One of the groups I worked with while student teaching at Greenleaf Friends Academy was the high school jazz band. Throughout the first half the of the year, the ensemble's primary focus had been on jazz styles, since they had very limited instrumentation. When I began my student teaching in January, I had conversations with my lead teacher about introducing the ensemble to concert band music as well. I pulled Fanfare for the Unsung Hero out of our library because it had very few parts that were doubled in many instruments. However, it did not have the parts that our ensemble needed, so I took it upon myself to rearrange the piece for our unique instrumentation.  I then wrote a unit plan that would accompany the piece because we had limited time to learn the piece.

I know that trumpets usually have the melody in fanfares; I know that flutes and oboes usually are the sparkles over the top of the trumpets; I know that saxophones fill out the ensemble; I know that the bass guitar will be a great substitute for the low brass; I know that the most important percussion instrument in a fanfare is the snare drum. If I didn't know this, I would not have been able to rearrange this piece so that it worked for our ensemble. Because I know this, I can alter any piece of music to fit the needs of any ensemble. If the only tenor saxophone can't carry an important countermelody by themselves, I know who I can ask to play it also, because there are some instruments that blend better together than others (it's the trombones, by the way).

I knew my students would pick this piece up quickly because of my experience with them. They were the top five musicians in high school choir, so I was not worried about them learning the piece in time. This hashed out unit plan had the students learning this piece in three weeks, which they accomplished. I like this artifact because it demonstrates that I know instrumentation well, and that I know my students well enough to know how much they can accomplish in one day. It also demonstrates that I can design coherent instruction by making my unit plan very specific about what sections of the music we are going to do during which rehearsals, and why they matter.