Kelseyville >> Duane Anderson has lofty ambitions. Solo and ensemble festivals, drum line and color guard competitions, band reviews, it’s all on the agenda for the Mountain Vista Middle School band director. He even wants to bring an honor band back to Lake County, which is essentially a super-band of the county’s top musicians — students from around the lake have to submit audition tapes, and the various band directors build an 80 piece group.
Anderson is already well on his way to making these goals a reality. Though he’s only been teaching band at the Kelseyville middle school for one short year, he’s achieved quite a lot. For instance, during the last school year he took his eighth grade band to a music festival at Discovery Kingdom. They returned home with two trophies: a second place award in the competition portion of the event, as well as the Esprit de Corps award for their exemplary behavior throughout the weekend.
Trophies in the Mountain Vista Middle School band rehearsal room are few and far between. The last one is from 1992, Anderson said. He added that according to the school’s interim principal, the last time the band students hit the road for a festival was 16 years ago.
Discovery Kingdom wasn’t the only music festival the middle school band students attended last year. They also went to Chico, CA. to participate in one put on by the California Music Educators Association. It wasn’t a competition where school bands were pitted against one another, but rather a show of skill and talent. Bands are rated on ability, from superior (which would be equivalent to an A letter grade) to poor (an F).
Anderson was gunning for a rating of excellent, which is akin to receiving a B. And his eighth grade students were indeed given a score of excellent, but it was his seventh graders who surpassed expectations. They walked away from that festival with a rating of superior.
Though Anderson also teaches sixth grade band, those are beginning students who are ill prepared for music festivals. Instead, they’ll spend more time honing their skills, waiting to hit the road until next year.
Anderson didn’t just introduce festivals to his students, he also involved them in local events, like the Lakeport Memorial Day parade. All 77 students — sixth through eighth grade — marched down Main St., instruments in hand. They had to memorize their music for the event, which they’d never done before. When Anderson assigned them the task, you’d have thought the world was ending, what with all the lamenting and dramatics, Anderson recalled. But his students pulled it off. They did so well that from far away, some parade watchers asked what school the band was from.
“They thought these kids were high school students until they got up close, because of their playing,” Anderson said.
The Mountain Vista Middle School seventh and eighth grade bands are already planning to participate in the Kelseyville Pear Festival this fall. Anderson is thinking about having them march in the Veterans Day parade as well.
It’s all in an effort to show support and bolster the immediate area. “I believe communities die the less and less the community participates,” said Anderson.
A dying community is a valid fear, especially when you hear the numbers. For example, this year’s Memorial Day parade had only 27 entries. Compare that to previous years, where the number reached the mid-40s.
But it’s not only about the community — it’s about giving the students more opportunities. A longtime musician himself, Anderson knows what it’s like to lack resources in school to pursue your passion. He wants to give his students all those things that were unavailable to him.
In addition to endeavors like attending music festivals and putting together an honor band, Anderson also strives to teach practical skills, like music theory, which includes reading and writing music. For the first semester of the school year, Anderson had his classroom listening to different types of music and performance for five minutes, and keeping a log of notes on each song.
The way he looks at it, if he does his job as a music educator correctly, by high school his students should be able to perform the songs he’s currently playing for them. If possible, he’d love to see a music theory course offered at Kelseyville High School in the future.
“This is a small county with small school sizes. When you have small school sizes many times you have few available electives,” Anderson said.
For some kids, their schedule is plenty full. They play sports, they work their way onto honor roll, they participate in leadership and school government, and they perform in the band. But for other students, performing is their one and only passion.
“There are kids who don’t do leadership or yearbook or athletics, but they love music,” said Anderson. “And so these opportunities are out there for those kids who just love music.”
While his goals may be ambitious, they’re not unattainable. Anderson has experience successfully building music programs. At one point in his teaching career he took a position in West Sacramento at a school that offered just four music classes in a five-period school day. Anderson convinced the school to give him another beginning band course to fill the day. Then he got to work.
After two years, the school had added six more music classes. They had to hire on another teacher, because one wasn’t enough to handle all the students enrolled in band.
At two separate elementary schools, Anderson doubled and tripled the number of students in the music programs, all while teaching 2,800 kids at four different elementary schools.
“I try to come in and just make it better,” said Anderson. “That’s what I’m trying to do here.”
That’s not to say that the Mountain Vista Middle School music program was low caliber before Anderson showed up. It was just different. He wants to focus on performance, where before that seemed to take a backseat.
With two trophies to their name in only one year, it’s clear that Kelseyville musicians are ones to watch.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
