HOME SCHOOLERS BEGIN SEVENTEENTH YEAR OF MUSIC MAKING

 
The 2009-2010 School Year will mark the seventeenth year of the High Point Home Schoolers Band!  The band program started in 1993 as an experiment, and since then more than 250 students from all over the Triad have converged on John  Wesley College to learn the art of making music with a woodwind, brass, or percussion instrument. 

The band program consists of two Bands: a beginning band for students with little or no background in music and an  advanced ensemble for students with a minimum of one-year prior experience
playing a band instrument (an audition is required for entrance into the Advanced Band).
 
The Beginning Band meets
on Thursday afternoons for students in grades four through eight that have had no previous training on a band instrument.  The hour-and-a-half of group instruction is supplemented with a mandatory 30-minute private lesson for each student that is scheduled for a time during the week that
is arranged with the parents.  The cost for the Beginning Band, including the individual lesson time, is $175 per semester (payable in five installments of $35 each, if necessary).  Students are responsible for providing their own instruments for the band, and the Beginning Band students also must
purchase an inexpensive band method book that typically costs about $5. 
 
The Advanced Band
consists of students who have played a standard band instrument for at least a
year.  The Advanced Band meets on Wednesday afternoons at the college from 

Advanced Band students have the option of deciding whether or not to take individual private lessons with the director, which would affect the cost of the instruction:  For those students who choose not to
study privately with the director, the cost for the Advanced Band is $150 (payable in five installments of $30 each, if necessary) per semester; for Advanced Band students who take private lessons the cost of instruction is the same as the cost for the Beginning Band students ($175 for the semester). 

  

 
The 2009-2010 Home
Schoolers Beginning Band will meet for the first time on Thursday, August 20,
for registration and orientation. 

Individual lesson times will be arranged at that time.  Beginning Band students who are
undecided about the type of instrument they want to play could set up an
appointment to meet with the director prior to August 20 for consultation. 
 
The 2009-2010 Home
Schoolers Advanced Band will meet for the first time on Wednesday, August 19, at
which time chair placement tryouts will be held.  Students new to the band program who
have played for at least a year on a traditional band instrument desiring to
participate in the Advanced Band may audition prior to August 19.

 
A Winter Concert usually is held in mid-December.  In January 2010, a second semester will begin with separate charges identical to the Fall Semester, and a final Spring Concert will be presented in early May at the end of that semester. 

 
For more information
about the band program, please call
889-2262, Extension 139, or send
an e-mail to drenfroe@johnwesley .edu.