Alabama band directors use of warm-up time preceding state concert band assessments

The purpose of this study was to examine the activities and behaviors of middle and high school band directors when warming-up their concert bands prior to an adjudicated performance. Twenty-nine videos of band directors at two concert band festival sites were analyzed for frequency and duration of 60 behaviors using the Simple Computer Recording Interface for Behavioral Evaluation (SCRIBE). Duration results revealed that directors spent a majority of their warm-up time on teaching behaviors (32%) , music rehearsal (19%), tuning (18%), and scales (7%). Results for the frequency of warm-up activities indicated that a third of all directors lead their bands in breathing exercises, articulation exercises, or chorales, while two-thirds performed long tones or interval exercises. Over 80% of the directors lead their bands in scales and rehearsed the music to be performed at the assessment. Detailed results for percentage of time spent tuning indicted that 82% of tuning time employed the use of electronic tuner. Differences between middle and high school directors indicted that more high school directors lead their bands in singing activities compared to middle school directors. All middle school directors tuned their bands during warm-up, compared to half of the high school directors. None of the band directors had their bands perform a mental warm-up.