I was lucky to be hired as the middle school band director at Charleston eleven years ago. Our school district is a typical rural district with all the usual disadvantages and advantages that come with teaching in a small town. We have an enrollment of about 900 students, 54% of whom qualify for free and reduced lunch. As far as recruiting goes, we have a few other great extracurriculars and successful athletic programs to compete with and our schedule isn't really conducive to building a strong band program. For example, our sixth grade students must choose between beginning band or P.E. class (!) and we meet in heterogeneous classes for 40 minutes, 4 days each week. In spite of these disadvantages, we've managed to maintain high standards and make circumstances work to our advantage

Our philosophy consists of a few basic tenets:

• Small bands are capable of sounding every bit as good as large bands.
• The worst thing a small band can do is try to sound like a large band.
• Every student can and will make characteristic sounds on their instrument and develop strong fundamentals. There is no "small band tone quality," "small band fingerings," or other "small band" fundamentals. Good fundamentals are good fundamentals, period.
• Student leadership promotes ownership. We encourage our students to do things themselves, like coach sectionals, teach younger students, form chamber groups, help plan events, or simply offer opinions.
• Regardless of the size of their program, every band director has 24 hours in a day. How will you use your 24 hours?

Our success each day is predicated on how students enter the room. We expect students to be seated and ready to play at the tardy bell. We begin making music the moment the bell rings almost every single day, either by conducting a downbeat, starting a concert F drone, or by turning on the metronome. Students will be on time if there's a reason to be on time, so don't wait on them to be ready.

The paradox of the small band program is that it's easier to achieve clarity and uniformity in a small band, but it is also tricky because every player must do their part. In order to accomplish this, we strive to do simple things very, very well. In a small band--or any band--every player must play with a characteristic sound, every section and choir should be blended and balanced, and players and sections should never compete for dominance. Every player should be aware of their role and it's our job to help them develop this awareness. It's very easy in a small band for your star players overpower everyone else, but this creates poor blend and balance and actually hurts your overall band sound. We often use numbers to quantify these abstract concepts, such as assigning percentages for balancing melody, countermelody, long note accompaniment, bass line, and percussion. (Also, low reeds should come to the forefront at certain times, but in general, the bassoon, bass clarinet, and tenor saxophone need to support the low brass.) Pay attention to your percussion equipment maintenance and get percussionists involved in your warm-up process. We use Stick Control by George Lawrence Stone and a daily accessory percussion rotation.

Do whatever it takes to achieve good instrumentation, or the illusion of good instrumentation. During your preparation process, plan ahead and prepare for the worst. You can't prevent students from moving away or getting injured before a performance. These issues affect every program, but they have a more significant impact on small bands. You can give reliable players multiple parts in case another part needs to be covered later or ask students to learn a new instrument in order to achieve better instrumentation. We've found that, not only are our students willing to help, but they take pride in stepping up and doing whatever it takes. You never know what needs might arise in your program, but you can be ready.

One of the biggest timesavers for us has been to use music notation software to write out tricky rhythms and note patterns as well as all motifs, melodies, countermelodies, bass lines, and chords for the entire band on almost every piece we perform. It's time consuming, but worth it! It's an efficient way to rehearse that enables you to easily make problem spots in your concert repertoire into an exercise during your warm-up while involving everyone in the band and it's more fun for the students. (Tuba players deserve to play melodies too!) Besides, playing in unisons and octaves is one of the best things you can do to help your band's intonation. If you don't have time to enter everything into Finale, Sibelius, Noteflight, or flat.io, hire a competent high school student or local music major to do it for you. They need the practice and the money anyway.

Successful large schools bring in adjunct staff to give private lessons, but you can do it too, even with a very small budget. You just have to be willing to think creatively! If parents or band boosters are able to pay, you can drive students to take lessons with the professors or music majors at a nearby university. You can bring in college students or retired people to teach during the school day or utilize some of your own high school students with a free hour to teach lessons at the middle school or junior high. One of our best ideas was to create a lesson exchange program with another small district nearby. We bussed our students to the neighboring school on alternating weeks and my former colleague and I taught their brass players while their director taught our woodwinds.

We also take advantage of any local workshops we can, such as our local Day of Percussion, Flute Day, Octubafest, and Tuba Christmas. These events are often free! We also enrich our hardest-working students by sending them to camps and allocating fundraiser proceeds to offer them scholarships. We also invite fellow teachers to listen to our bands early enough that they can help steer us in the right direction--not just a week or two before assessment. Don't wait for everything to be perfect. (It's never going to be.) If your district can't afford to pay for a clinician, invite a friend to critique your group and offer to return the favor for free.

Finally, we should all record our rehearsals regularly. Many of us start our careers in small schools and it's so hard to hear everything in your rehearsal when you're a new teacher. Listening back will help you spot errors you weren't aware of and prioritize for your next rehearsal. Recordings don't lie! Playing back rehearsal recordings for your students is also very illuminating and eliminates the need for you to do all the analysis and talking. Students' comments are often surprisingly insightful! Having fancy recording equipment in your rehearsal space is a big plus, but a Zoom or a cell phone recording is better than not recording at all! It's important for all of us to record, but it's especially important for new teachers to do it.