Good morning to all who follow us here at Scott Music...be it for band, choir, or color guard.
As many of you probably already know, the Reds Opening Day Parade has been cancelled. Coordinators seem unsure as to if it will be rescheduled and, if it is, we are unsure of what that means for our participation. As of the initial writing of this post (3/12 am), we are not meeting to practice for this as there is no timeline available.
While this virus slowly emerges, we're beginning to see larger impacts and their implications: WGI just cancelled all of this year's World Championship Events in Dayton (which spans 1000s of individual youths as well as their respective guard, percussion, and wind units from all over the world) for the first time since their establishment 43 years ago. Almost every professional sports league have suspended their seasons. On a smaller, yet no less important, level individual school districts have made decisions on how to move forward through this as such impacts happen around us: ours going on the governor's recommendation to close for 10 school days at the time of this revision (3/18).
An instance of another expected impact is our Solo and Ensemble Festival. This occurs at Boone County High School on April 18th, which is within their district's online school window of March 16-April 20. Update: Solo/Ensemble has been officially cancelled.
When our NTI days begin (3/24) we will be utilizing a Google Doc that has practice forms/reflections that will need to be completed for each day we are on an NTI schedule. As of this revision (3/13), we are still on for our festival performance at Music in the Parks...so daily practice isn't just important and recommended, but is crucial.
Update: we have coordinated our situation with Make Music, the folks who provide the SmartMusic platform. They have given us 60 Premium seats for our classrooms. This means that you can go can
1. Go to Smart Music
2. Use this code: HJH44-6JLZU
...to access their entire library. This includes pieces to practice along with full band to (any you like, even), sight-reading, method books, and real time assessment of how you are doing. In the coming days I'll add trophies you can earn. If you have a device that can run the full Chrome browser, you can run SmartMusic! When you do practice, this is by far the most fulfilling way to do so.
Music in the Parks, as of this writing, is currently still on our calendar, though they have sent a preemptive email to all directors. Stay posted for information regarding this as well as our reaction to any other impacts that come our way.
Best wishes,
Bryce L. Miller
Director, Instrumental and Vocal Music
Scott High School