Host Your Own Rhythm Masters Inservice

For those directors in a large school system with several middle schools feeding a single high school, you want to consider asking your administration to allow you to host a "Counting Curriculm Standardization Inservice" with your fellow instrumental educators. I could send you one copy of "Rhythm Masters", Books I & II, as well as all the "blank" pages. Your entire staff would then go over the "Rhythm Masters" system, deciding on what pages or sections to keep, and which to eliminate. You and your staff can also come up with a standardized counting language that would be uniform in teaching your students from grades 6 through 12. No hurt feelings or egos, everyone gives, takes and compromises, since all are involved. Remember, the essence of good leadership is sharing ownership of any group project. Once you have come to a consensus on each chapter, insert your agreed upon counting system into the examples on the "Theory" page. Make copies of the blank pages before you start, you may want to change your mind and revise earlier examples when you get to more complex levels and want to be cosistent. When you finalize your rhythmic "phonetic" language, decide if you are going to use the "Say" pages or not, and, complete those, if desired. Once you send these to me, I will insert these pages into your school systems very own set of "Rhythm Masters" books just as if we co-authored the books together. New directors coming into your system can be given this book as a guide, so the counting of all rhythms are consistent from beginner through senior. Think of the "re-teaching" time this may potentially save and the advantage a uniform counting approach might offer to your programs.

You may wish to order a "C" Instrument book for each director, using the book as a guide, or a set of seven books for each school, one for each of the different band instruments or keys. There are no minimum orders. Feel free to xerox any pages from any of the books you feel will help your program(s). If all goes well, at a later time you can order additional books, if you wish, for example, to have one per concert folder. I will keep all of your"Theory" and "Say" master pages on file, and your personalized pages will be inserted into each new book ordered. Upon request, you can also edit your masters, if you find any discrepancies, contradictions, or just come up with a better way of teaching one rhythm or another. Start slowly with a minimal invesment, and expand as you become more confident with the system.

I highly advise you use these books in the 3 to 5 minute per-class context for which they are designed. You also may wish to discuss using the "Rhythm Masters" Evaluation System, discussed elsewhere on this web site. All the rubrics and materials needed to record student progress are already in books I & II. If you consider adding this to your curriculm, please keep in touch with this web site. At this time, you will need to establish your own grade parameters and standards. With input from band directors such as you, I hope to use this data to recommend state standards and, eventually, national stadards for "meeting standards" and "mastery level".