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“The
core of our program is the symphonic band, also called the concert
band. This is the class
the kids sign up for, which meets at 8 a.m. every day,” he explains.
The 120-member concert band is a versatile group that provides
entertainment to suit the season and the school’s schedule.
During
the football season, the concert band becomes the marching band.
The marching band plays during pre-game and half-time shows, at
the homecoming parade and at pep assemblies.
It also marches in the Downtown Lincoln Christmas parade.
When
basketball season begins, the pep band provides music at all boys’
varsity home games and some girls’ home games.
Everyone in the concert band is required to attend half of the
home games and play in the pep band, although some love basketball and
show up at every game.
Corpus
puts the pep band on this schedule because he knows what kind of time
commitment he is asking for. “I want my kids to have a life outside
of band. I want them to
experience as much of high school as they possibly can,” he says.
[Corpus
talks with two of his band members: Jason Boice, trombone, and Rachel
Taylor, piano and vibraphone.]
“We
have band students in virtually every activity in school – football,
baseball, basketball, golf, track, student council, speech, drama and
other fine arts activities. They
have some extremely hectic days and weeks.
I want to cooperate with other sponsors and coaches so the kids
leave high school with a full range of experience and are better
prepared to choose what they really want to do.”
The
band also puts on a Christmas concert, another concert in March and a
spring concert at the end of the school year, along with traveling to
play in such impressive venues as Epcot Center.
In
addition to their already crowded schedules, 40 of Corpus’ band
students get up early at least two mornings a week and find a way to
get to school by 7:15 so they can rehearse with one of the two jazz
bands, the Ellington or the Basie.
Some are so enthusiastic about jazz they belong to both groups.
The
jazz bands, Corpus’ own addition to the school band program, play
two concerts: swing tunes from the 1940s in the fall and other types
of jazz at the spring concert. They
also play regularly at nursing homes and community events.
Corpus
grew up in Spring Valley, in the LaSalle-Peru area.
He graduated from Western Illinois University with a degree in
music education, taught in Eureka for four years, then came to
Lincoln. He lives in
Bloomington with his wife, Chris, a choir teacher at University High
School in Normal.
“In
high school I was already playing with a professional group, and the
band teacher gave me a lot of responsibility for teaching others,
especially the drummers. He
would turn to me and say, ‘Take these kids and go off and learn how
to play this.’ I would
then take on the role of teacher. That’s when I realized teaching someone else to play could
be just as rewarding , if not more so, than playing myself,” he
remembers.
“At
Eureka, a smaller school district than Lincoln, I was teaching first
through 12th grades. That’s
when I realized my favorite age level was high school kids.”
Now
he sees some students who, like himself, will make a life in music.
“That had little to do with me,” he says. “Some dedicated parent taught the kid to love music, and
some dedicated fourth or fifth grade teacher carried on that love of
music.”
He
wants the band experience to be just as rewarding for the students who
are not going to major in music.
“Other kids will go on to be business majors, education
majors or something else, and they are not going to make music their
whole lives. But it will
be an important part of their lives.
Over the years, I’ve seen more and more people in our band
program who continue to play in bands in college.”
For
his own extracurricular activity, Corpus is a drummer in two jazz
bands. One, out of Bloomington, is a seven-piece dance band called
The Ritz. It plays music
of the big band era, the ’30s and ’40s, for ballroom dancing.
The other band, Sally Weisenberg and the Famous
Sidemen, is a five-piece group based in Peoria.
This band plays most old blues, jump blues and rhythm and blues
– the kind of music made famous by Louis Prima, Louis Jordan and
singers like Keith Brown and Aretha Franklin.
Sally is the main singer and piano player.
A sideman, Corpus notes, is a nickname for a backup musician.
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Corpus
is a walking encyclopedia of information about jazz.
“The
word ‘jazz’ has come to mean any music that is improvised.
The true jazz musician is one who loves to improvise, who can
create melodies virtually on the spot.
“Jazz
was music born out of the African musical cultures mixed with some
European culture. The
African-American musicians were not trained in music.
They had to pick things up on their own.
The jazz they created was a combination of the African rhythm
and the freedom to not only play a melody but to change it.
“We
all know the story of the New Orleans funerals. The bands played slow,
sad music on the way to the funeral, but on the way back they got into
some really fast, jazzy tunes. The
original Dixieland bands were these marching bands.
In New Orleans you still see bands marching up and down the
street.”
He tells another story about the way African-Americans learned to play
traditional band instruments.
“During
the Civil War, the Northern armies included some soldiers who had
instruments and could play. So
these armies had military bands.
The soldiers had trumpets in one hand, rifles in the other.
“When
the war was over, Northern soldiers wanted to get home as fast as they
could rather than stay in hostile territory.
So they threw away anything they had that weighed them down –
guns and musical instruments – and high-tailed it back home.
A lot of freed slaves literally stumbled upon the instruments
they eventually learned to play.
Thus jazz was born.”
In
still another story, Corpus says it isn’t true that the only musical
instrument developed in America was the banjo.
The other is the drum set.
“The idea of sitting down behind a group of drums and playing
them all at once was an American idea.
This happened after Dixieland bands discovered they could sit
down in a bar or somewhere else and people would come to hear them
play. These bands had two
drums, the bass and the snare drums.
One day the bass drummer didn’t show up. The other drummer said, ‘I can play both drums if we are
sitting down.’ He tied
the stick for the bass drum to his foot, and the drum set was born.”
The
jazz band members benefit from their leader’s professional
experience.
As
they rehearse for a concert for a local group, he tells them, “Now
don’t be disappointed if they don’t applaud your solo.
A lot of people are not hip to how a jazz audience is allowed
to act.”
One
of his students, Rachel Taylor, calls him “a great teacher and a
great performer who makes rehearsal fun.”
“He
really knows what he’s talking about,” adds Kirsten Gandenberger.
“I am in both bands. I
want to play jazz all I can.”
“He
shops on the weekends for music for us, and he picks out really good
music,” Rachel adds.
“If
there is not enough music for one of the instruments to play, he
writes in more parts for it,” Jason Boice reports.
[Tony Corpus, Lincoln High School band
director,
rehearses with one of the school’s two jazz bands
at an
early morning session.]
Corpus
appreciates the enthusiasm of his students and the community.
“Lincoln High School has been incredibly supportive of the
arts. The administration
and the school board are reflections of the community.
They show the community wants fine arts in the curriculum.
“In
a lot of ways my job is like that of a coach.
I teach individual skills and techniques.
I need to inspire my students to perform.
But there are two big differences, and I feel fortunate.
The coach has to pick and choose who his or her best players
are, but with the band everyone plays all the time.
I don’t have to pick and choose. We are truly a team.
“The
other big difference is that we have no opponent.
Our biggest enemy is ourselves.
When we go out there, there isn’t some other band trying to
beat us out. No one is
holding us back.”
He
looks at the members of the concert band who are quietly taking their
seats. “I wouldn’t trade these 120 kids for any other kids in
the school.”
[Joan
Crabb]
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