Reflecting On My Goals

This year in band, I hope to improve my playing from both last year and last term. With the start of high school and a sport every day for two hours after school along with homework, I haven't exactly practiced as much as I'd like to. My new goal is to reherse my flute for at least 20 minutes a day, even if it's going up and down the concert Bb scale or learning a new song by ear. Doing any of these helps train my skills as a musician and improves In addition, I want to learn how to read music better. I tend to memorize how pieces sound rather than reading off of the music, so I want to improve both my counting skills and sight-reading skills. Also, I hope to be a better leader for my section. Playing correctly for the section to follow, taking lead in volunteering for things and generally being a better principal chair are some things that I hope to improve on over the course of the year. Hopefully, I'll accomplishe these over the course of the year, and I can't wait to start.

I believe that I've achieved several of these goals throughout the year. I think that I've improved as a musician quite a lot through ear training and sight reading. I'm a more proficient sight reader and can play music I never thought I would be able to in the fall. I volunteered for any solo or after school activity that I could partake in and generally tried to be more active in the band program than I was in past years. I still tend to memorize pieces rather than counting, but I found that listening to the other parts during rests works better for me than counting. I don't think I practiced as much as I could. However, it turns out that practicing is a great way to procrastinate on my other homework, and I got a lot out of that procrastination. This summer, I plan to keep practicing and improving my music skills, whether it's by joining an orchestra or re-teaching my sister how to play the flute. I want to come back to band in the fall prepared to face the music.

(Apologies for that pun)