Memorial Day parade

The Memorial Day Parade was great this year! The kids knew the song better than ever. Well, overall, that is..... Some kids didn't know the song at all, while others knew bits and pieces. Some knew the whole song, and others made up parts that sounded decent. And three kids forgot their instruments. But it really did go well. I have to remember to set park in the right place (UCA's parking lot next year), and work on learning the song sooner so more kids do get it, but I'm very happy with the bands.

FRUSTRATING

This is the most frustrating time of the year. I'm competing for kids' attention with the weather. On nice days I have to practically drag the kids to band. AND when we get a performance opportunity, they just groan! They don't want to put any time into memorizing a march, so I have to walk them through it, bit by bit or else the song will completely fall apart during the parade. Plus, they could play a fun little thing at the end of the year, and there's almost no interest - they just don't want to do anything! Arrrgh. Unfortunately, the few who do work at it end up being short-changed by the majority who won't do anything. Arrrgh.

CONCERTS!

Woohoo! Great performances the past few weeks. I always get nervous when our dress rehearsals go well, because the formula seems to be: Good dress rehearsal = bad evening concert. This year, though that doesn't apply. Both of my schools had good dress rehearsals and performances. At DES, Basses Are Aces featured a strong trombone & bass clarinet, and Sabre Dance turned out to be SO good. At NCES, we were missing a featured sax player (poor girl - she was sick!) so we played something we hadn't played in weeks, Sousa's Stars & Stripes Forever, and the crowd loved it! Both Beginning Bands watch me better than any group I've had, so they were VERY together. I have to figure out how to compress the videos better, then I'll get them posted to TeacherTube.

AND THEN, the jazz bands went to the JSC Middle School Jazz Festival yesterday. It was a great experience for us. Because of absences, I combined the two jazz band, to great effect. We played for two judges, who gave us great comments afterwards. Very good stuff!