Sub-Evil Boy had his first band concert tonight, and it was really quite fun. I’d been a bit nervous going in, since the 5th graders only started with these instruments in September, but it was actually quite impressive. I’m not going to rush out and buy the CD quite yet, but I’ve heard older folks sound a whole lot worse on more than one occassion! Their first piece (“Ancient hunter” by Sean O’Loughlin) was particularly good, suiting the huge group of students (all but a handful of the 5th graders are in the band) with wonderful depth and color.
Sub-Evil Boy was a little disappointed by how hard it was to hear the french horns (there are only two of them) in that ocean of players, but this is, after all, part of being one player among many.
One of the stand-outs had to be Mitchell’s stint as M.C. since he couldn’t play his sax due to surgery a few days ago. He was confident and quite funny in front of a big audience, and handled a couple of mix-ups really well. The band teacher (Dot Vick) gets huge props for pulling these kids together and making a real band out of them in such short notice, and the sax section in the 6th Grade Jazz Band was really impressive.
The one (unsurprising) bummer is how stiff a lot of the kids were. A few of them (including Sub-Evil Boy) tapped their feed and showed some life, but way too many never moved anything that wasn’t strictly required to make the music. Part of this is just their struggle with their instruments and music, but part of it is that stiff, “well-behaved” manner so many people up here have when “enjoying” music. It (sort of) works for the more classical pieces, but they’re going to have to loosen up some if they’re ever going to get past the music on the page.
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