Complete concert schedule of our sponsor United In Praise. Please Share!

The Steel Drum Ensembles of both Seminole Springs Elementary School and Eustis Middle Schools will be performing with the University of Florida Steel Drum Band

On November 19^th, the Steel Drum Ensembles of both Seminole Springs Elementary School and Eustis Middle School, under the Direction of Ed Anderson and Gerry Ricke,  will be performing with the University of Florida Steel Drum Band on their Winter Concert at the University of Florida.  The Concert will be held at the University Concert  Hall on the Campus of UF, MUB 701, at 7:30 p.m.   We would like to invite you to join us for this experience.  We are looking forward to bringing the excellence of Lake County Music to the University of Florida and getting the opportunity to see a performance by the Sunshine State Steelers.

Why would a student want to participate in The Steel Drum Ensemble at The Eustis Middle School? It does require extra practice times. The children practice before and after school on certain days of the week. This practice takes time out of the lives of the children who participate. It is the benefits the entire community. For a campus map please go to http://campusmap.ufl.edu or call (352) 392-3261.

Playing Steel Drums have many positive benefits for children, including enhanced academic performance, social skills, mental and emotional health.

The hands-on interaction the children get with drums and percussion instruments is something they’ll never forget and it can only broaden their awareness of other cultures in the world.

Studies have shown that drumming:

• Improves your child’s overall scholastic performance.
• Shows that children actively engaged in an arts education are likely to have higher academic test scores.
• Develops skills needed by the 21st century workforce: critical thinking, creative problem solving, effective communication, teamwork and more.
• Teaches children to be more tolerant and open.
• Allow your child to express themselves creatively and bolster their self-confidence.
• Keep students engaged in school and less likely to drop out.
  
  
  If you are interested in sponoring or funding either elementary or middle school programs or need more information on the concert please contact Cherrice Purvee eustismustangmusicassociation@gmail.com

Auction Benefit For Christian Maas - A Former Mustang Who Needs Support!

Christian, a 21 year old Eustis High School graduate of 2010, with a zero alcohol level lost control on a small back road at 25 miles an hour and hit a plank fence at an unusual angle causing many of the wooden planks to go through the windshield. One penetrated his right skull causing brain trauma & another one impacted his left arm breaking it and his left face breaking facial bones, rupturing his eye, and bruising the left side of his brain. Christian was in a coma from this Fathers day accident until a few weeks ago.

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Flyer For Auction Benefit

Most recent calendar September and October

SEPTEMBER

11&25)

Music Mentors (MM) High school students mentoring MS Students

EMS Band Room

3-4:00pm. Have ride here at 4p!

 

16)Weekly Steel Band Rehearsals Begin 8:00 am

 

21)

All State Band Auditions

Clermont

Middle School, 8am-1pm

audition

times

TBA

 

OCTOBER

4) Beginner Assessment Trial period

7 week evaluation sent home with beginners.

 

10) Maestro fund raiser Delivery

Large items or numerous orders must go home from CAR

RIDERS. Items are frozen and MUST be picked up this day!!!!

 

11) MS Marching Band Night @ Eustis High

5p

9&23) Music Mentors

EMS Band Room 3

4:00pm. Have rides here at 4p!

 

14) EMMA 6:00 pm EMS Room

 

14) Steel Drum Rehearsal w/Mr. Anderson

4:00-6:00pm

Pick up

PROMPTLY at 6:00pm

 

OCTOBER 16 United In Praise Concert. Please see blog page for time and location. This is an optional attendance.

 

18) Band shirt order

DEADLINE

order forms and $ are due today to have shirt for

the winter

concert.

 

18) Last Day of Music Trial Period

 

►22)Jazz Performance at United in Praise Concert

- Lake Sumter State College

You can adopt The Mustangs by using a non profit organization called Adopt-A-Class!

 ADOPT Mr. Gerald Ricke's  CLASSROOM

By clicking the above link

by clicking the link above you can adopt The Mustangs by using a non profit organization called Adopt-A-Class!

Each year a teacher spends about $1200 out of their own pocket keeping a classroom up to date.
 
The Twelve Benefits of Music Education In Schools Are

1. Early musical training helps develop brain areas involved in language and reasoning. It is thought that brain development continues for many years after birth. Recent studies have clearly indicated that musical training physically develops the part of the left side of the brain known to be involved with processing language, and can actually wire the brain's circuits in specific ways. Linking familiar songs to new information can also help imprint information on young minds.

2. There is also a causal link between music and spatial intelligence (the ability to perceive the world accurately and to form mental pictures of things). This kind of intelligence, by which one can visualize various elements that should go together, is critical to the sort of thinking necessary for everything from solving advanced mathematics problems to being able to pack a book-bag with everything that will be needed for the day.

3. Students of the arts learn to think creatively and to solve problems by imagining various solutions, rejecting outdated rules and assumptions. Questions about the arts do not have only one right answer.

4. Recent studies show that students who study the arts are more successful on standardized tests such as the SAT. They also achieve higher grades in high school.

5. A study of the arts provides children with an internal glimpse of other cultures and teaches them to be empathetic towards the people of these cultures. This development of compassion and empathy, as opposed to development of greed and a "me first" attitude, provides a bridge across cultural chasms that leads to respect of other races at an early age.

6. Students of music learn craftsmanship as they study how details are put together painstakingly and what constitutes good, as opposed to mediocre, work. These standards, when applied to a student's own work, demand a new level of excellence and require students to stretch their inner resources.

7. In music, a mistake is a mistake; the instrument is in tune or not, the notes are well played or not, the entrance is made or not. It is only by much hard work that a successful performance is possible. Through music study, students learn the value of sustained effort to achieve excellence and the concrete rewards of hard work.

8. Music study enhances teamwork skills and discipline. In order for an orchestra to sound good, all players must work together harmoniously towards a single goal, the performance, and must commit to learning music, attending rehearsals, and practicing.

9. Music provides children with a means of self-expression. Now that there is relative security in the basics of existence, the challenge is to make life meaningful and to reach for a higher stage of development. Everyone needs to be in touch at some time in his life with his core, with what he is and what he feels. Self-esteem is a by-product of this self-expression.

10. Music study develops skills that are necessary in the workplace. It focuses on "doing," as opposed to observing, and teaches students how to perform, literally, anywhere in the world. Employers are looking for multi-dimensional workers with the sort of flexible and supple intellects that music education helps to create as described above. In the music classroom, students can also learn to better communicate and cooperate with one another.

11. Music performance teaches young people to conquer fear and to take risks. A little anxiety is a good thing, and something that will occur often in life. Dealing with it early and often makes it less of a problem later. Risk-taking is essential if a child is to fully develop his or her potential. Music contributes to mental health and can help prevent risky behavior such as teenage drug abuse.

12. An arts education exposes children to the incomparable.

United In Praise Concert. Oct. 15, 2013. Please share.

Here is one of The Mustangs largest sponsors this year. We can not wait to be at the concerts and hear this choir sing. These are free concerts and there are some in most of the cities around here in October and November. If you live out near this concert, please do not miss it. This is a non-denominational choir who supports the band by taking donations. Those donations are then donated to the causes that United In Praise has chosen for that concert season. We ask any band family to come out and represent the band. Plus, we all need a few moments taken out of our lives and peace and harmony put back into that empty spot! 

The seven components to The MCSC Program

The Eustis Middle School band averages about 150 total students. Our students are positive role models in the school and in the community, and we are working to develop a program called The Mustangs Caring for School Community (MCSC). The program is designed to create a caring school environment characterized by kind and supportive relationships and collaboration among students from the Mustang Band, staff, and parents. The MCSC model is consistent with research-based practices for increasing student achievement as well as the theoretical and empirical literature supporting the benefits of a caring classroom community in meeting students' needs for emotional and physical safety, supportive relationships, autonomy, and sense of competence.

By creating a caring school community, our program seeks to promote pro-social values, increase academic motivation and achievement, and prevent drug use, violence, and delinquency. MCSC has seven components designed to be implemented over the course of the school year:

1. Meeting the community:  Throughout the year the Eustis Mustang Middle School Band competes in many fairs, festivals and shows. After each performance the members of the band participate with other students in a question and answer session. During this time our students explain all the benefits they receive during their time with the band program. The members of the band each explain how the band has helped them become better students, friends, and how the confidence gained through the music program helps them to become better human beings.
2. Class Meeting Lessons:  This provides students in the Mustang Band with a forum to spend time with local elementary school students in a classroom climate. During the time spent in the classroom our students will share their experiences and explain why the time they spend with the band is not only good for social awareness but more importantly, how being involved with the arts can improve test results. Our students want to show the younger elementary students that learning notation when reading music equates to reading and understanding fractions. Often times, mastering the use of fractions is a problem for students of mathematics. Understanding and having familiarity with using fractions is one of the keys to understanding and being able to do higher mathematics. Understanding how to use and manipulate fractions is a consistent problem for English Language Learners, so learning music and musical notation as a tool has been proven to raise levels of mathematical comprehension.      
3. Community Outreach:  Community Outreach is an important tool that the members of The Mustang Band currently use and will continue to build upon. During the school year the Eustis Middle School Mustang Band plays music around our community many times, including at local street festivals, holiday parades and nearby elementary schools. But, we want to take our Community Outreach a step further. Our Community Outreach Program will reach the children who are not always exposed to the fact that children at 10, 12, and 14 years of age can actually learn to play an instrument. We want to reach those children who did not know they had the option to join the band, despite financial constraints. Our program will bring our Jazz Band and our Steel Drum Band to a community day camp or after school program twice per year. During this event the members of the band will reach out to children who are underprivileged and live in disadvantaged settings, letting them know about our instrument donation program. These children are not aware that, thanks to fund-raising efforts, they could also join the band due to the fact that entry fees, instruments and uniforms because the entry fees and uniforms can in fact be donated for their use. Many of these children need something inspirational and fulfilling in their lives, and without our help, many of these children may never know that they too could play a steel drum or saxophone.   
4. Real World Experience: Once per year we will invite the thirty most needy students from the elementary schools in our jurisdiction based upon grades or poor attendance to our School. We will invite them to a free event hosted by the Mustang Band in the band room where the students will get a chance to see in person the Eustis Mustang Steel Drum Band and The Eustis Mustang Jazz Ensemble.  After the concert the students from the surrounding schools will be able to interact with the instruments, the band members and the director. The students will be able to ask questions, and our hope is that the experience will lead to these students wanting to participate and learn an instrument, thereby improving on both their attendance and grades. After this event the booster committee will talk about the possibility that these children can try something fun and interesting and make a commitment to the band. The committee will then distribute information to the children about our instrument donation program, which these students would not have known about, but for having participated in this Real World Experience. Given the statistics for our community above, we feel that this portion of our program will contribute the most to the students in our community. It has been shown that children exposed to a long term music education program are 85 percent more likely to come to school each day, and learning becomes easier for those students.  
5. Giving Back:  We are lucky enough to have some of the best role models right here in our band program. The MCSC Program would like to give back to our community by holding three food drives per year. We will schedule these food drives right before our school breaks, by putting bins in the front office, band room And The First Baptist Church in Eustis. The students of The Advanced Band will be involved in the organization, collection and delivery of the collected food. The students will also donate clothing throughout the year to local shelters.
6. Music Mentors: Music Mentors is a program shared by Eustis High School and the Eustis Middle School Bands. Directors Mr. Ricke of the Eustis Mustangs and Mr. Flenner of The Eustis Panthers created this program to ensure quality music education and performance through mentor-ship. The desire to develop a greater appreciation for the art of music and by giving the next generation an opportunity to receive the best training possible in music education by their peers. Through strategic partnerships, music awareness, and quality teaching, these bands are in the process of building a music program worthy of national and international recognition. Music Mentors is a Bi-weekly program. Any middle school student can sign up, he or she lists what they want or need for example: assistance with the all-state audition, jazz music etc.
7. The Music Mentor Program is meant to help those who want to advance at a faster rate.
8. The Music Mentor Program provides a transition into the high school program
9. It is a fun way to learn from your older piers.
10. It give the middle school students a chance to get together with piers that play the same instrument as they play in a personal setting.
11. One on One setting with a “big brother/sister ” environment.
12. Recruits students into the high school band.
13. The high school students come early and sit in with the middle school students during their band classes.

7. Mustang/Panther Connection: Statistics prove that younger students who are active in a long term music program become better college students. We are therefore implementing The EMMA Award!  A $250.00-500.00 scholarship that will be presented to a student graduating Eustis High School with a GPA of 3.5 or above and who has been an active participant in the Mustang/Panther band program, grades 6th through 12th. This will be presented by the Eustis Mustang Music Association, bringing full circle our commitment to give back to the community through our MSCS program.