THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9407300232
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MARGARET TALEV, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Band director Gerald Manolas can't make his sixth graders great. He can't force them to practice. And he can't relieve their parents' pounding headaches.
But there are two things he has given Manteo Middle School's newest music enthusiasts: encouragement and a head start.
A new program, Manolas' three-week summer band camp, ended Friday. It gave about 50 or so students - half the incoming sixth-grade class - a chance to learn the basics of their instruments of choice so that they wouldn't be far behind the seventh and eighth grade band members when the first day of classes rolls around.
Although Manteo Elementary School fifth-graders are introduced to note reading with the recorder, many of the recent elementary graduates said they didn't have their awakening until this summer.
``It's fun. I never thought I'd say that,'' said Steven Bateman, 10, of Wanchese, whose cousin lent him her clarinet. ``I never wanted to play an instrument until now. I always hated playing the recorder, so I thought this would be the same. But with the recorder, we had to play it or else we would fail music. This is different.''
Joining the band is optional.
Students learn to read notes, count beats and rests, and blow into or strike their instruments in ways that elicit generally pleasant sounds.
Even the most complex songs they learned during camp - arrangements of ``La Bamba'' and ``We Will Rock You/Another One Bites the Dust'' - used a range of six notes throughout.
Manolas, a patient, energetic man with cartoon gestures and a perpetual smile, imparts upon his pupils maxims such as, ``The band that counts together stays together.''
``I've been teaching 25, 30 years and if these kids stick it out, they'll work it out,'' he said. ``They'll overcome all the problems they have.''
Having grown up in a southwestern Pennsylvania community that produced greats such as Perry Como and Bobby Vinton, Manolas said he wishes more emphasis were placed on music earlier in Dare County Schools. But, he said, sixth grade is not too late to start.
He organized the summer camp to minimize time wasted once the school year gets under way. Parents were invited to register their children during the 1993-94 school year, and the response - about 50 percent - was overwhelming. Students used school instruments, borrowed instruments from friends and relatives, or bought them new or used.
Starting early in July, beginning at 8:30 a.m. when many were barely awake, the ragged ensemble trudged in every weekday for their half-hour lessons. The classes were staggered by instrument types: flutes and clarinets first, horns next, then drums.
Some practiced diligently at home, even persuading their parents to become students.
Bonita and Alan Hurdle of Manteo do not play any instruments. But when their 10-year-old son, Christopher, began band camp, he started teaching them. His mom said after each nightly 20-minute practice ``there's been a little bit of improvement. Now we can actually hear the scales when he plays them.''
``He's had his dad and I both blowing on the trumpet. His dad is real interested in kind of learning as he goes. Christopher's showing him how to blow into it, how to hold his lip.''
``The average kid who works hard will surpass the kid with a lot of ability who does just enough to get by,'' Manolas said. ``It always happens. Now if you can get the kid with a lot of ability who works hard, that makes the difference.''
On the last day of camp, several of the students shared some instrumental wisdom.
Trumpeter Kelly Latta, 11, of Manteo: ``After you practice, your lips hurt.''
Drummer John Eric Cleaver, 11, of Manteo: ``I've always liked beating on my desk . . . and my brother.''
Clarinetist Jannie Overton, 10, of Manteo: ``I can concentrate better when I practice alone.''
Saxophonist Alice Tromba, 11, of Wanchese: The boys ``think if they played the flute everyone would make fun of them. Plus they have such big mouths, they might as well play something bigger.''
For the last three days of camp, Manolas had all the students come together - at 8:30 a.m. - for a one-hour practice.
Throughout Friday's loud, exuberant practice - woodwinds with horns with percussions, practiced with unpracticed, overeager with bashful, missed rests with quarter-notes-held-too-long - the veteran music teacher sat atop his stool and beamed.
He remembered what it had been like three weeks before. by CNB