Symphonic Winds Update

Enjoy your 3 day weekend!

Highlights from this email:

• Normal sectionals
• Jazz band performance Thursday (Jazz band students only!)
• Wear your Black Band T shirt and Jeans
• Meet in the band hall at the start of 1st period
• 8th grade side by side rehearsal with high school band Friday, January 31st (Not this week!)
• 8th grade only! Itinerary attached
• We will bus over from AMS at the end of Honor Winds, pick your students up at AHS at 6:00PM
• Some information about band for next year (7th AND 8th graders)
• Nothing new in this section

Normal schedule this week!

We will continue this sectional schedule until basketball season ends and track starts up.

Jazz band students, you will get more information from Ms. Kunkel. You will need to wear your black band shirt and jeans. Report to the band hall at the start of 1st period on Thursday.

We will bus over to the 6th grade center to perform for our beginner band students and introduce them to Jazz Band, then return to AMS. You'll be back in time to attend 3rd period.

A few of the specifics might change, but for the most part this is finalized.

7th period - All 8th grade band students head to Band Hall, get instruments, take attendance, load buses. Take ALL of your things with you, we will not be coming back to AMS!

2:10 PM - Take attendance, load, depart

2:30 PM - Arrive at Argyle High School

• Meet and greet with high school students, hang out with your sections

• Say hi to your old friends you were in band with last year at AMS
• Say hi to the friends you made at 8th grade night!

3:00 PM - Rehearse your band's march and some other things with high school band students

• Honor Winds on Stage with HS Wind Ensemble (Mr. Gutic / Bird rehearsing)
• Symphonic Winds in band hall with HS Symphonic Winds (Mr. Fletcher rehearsing)
• Symphonic Band in percussion room with HS Symphonic Band (Ms. Mollenkopf rehearsing)

3:45 PM

• March runthroughs

4:00 PM Pack up and eat pizza in hallway

4:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Game night!

• GIANT inflatable games / obstacle course in band hall

• Video games in auditorium

• Board games in black box

• Karaoke in percussion hall

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Parent info night!

• Parents! Do you have questions about high school band life? Come get your questions answered directly from parents who are a part of it now! Stop by the high school band hall and come into the workroom (We will help you find it, don't worry!) and get to know some of the parents who are a part of it now.
• There's no better way to get your questions answered than by asking other parents who have seen what your students will get to be a part of next year.
• We'll have a map in next week's update showing you where to enter.

6:00 PM - Pick up students at Argyle High School

• You may pick up your students earlier as needed, just let us know!

We will never move a student DOWN to a band below where they currently are from year to year! All students will stay in the band they are currently in or move up to the next band!

We will send home a sheet with your students soon with information about the 4 band classes and the expectations for each. There is a place on the back where we ask the students which band classes they feel like would be the best fit and which band classes they want to be in. They can circle ALL of the ones that apply. This will be the first thing we look at when we do band placements. Any students wishing to try out for Honor Winds are required to turn the form in!

Part 1 of your band placement will be your passoff sheets from this year. We will look at all-region passoffs, UIL passoffs, and technique sheet passoffs.
Part 2 - Audition music will be performed for a band director the week of March 18th (The week after spring break). We will hand out audition music to students soon!

Anyone wanting to move up to Honor Winds will be asked to do part 2 and play their audition music for a band director.

Jazz band is open to ALL instruments. The only prerequisite is that you also be signed up for a regular band class. You'll play your regular band instrument in jazz band unless you happen to play a different instrument that's traditionally found in Jazz Bands (Such as a bass guitar, piano, etc).

This is a great way to get your non-band friends involved in the band program! If you know of anyone who missed out on being in band, this is a great opportunity for them. Our Colorguard students go on all of the same trips and social events that we do and perform at pep rallies along with us!

Colorguard is a class where your students will learn how to perform choreographed dances and routines with various equipment from flags, to sabers and rifles. Colorguard combines dance, movement, and choreography but adds extra elements to it.

At the middle school level, colorguard mostly be performs along with pre-recorded music, but will continue on into the high school guard program, where they perform with the Argyle High School Marching Band!

No prior dance experience is required, students will be taught everything they need to know to be in Colorguard. Please email Ms. King (erica.king@argyleisd.com) for details or if you have any questions about Colorguard.

8th graders, you'll have a course selection meeting on Wednesday night at 6:00PM in the auditorium with some information about classes for next year. You'll also get some information from Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Bird about high school band and what that is like. All 8th grade students participate in marching band in the fall and transition to concert band (What you're used to here) around November in the fall.

Regardless of which endorsements you select, which sports you want to play, or which UIL activities you want to participate in, you can participate in high school band!

In my 11 years in Argyle ISD we have had high school students involved in these activities:

- Varsity Football

- Varsity Tennis (And Valedictorian / Salutatorian / All-state Flute and Percussion players!)

- Varsity Basketball (Area level Bassoon player!)

- Varsity Cheerleading (Including a cheer captain who was ALSO a drum major!)

- Varsity Volleyball students (One was an all-state French horn player!)

- Varsity Baseball (All-State Euphonium player!)

- Varsity Softball (All state french horn player!)

- Varsity Track (All-state Clarinet player!)

- Varsity Cross-Country (All-state Trumpet player!)

- Varsity Soccer

- Varsity Wrestling (All-state Trumpet player!)

- Varsity Golf

- Debate (State silver medalist was a band student!)

- Theater (Performing in One Act and the Musicals)

- Choir (Including Harmony / Remedy / Show Choir)

- Almost every UIL Academic event

- NUMEROUS National Merit Scholars and Semi-finalists!
- Either the Salutatorian or Valedictorian are a band student most years

You'll be getting more information from Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Bird about high school band soon and we'll be doing a side by side rehearsal with the high school students in about a month so they can answer some questions for you directly. Often, our high school band students can give you a different perspective than we can on things and answer your questions better than we can.

This is a great way to get your non-band friends involved in the band program! If you know of anyone who missed out on being in band, this is a great opportunity for them. Our Colorguard students go on all of the same trips and social events that we do. They will go to every competition and perform at all football games with the marching band!

Our colorguard students will learn how to perform choreographed dances and routines with various equipment from flags, to sabers and rifles. Colorguard combines dance, movement, and choreography but adds extra elements to it.

No prior dance experience is required, students will be taught everything they need to know to be in Colorguard. Please email Ms. King (erica.king@argyleisd.com) for details or if you have any questions about Colorguard.

Please help us spread the word to non-band families! We especially want to find students who are not currently part of a group or activity in the school and bring them in!

• February:

  • • Tuesday, February 4 - Percussion concert
    • Tuesday, February 11 - Jazz band concert
    • Tuesday, February 18 - Concert Band / Symphonic Band Solo contest (~4:30 - 7:30)
    • Monday, February 24 - Concert band, Symphonic Band, Symphonic Winds Pre-UIL concert (6:00 - 8:00)

    
    

    March:

    • Wednesday, March 5th - (Time unknown, before noon) Symphonic Band UIL contest
    • Thursday, March 6th - (Time unknown) - Symphonic Winds UIL contest
    • Wednesday, March 26th (During school) - Honor Winds Pre-UIL

    
    

    April:

    • 8th or 9th (Schedule not released yet) - Honor Winds UIL contest
    • Friday April 25th - North Texas Festival of Distinction (SB 10:15, SW 10:45, HW 11:15)

    
    

    May:

    • Saturday, May 3rd - Argyle ISD Solo contest
    • Tuesday, May 6th - Spring concert
    • Tuesday, May 13th - Recording concert at St. Andrews church in Plano, transportation and dinner provided (~6:00PM). We have reserved this venue as the acoustics are STUNNING

Please keep our performance schedule in mind as you schedule students to get braces, retainers, expanders, or any major dental work.

As you can tell by the schedule above, your students will stay very busy with performances and competitions this semester. The best time to do this is either right now or over the summer if possible.

It’s important that all band students stay in playing shape for the entire semester. Please do not schedule your students to get braces, have them removed, or have any major procedures done within 2 weeks of a performance if possible. These can take your students out of playing shape for several weeks sometimes as they learn to adjust the way they play and get used to the braces.

It’s also important to make sure you don’t have braces tightened within a few days of a performance as that will affect your students pretty dramatically as well.

If you plan on going to Archery nationals, please do NOT book a flight until Friday afternoon / evening after we have performed. Our competition on Friday, April 25th is extremely important and we purposely scheduled an early time so that you could take a later flight and still make it for the competition on Saturday!

Students will not be excused from this competition for archery travel as we have specifically picked a time to schedule around archery nationals! Our performance times are listed below so you can plan now:

Symphonic Band performance - 10:15 AM

Symphonic Winds performance - 10:45 AM

Honor Winds performance - 11:15 AM

The concession stand had to close twice due to a lack of parent volunteers. On a typical night, the concession stand brings in about $500 to the band boosters so we unfortunately lost out on that. If every band parent just volunteers one time per year for concessions, we can easily fill up every time slot!

If we continuously struggle to staff the concession stand, there have been talks of it going to a different organization in the district, which would be a huge financial hit to our band boosters.

All of the money goes back to your kids in the form of scholarships, supplies, paying for lesson teachers to come in for master classes, paying for clinicians to come in and work with the kids, help to pay for food for kids, and much more.

We also need a coordinator of middle school concessions, please contact Deni Day at concessions@argylebandboosters.com or 206-265-3377

All of our events for this school year are already on the calendar! We use Google Calendar in the district. Please add the middle school band calendar to your calendar and you'll always be in the loop when it comes to upcoming events!

Director of Bands

Argyle Middle School

Email: bojan.gutic@argyleisd.com
Website: www.argyleband.com
Location: Argyle Middle School, U.S. 377, Argyle, TX, USA
Phone: 940-262-7777 31324
Facebook: facebook.com/argylemsband