Band Concert

Tonight was the final high school band concert of the year, and MD Middle Daughter played tuba in the last band. I took piano lessons for a while, but the metronome and I never got along and now I play the radio. It's always a little miraculous to hear someone getting music out of what I only make noise with.

The program order was slightly scrambled, and the sound of the bands was good. The Northwoods piece by Robert Smith was maybe a bit heavy on unusual instrumentation (a saw, bowing muted and unmuted cymbols), but a good time was had.

Up until the final band, with MD. Pastorale went fine, but then something broke on one of the bassoons, and Whatsover Things has a bassoon duet at the beginning. Thus; a plea for a match or a lighter. A student from the back provided a lighter, and announced that it was from "Chad." We had a brief intermission for a soldering session, and when it became clear that it was trickier work than at first appeared, the awards people took the stage. Next year they need to rethink how to manage handing school letters to 34 people on a crowded stage.

The bassoons sounded fine, (as did the tubas!), and then came the student's awards to the teachers. MD complained afterwards that the intermissions dried up the emotional drive.

And the final piece was The Stars and Stripes Forever, with soloists and others coming forward near the end to be heard better.

The contrast of Sousa and almost all the other composers was dramatic. "Fantasy," "rhapsody," "voices of" all meant the music didn't have a strong central theme and drive; but that it tried on one theme for a while, and then did a little color, and tried another theme. OK, Mozart is always strong, I meant the others.

A pleasant evening; and I'm proud of MD.