Texas Bandmasters Association
Bandmasters Review • June 2015
9
People laugh when I talk about
what I do “for a living”. I teach
high school. I judge. I write drill.
I co-founded Dynamic Marching.
I shoot video. I teach marching
band. I do clinics and consulting all
over the country…. but what I love
doing the most is teaching! I am a
teacher first.
Because I get a chance to
travel all over, I see and hear the
fears, frustrations and hang-ups
that keep other teachers up at
night. I don’t know every band
director, but I know a TON of
them who want things like… Less
stress. More organization. Greater
creativity. More time for other stuff
including family and social life.
Better communication skills. A
better team around them. Increased
audience engagement. Etc. One
of my goals this year is to help
band directors with these things.
So Dynamic Marching recently
launched an online class called
“Dynamic Design for Total Program
Success”
.
I used to think design was all
about rules and principals of art
or following judging sheets to the
letter, but I now understand it is
a holistic system of planning and
organization with some storytelling
mixed in. It’s about Evaluation,
Organization, Communication,
Planning, Design, and Details.
These six concepts are covered in
our course, and also in our TBA
convention clinic presentation this
summer. Before we launched our
class, Bobby Lambert wrote the
following piece to explain to our
fellow teachers what we mean by
Designing total program success.
Total Program Success
A director and his or her staff
are the only ones who can define
TOTAL program
success. What may
constitute success
in one community
may be completely
different twenty
miles down the
road.
However,
complacency
is
one of the worst
attributes for many
music programs today. It is critical
to avoid this complacency and work
towardhigher levels of achievement.
Defining and discovering success
for any program is much like
planning for a trip. There are many
different destinations but there are
two things that always constitute a
good trip—momentum toward the
destination and a destination that is
worthwhile. Once a destination is
determined, one must then acquire
provisions and supplies and finally,
plot out the landmarks in between
(to mark forward progress).
Determining a Destination /
WHAT is success?
Each program should have a
one / three / five / ten
program in
place. Essentially, this is a list of
goals and wishes for the program
over the short-term, medium-term,
and long-term. No goal is a “one
day” type of project but rather
larger tasks or achievements that
will take us weeks, months, and
even years to meet.
These are our
“destinations”.
When defining
a “successful pro-
gram” one should
try to be very con-
crete. For example,
anyone can say,
“All students will
learn to love
music.” While this is significant,
it cannot truly be measured and
is not as tangible. That goal is
not one to ignore but should be
accompanied by “We can measure
their love for music by our
retention rate and by volunteerism
for extra playing responsibilities.”
This sounds dangerously close to
various assessments mandated by
several districts across the country.
While directors often roll their eyes
at the latest pedagogical fad, this
one precept is pivotal to program
health and growth.
(continued)
Jeff Young
Total Program Success
Sponsored by
Marching Show
Concepts,
Jeff Young will present
“Designing Total
Program Success”
on Friday, July 24
at 2:45 p.m.
