Ummm... Kay.

Ok. Here's where the reeds come into play. (see! I remembered!!)
Wednesday afternoon, Kevin came to my house and we started making reeds. He felt like he is paying too much for reeds (and he probably is), so hewanted to larn how to make them himself. It's not too hard, but you need to make sure that you are precise with measurements and wiring, or else it can get ugly fast. For my reeds, I use a gouged, shaped, and profiled cane from Christlieb Products in California. It's usually a medium collar at 120mm overall length. I've tried a few different gouges and profiles, but I keep coming back to this one.

Here's what you'll need for making reeds:
1. At least six pieces of cane - GSP, unless you have the machinery to do it yourself or the patience to do it by hand and measure constantly...
2. A drying rack with space for at least six reeds to dry at a time.
3. One long-pointed forming mandrel (it will just be called a "forming mandrel")
4. Some 22-guage brass wire
5. A fingernail file
6. Butcher's twine (about two feet worth and probably more than just one string)
7. An easel or 3/4" dowel (not more than a foot long - cut it)
8. Pencil
9. Ruler - I use mm, but you can find measurements for inches
10. A good, sharp knife. I've got a double hollow ground knife
11. Needle-Nose pliers

Start off by soaking your cane. You can do this one of two ways: cold water (overnight), or hot water (boil in 5 minutes). With cold water, soak it overnight or until the pieces of cane fall to the bottom of your container. I use a tupperware container with a lid, just in case my dog knocks things over in the night. My usual M.O. is to boil the cane. Stick it in a pot on the stove and boil for five minutes or until it sinks to the bottom. I stick it in the microwave sometimes, and have a five minute boil time overall. When you get to that point, take out a piece at a time and, using the easel, mark the points where you will put the wires at forming time: 5mm, 19mm, and 26mm. These measurements will be from the butt end of the reed! Mark it with the pencil and then use the side of the fingernail file to make a small score in the bark of the cane. That way, in case the pencil gets rubbed off later, you still have the markings!

Using the knife, cut from about the point of the second wire to the butt end of the cane at approximately a 45-degree angle. This helps the cane form in a good circle and seal correctly later. Illustrating this, cut about the way the slash (/) interacts with the parenthesis. -----> ( / and also \ ) my image isn't great, but the 45s go toward the inside of the cane.

Next, score the cane using the tip of your sharp knife. You will need at least 8 cuts across the external "bark" of the cane on each end. Remember, this is a minimum. The more times, the better. Be careful, though, that you don't strip all the bark from the reed. With these, the end by the wire should be more or less superficial, with deep cuts at the end of the cane. It will be a nearly gradual depth increase from the wire to the butt. At this point, place the reed back into the water for a while while you work with the other pieces of cane. Finish those up and put them into the water, too. Soak a few pieces of butcher thread with the cane, then get ready for more FUN!!

Take one piece of cane and a piece of butcher string and get ready to wrap! Carefully fold that piece of cane in half. Until you know where half way is, you may need to mark this, too... But I should tell you that four paragraphs ago... Anyway - you can use the knife as a fulcrum, if you should desire. I don't just because I've made so many reeds that I do it with my fingers now! Once halved, (not severed, just folded over) wrap it with the wet butcher string. Go from the butt end up, up to the blade. Wrap again to the butt, and make a loop to secure it for now. Take your forming mandrel, and (if you wish) heat it up.

Place your reed at the tip of the mandrel. Start to push the reed onto the mandrel. Go slow and easy, if you move too quickly, your reed will crack ...bad! As you are going, push the mandrel in about 1/8 inch, rest, and repeat. Then, using needle-nose pliers, mash on the butt end of the reed. You want the reed to be round at this end! Mashing helps the reed take shape and allows the scoring to take maximum effect. Don't be too surprised if your first few reeds get serious cracks in them.

Begin removing the string to the point that you can see the shoulder of the reed cane. Take a 3- or -inch piece of brass wire and center it on the back of the reed at your top mark. Wrap the two ends of the wire around the sides of the reed, holding closely to the sides of the cane. On the opposite side, when the two ends would meet, pass one end over another. Remember which end went over top - ie.: left over right or vice-versa - and continue to wrap the wire around the cane. Wrap the SAME end of the wire over the other, then twist them together. Wrap until you have a good amount to reach with your pliers. Grab the end of your wire with the tip of the pliers, pull (don't be shy... It can take it) and twist in the same direction you twisted before.

Remove additonal butcher string, and add the next two wires the same way. The only difference is, place two pointing one way and the other opposite from the previous two. That should make sense... Once you got the three wires on the cane, put the reed on your drying rack. Repeat all of these steps for the remaining reeds.

Just in case you wonder, this doesn't take all that much time. In fact, writing this (and maybe reading it, too) took longer than doing this procedure on three reeds. Maybe not... But it doesn't take that long. At this point, take a full 24-hours MINIMUM to let these babies dry and get used to their shape. In dry climates, like we have in Utah, they may be dry in an hour or two, but I suggest at LEAST one day to fully dry. Then, get ready for post number 2!! this is the colorful, time-consuming, precision part. Don't be afraid. It's not bad at all.

Now, Kevin and I took the next two hours and played Zelda (he beat the boss inside the Deku tree for me...), Super Mario Sluggers, and Smash Brothers Melee While waiting. Ultimately, he ended up leaving and I ate dinner, because the reeds needed more time to dry and I had things to do. :-)

Reeds and Zelda

So... I am not sure how this post will really turn out, since I'm exhausted and haven't really put much thought into what I might put here... With that said, I am going to attempt to throw down some of my dealings this week and outline the way to make reeds for a bassoon... Maybe not at the same time, but multiple posts. This week, I kept falling in love with teaching middle school. These kids are great. Yeah, I know, it's not the same at all schools, but generally, the kids in that age group are really fun to work with. Three day weekends are terrific, but I was still totally messed up today from starting on Tuesday. I kept thinking that today was Thurday, when it's been Friday the whole time! Aye yai yae... I don't know that i've shared any of my student teaching experiences yet, but I've had a few good ones already, even with it only being the first fifteen days. :-) Since starting over at CMS, I've filled out forms, attended meetings, dodged others meetings, created grade sheets, made assignments, eaten junk food, had a contest, listened to "pass-offs," taught six classes a day, taught in place of a sub (with her in the room), played tuba, trombone, saxophone, trumpet, flute, and percussion, made copies, and visited with evaluators from the university. I think that just about qualifies me to teach full-time, right? It gets better! I get in at 7:30 and visit with kids until the bell rings at 8:00, work with a class, maybe march a little bit with them, monitor the lines (to make sure the lines are straight), yell into the megaphone, give the copies to the kids, conduct new pep band music, AND class change. Next hour... It's pretty well the same. I answer questions, work out of the Essential Elements book, and teach the band about gettin performance ready.of course, second hour is the one where the band just could not play for their lives while we were observed. I was impressed, though, that the next day, they sounded better than usual. This particular group gets a little rowdy, but they are not too bad. I tried a chorale with them yesterday. They didn't do too poorly, but I wasn't thrilled. We've got a little ways to go with them. They're going to be ok. Haha! Today, I felt quite alone. This week, I had plans to go to L.A. To see a football game, but was unable to go, mainly because I had jo other drivers who were willing to go with me. I had a few people who wanted to go and couldn't, etc. My friend, Erik, was going to come with me, but I was not going to have an unlicensed driver on roads in Southern California, just out of fear that something might possibly go wrong. It was a big disappointment! The lonely feeling is not an unusual one to me. I haven't had much energy to go do things after school, but many of the people I'm used to spending time with are no longer in or around Cedar City. That normally would be fine, but then the weekend happens... My parents are great, but what shall I do with people my age? Hmm... And with whom? Interesting thoughts. Needing to call people should be enough, but I've gotten to a point of hating the telephone... I'll have to work on that a little bit.

August is Over

Ok, I'm starting to realize that I'm a horrible blogger! :-) One post a month? Hmm...

Over the last two weeks, I've both hit a major high in my college career and a major low in my personal life. Not that my life sucks or anything, it's just not what I was expecting... That's all.

Today concludes my second week of student teaching. This is a very exciting thing. My student teaching experience so far has been great. My mentor teacher is great to work with, is super encouragin, and has allowed me to jump right into the middle of everything from the get-go. The kids at the middle school are great. We have been working hard from the first day of school, and there are tons of great progress things happening in the classes.

At the school where I am working, we have 9-period days, of which we have students in class for 6 periods. This is great. Over half of the school is in the band - about 400 kids!! I feel like I've done a pretty good job. A few mistakes here and there, but most of the time, I am pretty comfortable with the things happening in the classroom.

I am having a hard time, however, coming home after student teaching. The house is quiet, and most of the people I know that are still in town are in classes at the university, so it's just me and Ginger at home for a while. With a limit on energy and a lack of interesting things to do (besides what needs to be done), it is hard sometimes just to get back up and do a ything else after school. A lot of times, I come home, water my garden plants, and check Facebook. What else should I do? I'm sure I can find a few things that I need to do... But why? Haha!!

Today, I was teaching in the percussion ensemble at the school. The teacher had some family business to attend to this afternoon, so I got class started while we were waiting for him to get back. In the mean time, one of the students asked where he was. I mentioned that he would be  back today, but would probably miss the beginning of class. The student then told me that would be ok because I am awesome. I'm glad to know that the kids like me at least a little bit.
:-)

I have got a little following of seventh-grade saxophone players. One of the kids was in the fourth grade class I worked with at the elementary school a couple of years ago, so when I came into the class that hour the first day, he was kinda excited to see me. Truth be told, I was excited to see him too. I think it really helped to have a few kids there thay were from the other school where I worked. Anyway... The other two boys in the saxophone section decided I was pretty cool, too, so they ask me different ways to sound better on their saxophones. Plus, the one invites me to eat lunch with him every single day. They're funny kids.

This year, there are 170 sixth grade students who are signed up for band. Because our band rooms are so small, we usually try and have about 30-40 playing at one time. So, we have a 3-way rotation between me and the two band directors. I have been manning a computer lab, where students play some training games with rhythms and notes. The 2nd band director works with the SmartMusic progam, which is another trainer for students on rhythms and such. The first band director works with the students on their instruments. We work in 20-minute rotations with the students. Otherwise, I am busy pretty much constantly from the time I get there in the morning at 7:30 until the time we eat lunch around 12:15. Then, it's prep period and percussion ensemble to finish out the day.

During this week, I finished an arrangement for grade 2 percussion ensemble. It's a little too hard for the percussion ensemble right now, but I think they'll get it in time for the concert. I hope so, anyway. What I did was take two well-known video game songs and arrange them for percussion ensemble with two xylophone parts, a snare drum and a bass drum. It's pretty fun, if I do say so myself.

I started taking an institute class this week. This one is the "Hymns of the Church." we are taking a look into the hymns of our hymnbook and discussing their origins and the doctrines behind them. Last week was a little boring, but I was sitting next to my friend, Tyician, so we did our own analysis of the hymns. While the instructor did her analysis of the background od the hymn, we did a *chordal* analysis of a couple of hymns. lol - we are such nerds!!

Also this week, I assumed a role as an alto sax player in the jazz ensemble at SUU. Even though I really should not have taken two nights a week to be busy, I decided that it will help my social life a little bit. Right now, I have a few close friends, but I don't really do much of anything with anyone. I feel kinda bad about that, but at the same time, a good part of the day (after school) is spent being too tired to feel like doing much. I guess that means I need to figure out how to get a little rest and do some fun things, too!

That about sums up the last two weeks. I've been totally rocking this student teaching assignment. Hopefully, I will be able to find a decent job afterward! :-)