Solo Contest #1: Buffalo Grove
It's that time of year. I judged my first solo contest last Saturday. I would've written it up on Sunday, except it was the Super Bowl, so I watched all five quarters of that instead. Also, it would've been hard to type with mom leaning on me for half the game anyway. (But I do regret not having my iPad with me.)
This was going to be the big one. Mrs. S had asked if I wanted 8- or 10-minute time slots for the solos, and I'd said 10, and she came back to say they had to be 8 at the Buffalo Grove school because there were so many kids. That's a great reason! I'll just try to write quickly. Alas, something else threw us off schedule, but it's something to work on for next time. Mrs. S said that the first contest of the year is like the first pancake a reminder of, oh yeah, *this* needs to happen. (I keep a notebook. Now that I've been doing this for a decade, it's getting a bit tight. It's a discbound one and I'm contemplating getting bigger discs for it.)
She wanted me there at 7:15, ugh, so I had to leave about 6:15 and get up at 5. I was so paranoid about waking up that early that I set two alarms, but being an anxious person worried about getting up, it's not like I slept properly, so yeah, 5 was good. She was still down in the band room when I arrived so I was able to knock on a window to have her let me in...and then I saw the puddle in front of the door; the drain must be clogged. This is the school where the band room is in the basement and you have to walk down a flight of stairs to get in there without walking all the way around the school. I've never seen water puddled like that down there, to where you could only walk around the perimeter of the landing, and even then my shoes still got a little wet. I laughed about it, though.
She'd gotten Dunkin' on the way in, including bagels and cream cheese plus a container of Munchkins. I begged off, partly because I'd already eaten breakfast, but also because I don't normally eat that...but the Munchkins were staring at me and before long, they were in my mouth. Not all of them; I'm not a total pig. And the bagel and cream cheese, that simply waited until lunchtime, when more than half the kids had gone. That's a digestive issue waiting to happen, potentially.
We went over some stuff to start, including how some of the kids have had piano lessons so they're ahead of the other beginners (and let me tell you, they were TOTALLY obvious--they're the ones who could count), while some of them barely have made it to band. One girl had been practicing her solo but never signed up for a time slot, and her dad is a teacher there and very pro-band, so Mrs. S wasn't sure what to make of that. One boy was on academic probation and hadn't been in band since the fall, though it appears his parents fibbed about his status so that he could play in the winter concert.
She only had a couple parents who signed up to help out. The first one, bless her heart, came and helped out for a bit, then went to work a full shift at her job. I didn't find this out until later but it explained her outfit, which included a shirt with a logo on it. She was very nice and I appreciated her help, but after she left I realized what she was doing was getting us behind--she'd come down, wait for us to finish, take that player back up, and *then* bring down the next one. Ideally, she'd either go get the next kid while I'm listening to the current kid, or else maybe have one sitting out there so there's always another person around? There are protocols surrounding having an adult alone with a student, so I get that, but the logistics at that school--where the warmups are in the gym, which is down a hall and then a flight of stairs to get to the band room--don't make it easy. I wonder if there is someplace up there where we could do solos, hmm. (The other two schools, last year, the warm-up room and solo room were across from each other.) Later in the day, without a parent helper, we set up a few chairs outside the band room door and the parents got to wait right outside, which gave them the bonus of hearing their child play. As long as they're quiet, it's fine.
Soloists! We had our typical kids who didn't know how to count properly, which is to be expected. One older girl, one of the twins, I was surprised that she did so well on the 16th note section at the start but couldn't count the slower section at the end. Mrs. S said that's common; they don't know how to subdivide once they learn 16th notes.
Appearance: Most of the kids were totally fine. Some looked pretty nice; a good number wore their band uniforms. I had two that wore their coats the entire time. Look, it's not that cold down here (it was downright freezing last year), but if I gotta be cold, you gotta be cold. I can't judge your outfit when I can't see it. One girl brought her drink with her, like she'd gotten one of those Stanley tumblers and had to show it off. (That was one of the twins as well. Her sister apparently knew better.) I made a note that she should leave it with her case next time. And then one little girl, she clearly played a II solo, but I didn't have a good place to ding her, so I dinged her outfit; I think she wore gym shoes. Mrs. S saw that, oh, you would've gotten a I if not for your outfit, and bumped her up. No; I just didn't want to give her a score of 3 (out of 5) in one of the categories. After that incident, I did start giving out 3s to kids who deserved a II. I'd prefer to only give 4s and 5s, to be honest. But I still commented on outfits when necessary. Like, one girl looked fine, but looked like she was on her way to yoga class. You are performing. Dress like it.
Flutes: Several of the beginners were ambitious and insisted on learning a harder solo than "Crown Prince" (which was my solo back in the day); they did one that the clarinets were doing, which meant they had to learn higher notes like D and Eb. Those are second year notes, people. That's all fine and dandy but all y'all still need to learn correct octaves. They were either blowing too hard for their low notes or not hard enough for the higher ones, though the ones that played the high D and Eb did play them correctly. One beginner looks to be leaning her right hand to the side, so that I thought she was playing Bb using the side lever. Like, nobody uses that (well, okay, I do, but I'm old). That girl also had a screw coming out of her thumb key, as in it was so far out I thought the key was about to fall off. I used my nail to put it back in.
Clarinets: There were a couple beginners with hand position issues here, too. Two of the girls did identical things, curling up their right hands as they went up their scales, and then pulling their left hands entirely off the clarinet once they got up to, I don't know, I think A. And then they'd have to completely reset their hands to keep playing. Ladies, keep your hands in place the whole time. It will make it much easier for future playing. One girl's hands must be tiny enough that she had a hard time covering the holes all the time. It clearly wasn't the clarinet because sometimes the notes would come out correctly, and sometimes they'd squeak.
Saxes: Of her beginners, there were three that just are muddling through. There are one or two others and they got moved to a different group so they could at least progress. Oh man, one of them, it sounded like he was playing the same note the whole time, even though his fingers were moving. I don't think there was something wrong with the sax; I think it was him. I'm used to the flatulence concertos on brass instruments, not horns with keys. That was also a child who wore his coat and sneakers. Yeah...you're a II.
Brass: I'm grouping trumpets and trombones together because most of them were fine, but the one trumpet player from last year inspired me to bring along a tuner I have. It's a clip-on one, and I cannot use it because it doesn't work with flutes. It has to be clipped on to sense the vibrations, but you cannot adjust it so that it's visible if you're a flute player. I had to use a mirror in order to see what it was saying. At least I was able to repurpose it for contest, once I bought a fresh battery, because now I can show the brass players who appear to be using correct fingerings (for trumpets) or positions (for trombones) but aren't blowing the correct notes what they're doing. I used it with five kids. I told them, with woodwinds, they have all the keys that do the work for them. On brass, you have to learn how to use your mouth to form the correct shape and your air to blow correctly to create the right pitch. The tuner will show you if the pitch you're hitting is the one you think you're hitting. That was a revelation to some of them. One was the trumpet player who, last year--at two years in--could only hit four notes. Her range has greatly improved and she can make it up to a high C now, but she can't hear the notes to know if she's too high or too low. (Also, her counting has gotten worse, rats.) Being able to see the notes shown on the tuner was a literal eye-opener. Mrs. S made sure to get a picture of my tuner's packaging so she could look into it, especially since it does transpose. That's important to show the player the note name they're used to seeing, rather than having to do the math to figure out, oh Bb on my instrument means C.
Baritone: The son of our early-on helper mom forgot his music up in the gym and had to run up to get it. Then I gave him a moment to catch his breath, poor kid. He's in his third year of playing so I've seen him a couple times already, so I know he can be a bit quirky. This year, he actually did a really nice job. That's why I was a bit stunned when he apologized to me for wasting my time. I thought it was based on how he played and went, that wasn't a waste of time. Then he explained it was about running to get the music. I'm sure having his mom there didn't help him, but it was fine.
I've been joking that my favorite soloist was my last one, but I'm being facetious. She's the sister of the trumpet player with pitch issues, and she conveniently lost her clarinet and couldn't play her solo. (Mom was thrilled and apparently tore the house apart trying to find it.) She didn't come to band last week and Mrs. S wondered if she'd left her clarinet in her locker or something. Well, that's one way to get out of performing. At least one other kid was sick; one missed her earlier time and signed up for a later slot; one kid was a complete no-show; and one child had just transferred in at the beginning of the year and was so new, Mrs. S didn't assign her a solo. I found a judge's sheet for her but just set it aside. She was one of only two 7th graders (no 8th graders at all), and the other did perform. Gosh, that was refreshing after all the first- and second-year solos.
Mrs. S had provided lunch, and since it wasn't yet Lent I told her I was able to have sandwiches, so she brought some rolls and a bunch of meat and cheese, and now you know how I found myself stuffing my face on Saturday. This was funny; we had all the food laid out on a table behind my judge's table, and we still had about 40% of the solos to go. We'd planned to eat some more so it didn't make sense to pack up all the food, plus it would take a while, so I found a way to hide it: I grabbed four music stands and strategically placed them to block the food from sight. Mrs. S was impressed. Now, you could totally smell the food, so I'm sure the kids were confused, but oh well. Oh! I completely forgot--during the first boy's solo, Mrs. S' phone went off. He managed to finish the first section of his solo, found the phone, got it to turn off, and then went back to his solo. He was really not fazed, which impressed me. He also said he'd give it to her on the way upstairs to put his horn away. She felt bad about that when I saw her later but said he's a pretty chill kid.
It took a while to pack up and leave, though part of that was due to Mrs. S trying to finish up paperwork for lawyers and accountants, and it took her longer than she realized. I put away everything I could and used the bathroom and she still wasn't back down to the band room, so I went up to find her. After last year, where we almost got blocked in by Mass goers, we made sure to leave at a decent hour and ended up at the Buffalo, a place I've passed every time I've gone to that school but I've never gone there. It's famous for its ice cream, though I can't partake of that, and when we walked in it had one of those dessert hoppers and I spotted a slice of cheesecake... But we got food, even though neither of us was super hungry. She went healthy and got salmon (though thankfully she's in a better place health-wise and it was because she wanted it, not because she *had* to eat it), and I went and got a cherry waffle. Because I could. I do love me some waffles. The waitress could tell we were in a chatty mood and was pretty cool, telling us to wave her down when we were ready to order. Then, when it came time to pay the bill, the waitress asked if we wanted one check or split, and I said, I'm a business expense, to which Mrs. S gave a sort of horrified laugh, then realized, I didn't pay you! ...No, I guess you didn't! But food is payment so I'm good until the next time I see you. There's still two more contests to go. The fourth and final one, I bailed on, but she asked Mr. D to do it. He was pleased to be remembered, and he used to teach at that school, too, so he knows where it is.
This was going to be the big one. Mrs. S had asked if I wanted 8- or 10-minute time slots for the solos, and I'd said 10, and she came back to say they had to be 8 at the Buffalo Grove school because there were so many kids. That's a great reason! I'll just try to write quickly. Alas, something else threw us off schedule, but it's something to work on for next time. Mrs. S said that the first contest of the year is like the first pancake a reminder of, oh yeah, *this* needs to happen. (I keep a notebook. Now that I've been doing this for a decade, it's getting a bit tight. It's a discbound one and I'm contemplating getting bigger discs for it.)
She wanted me there at 7:15, ugh, so I had to leave about 6:15 and get up at 5. I was so paranoid about waking up that early that I set two alarms, but being an anxious person worried about getting up, it's not like I slept properly, so yeah, 5 was good. She was still down in the band room when I arrived so I was able to knock on a window to have her let me in...and then I saw the puddle in front of the door; the drain must be clogged. This is the school where the band room is in the basement and you have to walk down a flight of stairs to get in there without walking all the way around the school. I've never seen water puddled like that down there, to where you could only walk around the perimeter of the landing, and even then my shoes still got a little wet. I laughed about it, though.
She'd gotten Dunkin' on the way in, including bagels and cream cheese plus a container of Munchkins. I begged off, partly because I'd already eaten breakfast, but also because I don't normally eat that...but the Munchkins were staring at me and before long, they were in my mouth. Not all of them; I'm not a total pig. And the bagel and cream cheese, that simply waited until lunchtime, when more than half the kids had gone. That's a digestive issue waiting to happen, potentially.
We went over some stuff to start, including how some of the kids have had piano lessons so they're ahead of the other beginners (and let me tell you, they were TOTALLY obvious--they're the ones who could count), while some of them barely have made it to band. One girl had been practicing her solo but never signed up for a time slot, and her dad is a teacher there and very pro-band, so Mrs. S wasn't sure what to make of that. One boy was on academic probation and hadn't been in band since the fall, though it appears his parents fibbed about his status so that he could play in the winter concert.
She only had a couple parents who signed up to help out. The first one, bless her heart, came and helped out for a bit, then went to work a full shift at her job. I didn't find this out until later but it explained her outfit, which included a shirt with a logo on it. She was very nice and I appreciated her help, but after she left I realized what she was doing was getting us behind--she'd come down, wait for us to finish, take that player back up, and *then* bring down the next one. Ideally, she'd either go get the next kid while I'm listening to the current kid, or else maybe have one sitting out there so there's always another person around? There are protocols surrounding having an adult alone with a student, so I get that, but the logistics at that school--where the warmups are in the gym, which is down a hall and then a flight of stairs to get to the band room--don't make it easy. I wonder if there is someplace up there where we could do solos, hmm. (The other two schools, last year, the warm-up room and solo room were across from each other.) Later in the day, without a parent helper, we set up a few chairs outside the band room door and the parents got to wait right outside, which gave them the bonus of hearing their child play. As long as they're quiet, it's fine.
Soloists! We had our typical kids who didn't know how to count properly, which is to be expected. One older girl, one of the twins, I was surprised that she did so well on the 16th note section at the start but couldn't count the slower section at the end. Mrs. S said that's common; they don't know how to subdivide once they learn 16th notes.
Appearance: Most of the kids were totally fine. Some looked pretty nice; a good number wore their band uniforms. I had two that wore their coats the entire time. Look, it's not that cold down here (it was downright freezing last year), but if I gotta be cold, you gotta be cold. I can't judge your outfit when I can't see it. One girl brought her drink with her, like she'd gotten one of those Stanley tumblers and had to show it off. (That was one of the twins as well. Her sister apparently knew better.) I made a note that she should leave it with her case next time. And then one little girl, she clearly played a II solo, but I didn't have a good place to ding her, so I dinged her outfit; I think she wore gym shoes. Mrs. S saw that, oh, you would've gotten a I if not for your outfit, and bumped her up. No; I just didn't want to give her a score of 3 (out of 5) in one of the categories. After that incident, I did start giving out 3s to kids who deserved a II. I'd prefer to only give 4s and 5s, to be honest. But I still commented on outfits when necessary. Like, one girl looked fine, but looked like she was on her way to yoga class. You are performing. Dress like it.
Flutes: Several of the beginners were ambitious and insisted on learning a harder solo than "Crown Prince" (which was my solo back in the day); they did one that the clarinets were doing, which meant they had to learn higher notes like D and Eb. Those are second year notes, people. That's all fine and dandy but all y'all still need to learn correct octaves. They were either blowing too hard for their low notes or not hard enough for the higher ones, though the ones that played the high D and Eb did play them correctly. One beginner looks to be leaning her right hand to the side, so that I thought she was playing Bb using the side lever. Like, nobody uses that (well, okay, I do, but I'm old). That girl also had a screw coming out of her thumb key, as in it was so far out I thought the key was about to fall off. I used my nail to put it back in.
Clarinets: There were a couple beginners with hand position issues here, too. Two of the girls did identical things, curling up their right hands as they went up their scales, and then pulling their left hands entirely off the clarinet once they got up to, I don't know, I think A. And then they'd have to completely reset their hands to keep playing. Ladies, keep your hands in place the whole time. It will make it much easier for future playing. One girl's hands must be tiny enough that she had a hard time covering the holes all the time. It clearly wasn't the clarinet because sometimes the notes would come out correctly, and sometimes they'd squeak.
Saxes: Of her beginners, there were three that just are muddling through. There are one or two others and they got moved to a different group so they could at least progress. Oh man, one of them, it sounded like he was playing the same note the whole time, even though his fingers were moving. I don't think there was something wrong with the sax; I think it was him. I'm used to the flatulence concertos on brass instruments, not horns with keys. That was also a child who wore his coat and sneakers. Yeah...you're a II.
Brass: I'm grouping trumpets and trombones together because most of them were fine, but the one trumpet player from last year inspired me to bring along a tuner I have. It's a clip-on one, and I cannot use it because it doesn't work with flutes. It has to be clipped on to sense the vibrations, but you cannot adjust it so that it's visible if you're a flute player. I had to use a mirror in order to see what it was saying. At least I was able to repurpose it for contest, once I bought a fresh battery, because now I can show the brass players who appear to be using correct fingerings (for trumpets) or positions (for trombones) but aren't blowing the correct notes what they're doing. I used it with five kids. I told them, with woodwinds, they have all the keys that do the work for them. On brass, you have to learn how to use your mouth to form the correct shape and your air to blow correctly to create the right pitch. The tuner will show you if the pitch you're hitting is the one you think you're hitting. That was a revelation to some of them. One was the trumpet player who, last year--at two years in--could only hit four notes. Her range has greatly improved and she can make it up to a high C now, but she can't hear the notes to know if she's too high or too low. (Also, her counting has gotten worse, rats.) Being able to see the notes shown on the tuner was a literal eye-opener. Mrs. S made sure to get a picture of my tuner's packaging so she could look into it, especially since it does transpose. That's important to show the player the note name they're used to seeing, rather than having to do the math to figure out, oh Bb on my instrument means C.
Baritone: The son of our early-on helper mom forgot his music up in the gym and had to run up to get it. Then I gave him a moment to catch his breath, poor kid. He's in his third year of playing so I've seen him a couple times already, so I know he can be a bit quirky. This year, he actually did a really nice job. That's why I was a bit stunned when he apologized to me for wasting my time. I thought it was based on how he played and went, that wasn't a waste of time. Then he explained it was about running to get the music. I'm sure having his mom there didn't help him, but it was fine.
I've been joking that my favorite soloist was my last one, but I'm being facetious. She's the sister of the trumpet player with pitch issues, and she conveniently lost her clarinet and couldn't play her solo. (Mom was thrilled and apparently tore the house apart trying to find it.) She didn't come to band last week and Mrs. S wondered if she'd left her clarinet in her locker or something. Well, that's one way to get out of performing. At least one other kid was sick; one missed her earlier time and signed up for a later slot; one kid was a complete no-show; and one child had just transferred in at the beginning of the year and was so new, Mrs. S didn't assign her a solo. I found a judge's sheet for her but just set it aside. She was one of only two 7th graders (no 8th graders at all), and the other did perform. Gosh, that was refreshing after all the first- and second-year solos.
Mrs. S had provided lunch, and since it wasn't yet Lent I told her I was able to have sandwiches, so she brought some rolls and a bunch of meat and cheese, and now you know how I found myself stuffing my face on Saturday. This was funny; we had all the food laid out on a table behind my judge's table, and we still had about 40% of the solos to go. We'd planned to eat some more so it didn't make sense to pack up all the food, plus it would take a while, so I found a way to hide it: I grabbed four music stands and strategically placed them to block the food from sight. Mrs. S was impressed. Now, you could totally smell the food, so I'm sure the kids were confused, but oh well. Oh! I completely forgot--during the first boy's solo, Mrs. S' phone went off. He managed to finish the first section of his solo, found the phone, got it to turn off, and then went back to his solo. He was really not fazed, which impressed me. He also said he'd give it to her on the way upstairs to put his horn away. She felt bad about that when I saw her later but said he's a pretty chill kid.
It took a while to pack up and leave, though part of that was due to Mrs. S trying to finish up paperwork for lawyers and accountants, and it took her longer than she realized. I put away everything I could and used the bathroom and she still wasn't back down to the band room, so I went up to find her. After last year, where we almost got blocked in by Mass goers, we made sure to leave at a decent hour and ended up at the Buffalo, a place I've passed every time I've gone to that school but I've never gone there. It's famous for its ice cream, though I can't partake of that, and when we walked in it had one of those dessert hoppers and I spotted a slice of cheesecake... But we got food, even though neither of us was super hungry. She went healthy and got salmon (though thankfully she's in a better place health-wise and it was because she wanted it, not because she *had* to eat it), and I went and got a cherry waffle. Because I could. I do love me some waffles. The waitress could tell we were in a chatty mood and was pretty cool, telling us to wave her down when we were ready to order. Then, when it came time to pay the bill, the waitress asked if we wanted one check or split, and I said, I'm a business expense, to which Mrs. S gave a sort of horrified laugh, then realized, I didn't pay you! ...No, I guess you didn't! But food is payment so I'm good until the next time I see you. There's still two more contests to go. The fourth and final one, I bailed on, but she asked Mr. D to do it. He was pleased to be remembered, and he used to teach at that school, too, so he knows where it is.