What I wouldn’t give to be conducting a band rehearsal right now! Rarely have I said those words with more fervent feeling. I’d give just about anything to tell flutes they are out of tune, or trumpets that they’re forgetting accidentals, or percussionists that they can’t play tam-tam with a bass drum beater, or look to see if any clarinetists have reeds that look like they may have fungus growing under them! But far more important, what I wouldn’t give to share a tingle up the spine with them, or talk about how perfect a phrase was executed, or how the control of their dynamics was stunning, or that the climax of their playing of a piece brought me to tears. I guess it’s true: you don’t know what you have until you don’t have it anymore. Those things which we take for granted may be the very things we miss the most when we don’t have them. I’ll bet you anything that the next rehearsal we finally get to conduct, we will all look at every student and hear every sound very differently than we did when we took them for granted. 

Peter Loel Boonshaft, Director of Education
KHS America

About the Author

Dr. Boonshaft, Director of Education for KHS America, is the author of the critically acclaimed best-selling books Teaching Music with Passion, Teaching Music with Purpose, and Teaching Music with Promise. Dr. Boonshaft is currently on the faculty of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, where he is Professor of Music. He was honored by the National Association for Music Education and Music For All as the first recipient of the “George M. Parks Award for Leadership in Music Education.”