Fourth-year Dowagiac Band Director C.J. Brooks

Dowagiac’s fourth-year band director, C.J. Brooks, is tired after a week-long festival, but if he tries to be the glass-half-full guy about doing double duty at the high school and middle school, it’s that the retention rate between eighth and ninth grades should stay strong.
“Before, I never taught seventh or eighth grade, just sixth grade,” said Brooks, whose band contains only five seniors fromhis first year. “I’ll have no one to blame in a couple of years” if numbers sag.
“This group has grown considerably technique-wise. They nailed us last year on tone, so we worked on it all year and they sounded great at festival. I’m excited about the eighth graders coming in because they’re strong players. The junior group who are going to be seniors, there’s probably 25 of them, are going to be good leaders. Our numbers will be somewhere between 90 and 100 next year.”
“I’m crabbier now,” Brooks laughs, “but on one level I’m able to connect more with the band” at all grade levels.
His first year the band carded a I, or excellent, then II’s, or good, his second and third years, so he was gratified to see the rebound March 5 at Lake Michigan College near Benton Harbor.
Chieftain Marching Band graded I’s his first two years and II’s the last two years.
With budget cuts, Brooks also heads up the middle school band, so its II March 7 was welcome after three years of III’s.
“There’s improvement there,” he said Wednesday after school. “They had a I in sight reading, which was very nice. Right now, by myself, I’ve got 77 kids in the seventh and eighth grade band. I’ve got 78 at the high school. My sixth grade group is split into two classes, but together they make 62. We’ve got big, growing numbers. Getting Mike (Petersen, retired band director) in here for 15 hours a week helps. Marching band was very stressful. Seventy-eight kids is too much for one person. The kids understand we’ve had to cut a lot of things and have been very patient.”
Brooks begins his day at DMS. First hour, sixth grade woodwinds. Second hour, sixth grade brass and percussion. Third hour, seventh and eighth grade band combined. He chose that option because the youngest musicians “need more individual time, so I have two full groups at the middle school. Because I’m a traveling teacher, I’ve got 45 minutes together for prep time and lunch.”
Blossomtime’s Grand Floral Parade through St. Joseph and Benton Harbor May 5 will be the band’s next performance, followed by the two schools’ concerts May 21-22.
Middle school marching band “is completely gone. We don’t do Memorial Day or the Christmas parade anymore. Middle school is cut back to one solo and ensemble from two,” Brooks said. “We got rid of pep band at the high school. We still have jazz band. We’ve gotten rid of the pit for the musical,” Sound of Music.
“We’re maintaining what we can,” said Brooks.
Dowagiac will host a jazz band festival April 17 for the last time.
“Edwardsburg and South Haven have tossed around hosting it,” Brooks said. “With scheduling, jazz band may have to meet outside of class. We plug along, do what we can and I’ve learned to pick the battles I fight. If I have to pick pep band over festival, festival’s going to win all the time. I want kids to get a good music education.”