Spring Concert #3
On to Barrington!
I was glad to get out of the house last night. It was the perfect time for a concert. Of course, this was the second year in a row that the weather kind of sucked for this particular concert.
Last year, we had to change the date of the concert just a couple of weeks prior because of a scheduling conflict. Even though Mr. C puts in for the date at the end of the previous school year, there was a seventh-grade trip put on that date. Nice. So we had to push it back a week, and that date had a crazy lightning storm that night. This year, it was cold. It feels like it's March outside. It's so disconcerting when you start off the week wearing sleeveless tops and at the end you're dressed in layers. Anyway.
It seems that no matter when I leave to get to this school, I always get there way earlier than I want to. I even tried to go slowly, too, but once you get into two-lane roads that's sort of hard to do. This is the school that's the easiest to get to, as it's pretty much straight up Route 59, and 59 tends to move quickly.
The back row of the bleachers was already pretty full by the time I got there, though; my choices were either all the way at the far end, requiring me to cross the whole gym (didn't feel up to that), or next to the Flutophones. What the heck--Flutophones. But somehow I ended up amid all these little kids, which during the concert got really, really annoying. The third grader next to me kept pounding on things; the little girl in front of me wouldn't sit still (and she wasn't that small--about five); and then there were a number of boys to my left that kept horsing around in the middle of the concert, and of course the mothers didn't do anything to stop them, even though they were right there. Never mind the other parents and me who were glaring at the kids on several occasions--I know the mothers saw us.
So, anyway, the concert. Mr. C did the same thing as he did last night: a few songs by the Seniors, a few songs by the Juniors, the Flutophones, two more Senior Band pieces, the rest of the Juniors, awards, and the end of the Seniors. Craziness. But it worked okay. There was someone who went between the two bands, though. I think of her as "Little Max," as her older sister's nickname (care of Mr. C) is Max. Her real name is Julia and she's the sax player for Junior Band, and she's very good. Since her sister had to be at school early for Senior Band, Julia would get dropped off too, so Mr. C talked her into playing bass drum for the Seniors. There's only one drummer, and he's not very good. Seriously, one of the Junior kids is already way better than this kid, and they're two years apart.
The Junior Band itself was okay. The one semi-clueless flute player is still there, but at least she's not as loud as she was in the winter. They did this one song called "Stomp Polka" which required the kids to stomp their feet--very cute (except when the Flutophone kid next to me joined in...at the wrong time, of course). Mr. C said that in explaining polkas to the kids, he also taught them how to order a beer in Polish--and one of the little flute players stood up and said it. Nice. ;) There was also "Mexican Fiesta" at the very end, where they threw in a "cha cha cha." We actually did that last year with a song..."Caribbean Delight," perhaps? I've got it somewhere. Of course, my kids, being mostly boys, copied a certain toilet paper ad (which I hadn't yet seen at that point) and went "cha-cha-cha, Charmin" at every rehearsal. I did manage to break them of the "Charmin" part for the concert, at least.
One odd moment: Larry directed the Juniors on their first three songs. However, he has not been their primary band director. The last song he did was "Chant for Band," a song he'd never done and for which he didn't have a score. It starts out with a drum part and the kids come in a few measures later...or at least they're supposed to. One little clarinet tried valiantly several times to come in, but since everyone else was lost she stopped playing. The drums just kept going. The kids started looking at each other, and even Larry started looking over at Mr. C like, help me! Larry ended up cutting off the drums and sort of starting over, and it ended fine.
Also, there had been four clarinets when the show started...but there were only three at the end. One of them had a dance program that evening and wasn't going to come at all, but Mr. C has a policy: If you miss a concert for a dumb reason, you're no longer in band. If you talk to him, he will actually work with you; he and the mom compromised. The kid made the first part of the concert and then left.
Oh, on "Mexican Fiesta," that's the song where I was impressed by the Junior Band drummer. He was playing two drums at once, which I've never seen for someone that age. He looked like he was playing a drumset. I really wonder if he's taking outside lessons. I watched him for a while--he has good rhythm and technique. I hope he stays. The Seniors really need a good drummer. (When Mr. C explained to the audience what Julia was doing, he also told her that next year, she couldn't play drums; he needed her on sax. There are two saxes in Senior Band right now, but it would be nice to have a good sound. All three of them would have been the only saxes in their bands at certain points, so they know what it's like to play by themselves.) I found out his name when Mr. C passed out the awards; it's Charles. I also found out the name of one of the kids I remembered from last year's Flutophones; it's Allison, but Mr. C calls her "Albert."
The Flutophones were Flutophones. The interesting note is how much they were freaking out before the concert--whenever a new kid would come join the rest of them on the bleachers, there would be screaming and yelling and foot pounding and all sorts of things. I forgot that there's a "contest" to see who can get the most kids to show up for the concert. Each class has a scorekeeper who would write down how many kids showed up as well as keep track of how they did in the lessons; at the end, the class with the highest points wins a prize. (It's rigged. They all get candy. It's just a way to bribe them to stay in line at the lessons. Ah, what fun it was to give points to one class when the other was getting out of hand! Most of them learned to be quiet and listen pretty quickly. I think little Allison/Albert was a scorekeeper and that's why I remember her.)
The Seniors were overall okay. A few kids had dropped out or weren't there, which always saddens me. I was excited that the two eighth grade flute players got to play piccolo, though. (At Buffalo Grove, my summer lesson student, Nicole, got to play picc.) Man, last year the band at Barrington was all flutes--nine of 'em. We even had a flute choir piece. This year, there's only five, and two of them graduate. That's so bad. All in all, the band is down two people. I hope a lot of the juniors stick around. They seem to enjoy it and they sound pretty good.
Normally at the small school concerts awards are passed out. They were able to do that last night. At Northbrook, they're so early that the order's not yet ready. Even last year, I passed out the trophies at a lesson several weeks later. At Buffalo Grove, they've had a family ice cream social/awards night for a number of years. Last year Mr. C talked about canceling it, but at Wednesday's concert there were people sticking fliers in the programs about it. (There are a number of people with older children who have graduated who want their younger kids to experience awards night...never mind that at least a quarter of the kids can't make it due to sports and stuff. Even the principal's kid wasn't there because he had a baseball game.) Well, there weren't any trophies, but Mr. C did recognize the kids with perfect attendance as well as the ones that won the outstanding band member awards. (The two eighth grade girls, Katie (Max) and Liz, won for Senior Band.) There were medals for solo contest, at least; nobody got lower than a second, and most of the kids got first, so good job, everyone. Also, I found out that yes, the three smaller schools combined for band contest, and they all received first places. Yay.
I didn't really talk to many of the kids afterward. Several of them did see me before the show, and one of them (Kevin, a fifth-grade trumpet) waved to me. After the concert I let them walk past. Mr. C asked me to get his microphone equipment for him, which was fine. Standing next to the receiver were the two eighth grade boys, Doug and Neil. Oh, they were not the nicest kids when I taught their trumpet lesson, but one of them saw me, nudged the other and said, "Miss W," and they said hi to me. Uh, hi guys. I congratulated them for staying in band all those years and then brought the stuff over to Mr. C. I also talked to William, another child who gave me guff. He was my little Junior Band clarinet player that I thought would quit, but didn't; the other clarinet player, whom I thought would keep going, *did* quit because ohmigod, I have to actually work at this thing now? (Seriously, that's what happened.) William would overpower the rest of the band, which is pretty impressive for a clarinet player. I asked if he was still putting all that air into his horn, and he said yes. I think those were all the kids I talked to.
See, this is one of those schools where the kids are really indifferent to me now. It's also a place where the parents won't really push the kids to work hard--if they don't want to do it, then they don't have to. They also don't seem to realize the value of education, even though they're paying good money for the kids to go to this private school. (It was rebuilt within the past decade and is really beautiful compared to every other Catholic school I've ever been to. They have budgets that just blow other schools away. The music teacher here visited Brigid, the music teacher at Buffalo Grove, to see Brigid's techniques. The woman from Barrington was so shocked that Brigid didn't get all new books every year--Brigid had to tape her old books back together. But Brigid did a far better job with her students than the other woman did, so there's my proof that money can't buy you everything.) I thought the schools in Naperville were bad, where every time there was a three-day weekend the parents would take their kids out of town. Oh, no--in Barrington the weekends start on *Thursday*. On several occasions Neil and his little brother Graham (who's no longer in band) would be gone because of whatever. Once, it was a Cubs game in Cincinnati. No kidding. Then there was the mom of the kid who never showed up for his lessons because he was being taken out of his classes. Yes, it's a pain in the ass to miss class, but every band kid at all of our schools has to do it. I had to do it. You find a way to make up the work and you're done. (I will say that this school has the funkiest class schedule ever, so there would be points where the kids would miss the same class two weeks in a row. But it was only a half-hour that they'd miss, and it was just once a week... *sigh* Whatever.) I'd usually send one of the girls in his lesson to go fetch him, and one day they were all like, I'm not getting him! And the time he actually did show up, he didn't know his music at all. The girls played circles around him. Yet his mom would also talk about how wonderful the music program is here, and how good it is for the children. Yeah, that kid's no longer in band. The only good thing that came from that mom is that at last year's concert she organized the parents to bring treats. Seriously, there was a dessert buffet spread out in a lounge near the gym. I came home with a package of cookies.