestly found his class to be quite mediocre for a school dedicated to the arts. My professors would refer to many of his techniques, such as hitting the baton against the stand while conducting, as bad habits. His relationship with his students seemed to not be very dynamic, and I felt that he did not pay equal attention to his students. One of his flute players in the ensemble clearly lacked confidence in her playing, and he had just been ignoring her. I felt that she had a lot of potential and that he could have really helped her to keep up with the rest of the students. I was still very impressed with his students and how well their tone production and balance as an ensemble was even with poor instrumentation. I found his humor in class very hard to understand though his students seemed to react better to it than I did. Though I did not see many things that I liked during his rehearsal, I would still consider him a decent teacher just by the overall performance of his students.

After, I observed a Music Technology class conducted by the guitar teacher, Mr. GF. I was pleasantly surprised by how advanced and creative the class was. He had a very democratic classroom with students learning how to compose and utilize notation software. The students were working on their final project where they orchestrated a piece for voice and two instruments which they were required to learn perform their arrangement on the instruments that they were writing for. He also was teaching them how to use an electronic keyboard and drums with notational software. To be honest, the only other thing that the present music technology course I am enrolled in covered was MAXMSP software. I was truly impressed by his class, and I also found his background to be interesting since he came from Italy to the New York Metropolitan area to study jazz performance.

The last block that I observed was choir which was conducted by Mr. F. Mr. F is probably one of the oldest teachers at Arts HS, but he is certainly the most talented. The choir has an amazing sound, and at one point in one of their pieces, I actually got chills from the energy they were putting into their singing. Mr. F teaches many healthy performance techniques dealing with posture, breathing, energy, and movement that many music teachers tend to overlook. Healthy performance techniques are usually learned at the college-level if at all, but it is so important to performing well and not having performance related injuries and bad postural habits. I was pleasantly surprised with his choir and how well they respected him.