Band Camp '07

I've spent the last week on a new adventure---teaching oboe at a middle school band camp. Robyn & Tim's former band director, Teri Brockway, invited me to teach the applied oboe classes at the Stars & Stripes Band Camp here in our neighborhood. Over 250 kids attended the camp; luckily for me, only eight of them played the oboe! I taught three classes each day, since the kids were divided into three bands, so I never had more than three students at a time. All eight oboe players were girls, and seven of them had only been playing for one year. At first I was worried about how I would fill up five days, 70 minutes each day with each group. As it turned out, I had lots more material than I ultimately needed (that's great for me, since I'll still have something new for next year!). One day I took my cane gouging machine and let the kids try it out. They thought it was really cool, and we gouged enough cane to make a pile of curly cane strips in the trash can. I'm sure the janitors at the school were wondering what on earth we'd been doing in there!




Another day, I took my English Horn and let the kids try playing it. They also enjoyed watching me shape cane and tie the cane to a tube, but I didn't dare let them try doing those things, since I use razor blades and sharp knives when shaping and scraping. We worked hard all week on an arrangement of "Jamaica Farewell" which had a CD accompaniment. I took my dulcimer on the last day, and we performed the song for the whole group.





(Believe it or not, these two girls are the same age!)

All in all, though tiring, it was a fun experience, and I do hope I'm asked to do it again next summer. I'm hoping the same kids come back with another year of playing under their belts, so that we can build on what we did this year!