Category: education

TBT^4: Joy to the World

The Portly Politico2 Comments

At this year’s Christmas Concert, the program accidentally included the lyrics to “Joy to the World.”  In the past, my students have played it as a singalong for the audience, but we haven’t done so in a few years.  I’m not sure why the lyrics got included in the program, but I briefly contemplated “winging it” and shouting the chords at my students while everyone sang.

I did not give into that temptation.  One that I have learned is that other people’s errors do not necessitate me fixing them in haphazard ways (usually).  We simply announced there was a mistake in the program and went on from there.

That said, the larger mistake was, indeed, mine—I should have put it in the Christmas Concert!  I love “Joy to the World,” and it’s really fun to play and sing.  I suppose next year I’ll have to toss it into the mix.

With that, here is 12 December 2024’s “TBT^2: Joy to the World“:

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Midweek Midterm Exams Update

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It is midterm exam week here, which means my schedule is a bit more flexible.  My World History students take their midterm exams today (Wednesday, 17 December 2025), which means I’ll be monitoring and grading throughout the day.

With a bit more flexibility this week, I have been going through my belongings to prepare items to sell on Facebook Marketplace and/or eBay, and to find things to donate to neighbors, friends, family, and/or Goodwill.  It is wild how much detritus one accumulates in a small house over the course of seven years, especially when it’s someone with latent hoarder tendencies like yours portly.

This morning a colleague purchased these Star Wars action figures from me (as well as a few other Kenner figurines I had sitting around the house):

My father-in-law went on a Facebook Marketplace kick when he and my mother-in-law were downsizing earlier this summer (see also:  my U-Haul adventure), and my own mom does a brisk business through it as well, so I’ve been turning stuff I don’t want to move to the new house into moderate treasure.  Some items move quickly and/or generate lots of interest; others sit in unsold purgatory, awaiting either redemption into paradise or a bleak end in the donation pile.

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Lazy Sunday CCCXLIX: Christmas Cheer 2025, Part II

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Merry Christmas, TPP Readers!  I’m back with some more Christmas-related posts from the last week:

Happy Sunday—and Merry Christmas!

—TPP

SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Concert 2025 Postmortem

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Good afternoon, my loyal subscribers!  Apologies for a late post today; yours portly crashed out after a long but productive day at work yesterday, which included my students’ annual Christmas Concert.

I’ll allow GEOTUS to articulate this sentiment in the way only he can:

Regardless, in the grand tradition of The Portly Politico, it’s time the annual Christmas Concert Postmortem, where I break down the program and how everything went.

For non-paying subscribers, don’t worry—the kids did a fabulous job, as they always do.  My Middle School Music Ensemble (MSME) played three pieces:

  • “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”
  • “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”
  • “Last Christmas”

And my High School Music Ensemble (HSME) played four pieces:

  • “What Child is This?”
  • “Mary Did You Know?”
  • “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
  • “O Holy Night”

For whatever reason, the HSME played a lot of songs whose titles are questions.  Don’t ask me why!

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Play Week!

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This past week involved the intensive preparations for the big Christmas Play, which was last night at my little school.  It’s a pretty big night from a technical perspective, as the Drama Teacher also conducts the Choir and our Dance classes.  As such, all of her students—actors, singers, dancers—all perform as part of a performing arts extravaganza.

It makes for a unique and fun, albeit hectic, experience, and requires yours portly to pull out all of his amateur audio tracks to make it happen.

All of our productions are, out of necessity, staged in the gym, which I call the “Gymnatorium” (at one point, students ate lunch there, too, so it was the “Gymnacafetorium”).  Getting good sound quality, especially for plays, has always been a struggle.

Fortunately, our Athletics Department invested in a new sound system, which offers much more complete coverage than the 15″ speakers I’d been using for years (although those speakers are great).  The problem is that the system came with a new digital mixer (a good thing) that only has six functional channels (that’s the bad part).

Because our productions often require at least a dozen inputs (and frequently more), I had to get creative with the sound system setup, and came up with this bad boy:

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Open Mic Adventures CLVI: “March of the Goliath Beetles”

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I have a lot of great bass guitarists in my Music Ensemble classes, and I have always wanted to experiment with an electric bass ensemble—a small chamber group consisting entirely of electric basses.  I think it can be done (and probably has been done, if I took three seconds to Google it).

The challenge with basses is that those low tones can get awfully muddy, so composing for multiples of the instrument requires exploring the full breadth of the fret board.

Today’s piece, which I deem to be incomplete (although it does have a satisfying conclusion), is one such attempt at blending three basses into one.  I have yet to try this piece with my three High School Music Ensemble bassists, but I have worked individual parts with them with me playing one of the other parts.  I’m excited to see how and if the three will blend in Reality as well as they do in digital form.

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TBT: Bake Sale Boogie

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A key component of music education specifically and private education more broadly is the necessity to fundraise for necessary equipment.  Last year, my Music Ensemble students organized a bake sale that—Praise the Lord!—far exceeded our expectations.  We raised enough to buy new drum heads and cymbals, and it was a great bonding experience for the student-musicians.

With all the wedding and house stuff this year, I did not get the bake sale on the calendar for this fall, but perhaps we’ll be able to do in January or February.  A Valentine’s bake sale might be a good idea!

With that, here is 20 November 2024’s “Bake Sale Boogie”:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktaculer 2025 Review

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Well, the 2025 Spooktacular is in the books.  My neighbor called it “the last bachelor Spooktacular,” as it’s the last front porch recital before my wedding.  It is also distinct in that it is very likely the last front porch recital at my current home, as Dr. Fiancée and I are in the process of purchasing a home.  Of course, if my house lingers on the market for an extended period—a distinct possibility in my rural community—we could see a Spring Jam in Lamar in May 2026.  We shall see!

But I digress.  The “last bachelor Spooktacular” was truly a bachelor’s endeavor.  None of my family could attend, and Dr. Fiancée was both sick and up the entire night before on-call.  That meant yours portly had to take care of the preparations solo.

Fortunately, I’d gotten a head-start by working around the house each night after work.  By the time last Saturday rolled around, however, I was absolutely wiped out, and slept in until after 11 AM—a rarity for me.  Dr. Fiancée suspects that I was sick (I repeated the sleeping-in feat the following day), and I had been fighting off a cold most of the week, but even with my delayed start, I managed to get everything done.  I even made my Mom’s legendary Rotel dip, which consists of melting vast quantities of Velveeta “cheese” product and mixing it with two cans of Rotel diced tomatoes and green chilis.  I apparently did it right, because it was a hit.

Regardless, there was still a good bit to do in the yard and on the front porch.  I’m not exactly big on regular cleaning—another quality of my rapidly expiring bachelorhood—and my front porch was looking pretty forlorn.  The yard itself was a bit rough, but my neighbor had mowed it earlier in the week, so I mainly just had to deal with the flower beds and some pruning.

It was a day of little things going awry.  For example, I grill hot dogs for the festivities.  My grill had plenty of propane, but the electric starter wouldn’t work.  When I went to get a stem lighter to light the grill manually, the lighter was out of butane.  I couldn’t locate any matches, so I surrendered and decided to boil the hot dogs (on the plus side, my grill got a good cleaning).  When I made the Rotel dip, I had the heat too high and some of the cheesy goo bubbled over onto my stove.  John’s PA had a faulty cable—and so on.

But, in spite of it all—and I was more stressed than this post is letting on—the event was a success.

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Spooktacular 2025 is Tonight!

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Tonight’s the night—the 2025 Spooktacular!  My students have been working hard on their solos, and it should be a fun night.

I have done a concert around Halloween for years, and started calling it the “TJC Spooktacular” in 2019.  At that point, it was pretty much a solo show, with my buddy John hopping on to accompany me on a few tunes (or for me to accompany him).

During The Age of The Virus, I couldn’t find a venue that would book live music, largely due to concerns about big groups of people in a confined space.  So I conceived of turning my front lawn into a seating area and my porch into a stage.  Thus, the Spooktacular in its modern iteration was born.

That first front porch Spooktacular in 2020 was not a recital for my private music students, but was instead a more self-indulgent concert:  John and I missed playing live music.  I also paid a couple of groups to perform as openers:  one of my students and his punk band—their first live gig—and two of my open mic music friends.

Then I began to transition towards the Spooktacular being a recital for my students.  That helped to attract more people to the event, but also shifted the tone away from “raucous-but-mild-Halloween party” to “family-friendly Halloween party.”  The original Spooktacular was never bacchanalian, but the current recital version is much more focused on family fun.  The costume contest also seems to be a big hit among the little ones, too.

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