Hey everyone. Welcome to the KCI Jazz Band website.

A special thanks to my son Ben for his excellent redesign of this page!
The band is an auditioned group of students who meet throughout most of the year in the music room most Tuesdays. When I say 'Audition', that means that if you would like to join the band, you need to let the music teachers hear you play! This process occurs in June of each year and we provide you with the music we would like you to play for us well in advance. It can be a challenging process but we try to encourage each interested player. Even if you don't make the band this year, it is a great experience to audition.

Below is a little summary directed mainly at the players within the band. It covers the Directors philosophy on how we can improve as a musical team.

How do we make our band better?

A. Individual Practice

1. Putting in the time. Minimum recommendation, 10 minutes, 5 days per week. Of course once you play for 10, how can you stop? I read recently that Wynton Marsalis (the best living Jazz Trumpeter there is) practiced 1 hour before school, 1 hour during breaks, 1 hour as soon as he got home and then 2 hours after homework. Wow!
2. Warming up using long tones with lots of rest between notes!
3. Focusing on learning your parts using: RAAD... Rhythm, Accuracy, Attack, Dynamics

B. Group sessions

1. Total focus on the task and ready to play at practices starting at 2:45pm on most Tuesdays. Making great use of our limited time by stopping when the Director needs a stop.
2. Helping and encouraging peers to learn their parts. Letting the Director know when your section needs help with a part during practice. Sometimes convincing your fellow section members to ask for an extra 'sectional' practice with Mr. M. so that you can really nail a part.
3. Listening to the entire band and blending your part into the whole mix. Being conscious of tuning. Trumpets should never be flat but almost sharp...

C. Mindset

Knowing and accepting that you will make lots of mistakes as you learn a piece of music. In f act, if you aren't making mistakes, maybe the music we are attempting to perfect is not hard enough!!

Along with this we add celebrating that great feeling when we work to get a piece of music to the point where we are no longer just playing notes; we are making music!

I look forward to the journey with you!

Matt Morris
Department Head, Business
Co-operative Education Co-ordinator
Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate & Vocational School
787 King Street West, Kitchener, Ontario, N2G 1E3
(519)745-6851. FAX (519)745-1549
matt_morris@wrdsb.on.ca