I may work on things here and there this week as needed to prepare for my lessons, but this week is pretty busy so I’m going to call it a week off.  I’ll continue to edit what I currently have as I use it in my teaching.

I have a busy week this week so I’m going to try to be pragmatic and only get the things done I really need to.

• Purchase binders for Book 3 (complete)
• Print 15 copies of book 3 (complete)
• Continue to mark-up and troubleshoot the copies of Books 1-3 (complete)

–Update:  9/23/07–

I got done what I needed to get done this week to put Book 3 into the hands of my students.

If I were to just print out and bind the material that I currently have for the book it would already be one hell of a lot more than I had last year at this time. Book 1 is at 228 pages and counting. Book 2 is at 91. Now that I have those 228 pages printed out, I’m realizing that I need to split the “Songs” section into it’s own stand alone book. It’ll be more binding to do, but so be it.

Here’s how I see the books breaking down:

Book 1 – GBD… & R-grams
Book 2 – Songs & Appendix
Book 3 – Focus Sheets

Here are the remaining project parts:

Songs & Appendix

• Format the “Songs & Appendix” section as it’s own book
• Make any necessary changes to the current book 1 to reflect this change…
• Write an introduction to the ‘Songs & Appendix’ book, explaining whats included
• Add these to the ‘Songs & Appendix’ section
  • The Camptown Races (B flat)
  • Good King Wenceslas (E flat)
  • Jolly Old Saint Nicholas (E flat)
  • The Man on the Flying Trapeze (F)
  • O Come All Ye Faithful (E flat)
  • Pollywolly Doodle (E flat)
  • This Old Man (B flat)
  • Up on the Housetop (B flat)
  • We Wish You a Merry Christmas (E flat)

Book 1

• Finish the visual ‘Definition of an interval’ section
  • write the ‘Why intervals matter’ end part of this section
• Finish the “What the symbols mean” section (p. 44)
• Write the “Rhyth-a-Gram wrap up” (p.45)
• Write the “Holding the Horn” section
  • Take a picture of “Make an L with the Left Hand”
  • Take a picture of “Hand L” next to the “L of the Bell”
  • Take a picture of the “L of the Slide”
  • Take a picture of the horn put together from POV of the player
  • Write intro and outro of this section.
• ‘First Notes’ Section: Complete the following:
  • Introduction section that includes: Explain How Positions of the Horn are relative / Explain why we start in Partial 2
  • Insert some more exercises that don’t involve R-Grams between “First Notes” and “Downbeat Fermatas” section
  • Write some exercises that add low Bflat and partial two
  • Write some exercises that make the transition into partial three
  • Create the following exercise:
    • Choose a note you know
    • Say the rhythm before playing (ta’s/t’s)
    • Play that note on the following rhythms: (The rhythms will be variations of the foundation rhythms)
    • Find any exercises that absolutely need to be included and write out if necessary

Printing/Proofing/Binding
If the copiers are working by Wednesday at noon I’ll do the following:

• Print my current single pages copy to double sided (complete)
• Place in a binder and look for any errors then correct. (complete)
• Check the flow of the Book, see if it makes sense, fix anything that needs fixing. (complete)

–Update:  9/16/07–

A quick glance above will reveal that I didn’t do much on the book this week.  I spent a lot of time preparing for my audition, and this was the first week back teaching my students.  I’m still figuring out what material to give my guys on Wednesday.  To be continued…

Technically the ‘12 book projects in 12 weeks’ is over and I’d consider it a success. I never thought it would only take 12 weeks to finish absolutely everything in the book, but keeping the journal did provide me with an excellent structure for the work I needed to do each week. Even though I’m pretty sure only one person was watching (Thank you so much, M! : ) the public nature of this did help me.

So why a week 13? I have to have something to give my students in one week (2 weeks at the absolute latest…) and there’s still work to be done. Basically I see there being two release dates:

• The version I need for my returning students – due by Monday, September 10 (or Monday September 17 at the latest)
• The version I need for my new students – due by Monday, October 1st (I can incorporate anything I may have forgotten in this release)

I’ll work out the details of how I’m going to present this (spiral bound vs. loose leaf bound) in the coming week.

Here are the remaining project parts:

Songs to Input

• Go thru books and find any other public domain songs I may want to include (complete)
• Create a list (complete)
• Input to Sibelius (complete)
• Create a ‘Songs You Need’ listing for each (I input the following songs…) (complete)
  • The Camptown Races (B flat)
  • Good King Wenceslas (E flat)
  • Jolly Old Saint Nicholas (E flat)
  • The Man on the Flying Trapeze (F)
  • O Come All Ye Faithful (E flat)
  • Pollywolly Doodle (E flat)
  • This Old Man (B flat)
  • Up on the Housetop (B flat)
  • We Wish You a Merry Christmas (E flat)
• Add to the book (Songs Section & Appendix)
  

Intro

• Finish the visual ‘Definition of an interval’ section
  • write the ‘Why intervals matter’ end part of this section

R-Grams

• Finish the “What the symbols mean” section (p. 44)
• Write the “Rhyth-a-Gram wrap up” (p.45)

Playing

• Write the “Holding the Horn” section
  • Take a picture of “Make an L with the Left Hand”
  • Take a picture of “Hand L” next to the “L of the Bell”
  • Take a picture of the “L of the Slide”
  • Take a picture of the horn put together from POV of the player
  • Write intro and outro of this section.
• ‘First Notes’ Section: Complete the following:
  • Introduction section that includes: Explain How Positions of the Horn are relative / Explain why we start in Partial 2
  • Insert some more exercises that don’t involve R-Grams between “First Notes” and “Downbeat Fermatas” section
  • Write some exercises that add low Bflat and partial two
  • Write some exercises that make the transition into partial three

Put it Together

• Create the following exercise:
  • Choose a note you know
  • Say the rhythm before playing (ta’s/t’s)
  • Play that note on the following rhythms: (The rhythms will be variations of the foundation rhythms)
• Find any exercises that absolutely need to be included and write out if necessary

Printing / Proofing / Binding

• Print a double sided copy of Book 1 on my printer (print odd pages, flip then print even). Do this by Friday at 6 pm.
• Place in a binder and look for any errors then correct.
• Troubleshoot & fix any problems that come up in printing.
• Check the flow of the Book, see if it makes sense, fix anything that needs fixing.

–Update:  9/9/07–

Wow, there’s a lot of things still up there but from what I can tell I seem to have most of the big things completed.  The printing/proofing/binding didn’t happen because the copiers I have access to are out of commission.  So no book for the kids this week.  Inputting those remaining songs took a good amount of time but I think I’ve exhausted all the public domain possibilities for the book for now.

I need to have something in hand to give to my students by Monday, September 10. I know this will be challenging, but here are my project parts for this week.

Website

• Add ‘Star Wars Theme’ entry to the site (Songs you need and add link in AS Trombone) (complete)
• Edit the headers of the Scorch html pages (Can’t see the score?…get scorch…) (complete)
• Add a “Download Scorch” text to Songs page on ASTrombone & SongsYouNeed (complete)
• Move the orchestra music to it’s on page on ASTrombone (complete)
• Create a “shopping” page on ASTrombone. Big pictures of the stuff to buy with links to the individual entries in WP (Supplies) (complete)
• Update/Clean up outdated links on Supplies page (complete)
• Order a “Got Trombone” t-shirt (complete)
• Call R. re: Which songs is ASP playing? (complete)
• Create rough drafts of ASP songs for this years concert on AStrombone (complete)

Logo

• Email GotLogos with the following:
  • Logo should retain the placement of letters (GBD… needs to be circular with G starting in basically the same place as I have it
  • Their should be some type of face, but basically make it look good… not lame like the one I have
  • prep the drawing to send to GotLogos.com (clean up existing so that it’s most like what I’m looking for…)
  • Attach current logo that I have
  • If they’re able to do the logo, order a low res copy

Intro

• Write out a visual ‘Definition of an interval’
  • The definition of an interval (complete)
  • Why intervals matter

GBD…

• Write an intro to the GBD… section (complete)

R-Grams

• Finish the “What the symbols mean” section (p. 44)
• Write the “Rhyth-a-Gram wrap up” (p.45)

Playing

• Write a “Mapping the Horn: The HOP” section (I have what I think could be the first part of this section. It’s going to need more working through to call it complete).
• Write the “Definition of a Fermata” section (complete)
  • Definition
  • Don’t move to the next note until you’re ready
  • Wrap up
• ‘First Notes’ Section: Complete the following:
  • Introduction section that includes: Explain How Positions of the Horn are relative / Explain why we start in Partial 2 /
    
• Rework the Songs section to include R-grams of the dots/8ths below each song… Develop a template for this. (complete)
• Create r-grams for the difficult rhythms in Hot/Mary/Claire (complete)
• Create r-grams of dots/8ths for rest of the songs in this section (complete – It may need tweaking once it gets into the real world, but I think I have what I need for now…)

Put it Together

• Create the following exercise:
  • Choose a note you know
  • Say the rhythm before playing (ta’s/t’s)
  • Play that note on the following rhythms: (The rhythms will be variations of the foundation rhythms)

–Update:  9/2/07–

I didn’t get every one of my project parts done this week, but I slashed through a heck of a lot of them.  I’m going to  be putting the finishing touches on this coming week.  I will definitely have something to give to my students this year.  If not the first week they start back, then definitely the 2nd week of lessons.

Here are my project parts for this week. I’ll start with these and possibly add more as the week progresses.

Website

• Add ‘Toreador Song’ from Carmen to sites (complete)

R-Grams

• Finish the “What the symbols mean” section (p. 44)
• Write the “Rhyth-a-Gram wrap up” (p.45)

Playing

• Write the ‘Up & Down’ of the Horn section (sub-section of Parts of the Horn) (complete)
• Write the ‘Holding the Horn’ section
• Write a “Mapping the Horn: The HOP” section (I have what I think could be the first part of this section. It’s going to need more working through to call it complete).
• Write the “Definition of a Fermata” section (use existing as template)
• Write the “First Notes” section (use existing as template) (complete – see below)
• Write the “Ode to Joy Rhythm” practice section (p.165)

–added: 8/21/07–

• Write an intro to the GBD… section

–Update: 8/26/07–

This week proved to be challenging. I didn’t complete all my project parts, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. The sections of the book that I have left took alot of figuring out and were quite vexing. I made progress so I’ll be satisfied with that. I’m pretty excited about the way I have this “final” week planned out as far the time time I’m going to spend on the book. We’ll see how it goes.

Here are my project parts for this week. I’ll start with these and possibly add more as the week progresses. With 3 weeks to go I really need to kick things into high gear.

• Create a blog on “Songs You Need to Know” (complete – Looks like I’d actually done this back in Week 4 and forgotten about it. This time I created a subdomain for the WP install instead…)
• Create individual .pdf’s of each beginning song & copyrighted songs (complete – see below)
  
• Upload all songs to “Songs You Need to Know” as individual posts
• Create a ‘Songs’ page on ASTrombone.com with links to the songs on Songs You Need to Know.com [with this format: First Songs / Pop Songs] (complete)
• Write a “Parts of the Horn” section with pictures (complete)
• Write a “Mapping the Horn: The HOP” section
• Refine current “Definition of a Fermata” section and incorporate into book
• Refine current “First Notes” section and incorporate into book (use existing as template)
• Write the “Ode to Joy Rhythm” practice section (p.165)

–added: 8/14/07–

• Create Scorch files of all beginnning songs & pop songs (complete)
• Wrangle audio files audio files of as many of the songs as I can find. Upload to server. (complete)
• Create individual posts on ‘Songs You Need to Know’ that include links to .pdf, Scorch, Wikipedia & audio files (complete – This took a lot longer than I thought it would…)
• Write out the complete part for the ‘Scooby Doo’ theme (complete)
• Write out the complete part for ‘Hey Jude’ (complete)

–added: 8/19/07–

• Write a “Making a Sound” section (use original rough draft as a guide) (complete)

–Update: 8/19/07–

Though I didn’t complete all of the ‘official’ project parts this week, I added enough new parts to balance things out. Getting the songs up on the website took a heck of a lot longer than I had anticipated but I’m very pleased with where things are with the site right now. These last two weeks are essentially crunch time. Let’s see what I can get done!

Here are the parts of my project this week:

• Write an outline of all the things that I want to have done on the book(s) by the time school starts. Maintain that outline throughout the week as I complete things and think of new things (complete)
• Input the following songs into Sibelius: (complete)

Star Wars (Theme)

I’m a Believer

Theme from ‘The X-Files”

• Add ‘Saints’, ‘Grand Old Flag’, Rhodie, Silent, Mexican Hat Dance to the Appendix in 2 keys (complete)
• Register domain
• Refine the current logo. If I can’t get it the way I want it then…

- prep the drawing to send to GotLogos.com -

– (clean up existing so that it’s most like what I’m looking for…) -

– Contact GotLogos re: How do I get the logo to them? -

– If they’re able to do the logo, order a low res copy -

• Write an outline (table of contents) for the ‘Mapping the Horn’ book (complete)
• Create a “Repetoire checklist” in the front of the “Songs” section of Book 2 (complete)
• Create the “Range Builder” exercise (complete)
• Create the “4th as 1st” exercise (complete)

–Update:  8/12/07–

The logo fell by the wayside this week, but I’m happy with the rest of the work I got done.  I feel like what I need to do this last 3 weeks has really taken shape and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all ends up.

The parts of my project this week are:

• Write an “explanation of key signatures” in the “Saying then Playing” section (p. 145) (complete)
• Clean up formatting of GBD… & R-grams to match “1st Songs as R-Grams” section (Left margin on, right margin 2 off the line)
• Write the Introduction – How to Use This Book (based on the rough draft I already have) (complete)
• Write a definition of Clefs (p. 17) (complete)
• Flesh out the “How to Break Down a Song” section (added 7/31/07 – I added this because I need to have this section complete before I could create the “Songs” page) (complete)
• Create the following exercise:

Choose a note you know

Say the rhythm before playing (ta’s/t’s)

Play that note on the following rhythms:

(The rhythms will be variations of the foundation rhythms)

• Incorporate Appendix into book (as “Songs” section), with songs in the order that I teach them (complete)
• Incorporate Appendix into the book with the songs in alternate keys that are possible on trombone (alphabetical order) (complete)

–Update: 8/5/07–

I finished all but one of the project parts. I got a whole heck of a lot of things done this week so I’m pretty happy.

This week’s a travel week. I’ll be without access to my complete studio set-up for most of the week, and my time on the weekend is limited so I don’t want to commit to a heavy workload of things I might not be able to follow through on. Given that, here’s my project for the week:

• Write an explanation of the “Saying then Playing” section. (complete)

I know this is a really small project for the week (and I realize that it was something that I didn’t complete last week), but it’s something that I know I’ll be able to finish on Friday when I get back to my studio or at the very least on Sunday before bed. At this point I want to keep it simple and build on my successes.

–Update:  7/29/07–

Project completed for the week.  Woot!