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Marietta Middle school band

The Bands of Marietta City Schools are designed and built to strive for excellence, and Marietta Middle School is no exception. We design our ensemble to meet the needs of each student and help them become the best possible musicians. Each year we are represented by a good number of students in the district honor band as well as other honor bands such as the All-State honor band and the UGA Middle School Honor Band (Midfest).

Ashley Mattice
& Michael Reid
Directors

 

Why music??

MUSIC IS A SCIENCE

It is precise, specific, and it demands exact acoustics. A conductor’s full score is a chart – a graph that indicates frequencies, intensities, volume changes, melody, and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.

 

MUSIC IS MATHEMATICAL

It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions which must be performed instantaneously, not worked out on paper.

 

MUSIC IS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Most of the terms are in Italian, German, or French. Thenotation is certainly not English – it is a highly developed kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas. The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

 

MUSIC IS HISTORY

Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation, often even the feelings of a country and/or race.

 

MUSIC IS PHYSICAL EDUCATION

It requires fantastic coordination of many separate muscles which must respond instantly and simultaneously to the sounds the ear hears and the mind interprets.

 

MUSIC DEVELOPS INSIGHT AND DEMANDS RESEARCH

 

MUSIC IS ALL OF THESE THINGS, BUT MOST OF ALL MUSIC IS Art

It allows a human to take all these dry, technically boring (but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion (humanism, feeling). That is one thing science cannot duplicate.

 

That is why we teach Music.

Not because we expect students to become professional musicians, but so they will…

  • Understand and appreciate so many things: hard work, commitment, teamwork, cultural diversity, friendship.

  • Recognize beauty.

  • Develop connections between other academic disciplines.

  • Have something to cling to.

  • Have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good – in short, more Life.

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