My freshman tenor player can't keep a tempo. I just wanna slap him everytime he screws up but i can't! LOL. Some people can't help it but he wont listen. He just whacks away at the drum. I'm gonna kill him first chance I get!

Well... If he's not getting any better at all then he deserves it. He should be able to get a constant tempo soon enough. Make him practice with a really loud metronome or you can use a cow bell and sticks if you got the time. But if he doesn't really try then maybe he shouldn't be playing the tenor.

I have worked with directors (mostly concert band, orchestra, etc.) There have been some that yelled until just about passed out and some that all they needed to do was give you a look and I have seen success in both. I depends on your teaching style. I do not like to yell and if I do I need to make sure that every student knows the reason why I'm yelling. It also depends on the type of group your working with. Professional, semi-professional, and even Senior High groups should have the discipline to behave thems and practice/learn their parts.

okay here's my view on it, it depends on the drumline, if the drumline has a reputation as being competitive like my high school drumline was then if the drumline or section of the drumline is slacking off then you need to raise your voice to let them know what's up, and if it's just a member, then acknowledge to that one person that he needs to practice and he's bringing the line down, usually that'll embarrass the person and they work harder so it doesn't happen again. Now if the drumline in not competitive then you should raise you voice if the drumline is just being stupid and not doing what they're supposed to do, you can't really yell at them for not practicing because in a drumline like that, most of them aren't probably not going to practice much outside of band practice anyways but they can at least practice during band rehersals.

It really depends on the organization and the staff. Some groups work one way and some work another. The members of the Cadets get yelled at all the time (just go to one of their rehearsals and you'll understand.) The Cavaliers staff rarely, if ever, yell (at least when I was there. I'm sure things haven't changed since then.) The members of Star of Indiana (when they were still competing) suffered through a lot of physical and mental punishments during their summers. Some band directors are tyrants and in-your-face all of the time while others are softspoken but are good at motivating people.

It also depends on the membership. If the members respond to softspokenness, then yelling is not necessary except in extreme cases. If the members don't respond to that type of teaching style, then yelling can be the norm.

My feeling is that you should always start out in softspoken mode and only resort to yelling if nothing gets done.

I don't think raising your voice is neccessary. My "instructor" has never yelled at me. Actually, I take that back. When the line, as a whole, is just being completely stupid and goofing off, not taking anything seriously, and push-ups don't work he has "raised his voice" at us. But he's never yelled at us. If anything he just kind of makes you feel stupid but I understand because it's hard trying to teach a bunch of flarking idiots. But, otherwise then those maybe four times that has ever happened, he's never done it.
I think having to raise your voice or yell or whatever is a sign of being a bad instructor. If you can't tear it down and show it to them in a way they understand, then you shouldn't be teaching. Unless of course they're complete morons and they don't want to understand, in which case they shouldn't be on the line otherwise.

Absolutely!You're dealing with teenagers!Many of them are hard-headed and nothing can be done without authority!I'm not saying you have to be an ogre,but you sometimes have to be firm.Remember-you're their instructor,not their best friend.

Some directors want to be both... Remember that too.

I was just looking at how the stuff in my high school band works and well... Even with yelling ine massive amounts doesn't get through their thick skulls. We just made a video to send to disneyland. Even after a couple days of yelling at people to keep in step, be more carefull about intonation, and to learn their parts, it was still crap when we made the movie. Sometimes nothing works.

You have to be careful because yelling can lose its effect if it's done too much.

One of our band directors yells a lot. It's just his personality to yell when he gets frustrated. A lot of people know that and tend to not listen to his yelling as much.

The other director hardly ever yells. You know if he does, you've done something really bad and he's upset. You would think he wouldn't earn a lot of respect but actually if you get one dissapointed look from him you're feeling awfully bad. If he yells you know he really means business.

I think we're really lucky to have one director of each temperament. If the one director goes overboard with the yelling, the other can smooth things out, or if the latter is too soft, the first will come behind him and lay down the law. Also, different students respond better to the different personalities of the two directors.

The bottom line is that there are pros and cons to each and you have to find the one that works for your group. Of course it's better to start out being too soft and work up from there because there is less potential damage if you go that route.

~ Jen

Yelling is necessary on situations like "gameday" when the line is $hitting all over everything they've played clean all week just enough to get your point across that you're pissed. But most of the time just being a di[k is fine like when someone comes in late during a talk, make them stay away while you're talking to the "on-time" players then use their break time to discuss what you need to discuss. Basically most of us have been in lines with instructors that did too much or not enough to motivate us and we know what motivates us to do better and what doesn't.

If found that the best time for yelling is when the met is going and you're tracking the hell out of something but things aren't going right, the instructor yells a helluva lot, and the intensity gets through, but it sounds less severe than staright yelling because of the noise.

Anyhoo, my thoughts are scattered, oh well.