Band director talks teaching, classic rock and retirement

Dave Carlson directed his last concert with the Havre Middle School band May 5.

Carlson said he's not a crier. But in an interview Friday, he said he got "emotional" during that performance. He said some of his flute players told him it was his fault they cried - if his eyes wouldn't gave gotten "watery," they wouldn't have cried. He admitted that his eyes got watery that day.

Carlson is retiring. He said he wanted to do so while he was still young enough to "try some things." He has some ideas, but he hasn't decided.

Sometimes, he starts to say something and then interrupts himself, as if thinking aloud. Other times, he emphasizes - but only slightly - the first words of a new sentence before descending and then plateauing as he finishes the thought, not unlike a piece of music that calls for emphasis on the first note before getting into rhythm.

School had just let out and Carlson was looking at pictures from the concert on his computer. The backroom of the band room, which serves as an office and storage room, has shelves on the far wall that run the entire length of the long, narrow room. The shelves are crammed with folders of sheet music. The number of music pieces easily reaches into the thousands.

Three opened boxes of soda cans lay on the floor. Carlson said he and the students had been sorting music and implied they normally worked better when hopped up on caffeine.

"There's a lot of good stuff in there - Bach, Brahms," he said, referring to the sheet music, "but also some real junk ... like the theme song from 'Happy Days.'"

He is leaving everything for the next director.

Carlson can talk music all day. Classic rock, jazz, folk, orchestral, classical - he knows it, and chances are he has played it. The only music he said he doesn't like is rap, "because the chords never change."

While he was in college in Missoula, he said he quit for a year to go on the road and play in a cover rock band. For six nights a week, he played bass on songs by classic rock acts like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix. But then he came back and earned his music and education degree and hasn't toured since.

Despite his diverse musical training and experience, Carlson's main musical influence never played a guitar with his teeth or sold millions of records or composed a renowned overture.

His father, Clifford Carlson, was a band director in Havre schools from 1946 to 1973. To this day, Dave Carlson says his father has always been "over my head." He said Clifford Carlson always had better ears and could play all the instruments better than he could. He learned a lot from his father, he said.

It was Clifford Carlson who told his son about the band director opening at the middle school. It wasn't the first time there had been an opening. The first time, Carlson was teaching in Big Sandy but his father told him he wasn't ready for Havre yet. By the second time, Carlson was teaching in Glascow, and this time his father thought he might be ready.

Carlson has been instrumental in helping lay the musical foundations of hundreds of students at Havre Middle School since 1989. He said music is vital to education. Among the reasons, music requires the use of both sides of the brain.

Over the years, students have surprised him many times, prompting him to ask, "How did you do that?" He has learned from students and even asked them to show him certain things they had figured out. He has no doubt middle school students can be creative.

"Every child, a lot of them, they have a different spin on what you did and lot of times you are like, 'Oh, I wish I would've thought of it like that," he said.

Carlson said his 24-year-old autistic son has influenced his teaching methods.

"Watching the way he learned versus traditional ways, it's made me more flexible to try different strategies," he said.

Although he maintains he has no idea what he will be doing after retiring - "I'm going to reflect first before jumping into anything" - he did hint at what he hasn't ruled out.

He hasn't ruled out putting together or becoming part of a jazz ensemble. He owns 13 bass guitars, although none of them are standup. He sounded confident he could play one, though.

Another option that's not out of the question is getting more involved in Special Olympics. He and his wife, Anne-Marie, have two special needs children and they both serve as area directors for the Havre Special Olympics.

Whatever the future holds, one thing is for sure: He says it's not in his nature to not do anything.

Carlson is leaving, satisfied with the impact he believes he's made.

"I remember doing a concert at the high school once. We finished playing a piece, and I pretty much pushed them as far as I could push them," he said. "I didn't have to say anything. Just the look on their faces. One of my flute players used to call it tingles, where the hair on the back of your neck would stand up and they would feel body rushes from the emotion. ... I remember looking at their eyes, and I remember the one flute player. She said, 'I got tingles really bad.' And I said, 'Those are good tingles.'"