Hello 5th grade students and families!

My name is Rachel Thomas, and I am the Band Director at Greeneville Middle School. In 6th grade, your child will have many different choices, and we want to share more about the band program at GMS.

Band is a related arts class that meets daily. We have band in 6-8th grade and also jazz band in 8th grade.

This newsletter highlights the most frequently asked questions about our band program. If you have any other questions about our band program at GMS, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. Email is the easiest way to get in touch with me. My email is thomasrl@gcschools.net. Full contact information is at the bottom.

I hope to be able to meet each of you at our GMS Upcoming 6th Grade Night on May 6 at 6:00 p.m. Our jazz band will be performing, and we will have a booth set up in the gym if you would like to come and ask questions in person!

I look forward to meeting you soon,

Rachel Thomas

Here are all the instrument choices we have available!

The short answer is it depends.

Our full service music dealer has rental options available for families.

• Rent for a brand new or like new quality instrument ranges from approximately $36/month to $57/month depending on the instrument.
• Certain instruments are school-owned instruments because they are larger. Those instruments are: bass clarinet, French horn, baritone, tuba, tenor sax. You still need to purchase a mouthpiece, cleaning kit, and book for those instruments.
• You can also purchase a good quality brand used band instrument.

NO ONE is eliminated from being in band! We do have our instrument placement day where we want you to come and try the instruments to see what you like best. You do not have to know how to read music, put an instrument together, or even how to play an instrument to be in band! We teach you everything you need to know to be successful.

Yes, you sure can!

If you are interested in participating in GMS Band next year, please make sure that you sign up for a time to try out all the instruments on August 2.

Time slots are available from 12:00-4:00 p.m. on August 2 at the GHS Band Room.

Hurry! Limited slots are available!

No experience is necessary! We teach you everything you need to know from reading music to putting the instrument together to the first sounds.

The short answer is, YES! When you come to instrument placement, the very first thing we ask you is, "What instrument do you want to play?" From there, we help you choose at least 3 different instruments to try at instrument placement. Once you go through the rooms and are finished, we will work with you to make a final selection. We ask you what instrument you liked the best, and we will show you what instrument you are most compatible playing. We do have to balance out our instrument list. For instance, we can't have a band with 50 saxophone players, so we do have a set number of each instrument.

That is why signing up for our Instrument Placement as soon as possible is so important if you're interested in joining band! Have an open mind! We find that most of our students end up choosing a totally different instrument after they finish with Instrument Placement than what they thought they wanted to play.