Looking back on my goals for this year

Now that we have embarked on a new year, I see many goals that I can strive to accomplish during this school year. My main goals for this year are to become more confident in my playing ability, to further train my ears to improve my tuning ability, and to memorize more scales. Whenever I practice at home, I am not under any pressure and I am able to play more self-assuredly. However, during in-class playing quizzes, I almost always feel incredibly nervous. During the course of this school year, I hope to be able to play poise and self-assurance as I am able to at home. I also want to hone my ability to tune by ear. I can generally tell whether other people are playing sharp or flat, but I cannot accurately perceive my own tuning. This year, I hope to learn how to consistently have excellent pitch so I can move beyond notes and rhythms to improve my abilities as a musician. Lastly, I want to relearn scales from last year as well as learn new scales. If I do not know a scale that we play for a warm-up, that time is wasted trying to figure out the sharps and flats of a scale whereas I could otherwise be using the time efficiently to prepare for rehearsal. I hope that this year I can memorize several scales that we use regularly in class and many others as well. By the end of the 2011-12 school year, I want to gain more confidence for in-class playing, sharpen my ear-tuning ability, and memorize at least 7 scales to improve my performance as a musician.
Looking back on this year, I accomplished most of my goals from November. I aspired to gain confidence in my playing ability, get better at adjusting my intonation, and master more scales. Over the course of the year, I have become more confident about my playing. Despite the fact that playing in front of my peers still makes me nervous, I am much more comfortable with in-class playing quizzes now. At the very least, I no longer go out of my way to avoid playing tests. I also feel that I have succeeded in honing my ability to discern whether I am sharp or flat. Numerous pieces we have played this year have included exposed flute parts. Out of necessity, I learned how to tell if I was sharp or flat in comparison to the other flutes as well as how to adjust my pitch accordingly. Although I am satisfied with the experience I had in band this year, I have yet to memorize many new scales. Our scale work in rehearsal was confined to more basic scales, such as C, B flat, G, F and chromatic scales. Looking back, I could have been more proactive about memorizing new scales, but at least I have a good goal for the summer! In conclusion, though I did not expand my mastery of scales, I was able to gain more confidence for playing in front of my peers and hone my ability to tune.