Suzanna's Band Concert Debut

Suzanna, as a fifth-grader, is nearing the end of her first full year as a band member (remember?). Tonight was her first official school band concert: the All-City Band Concert featuring separate performances by the fifth-grade band, sixth-grade band, seventh-grade band, eighth-grade band, and each of the two high school bands in addition to a final song performed by all the bands combined. After spending all year honing her trombone skills, she performed tonight . . . on percussion!

Yes, due to her recent tonsillectomy (remember?), playing her trombone is a no-no until her doctor gives her the okay (she has a post-op checkup next Monday). How nice that the music directors could allow her still to perform in the concert, though. Here she is performing:

Watching the music intently for her cue to play the wooden block.

And here she is telling all about the day and evening:

"We went for practice in the afternoon. We left during lunch, packed up all our stuff, and went to the high school. As you all know, I got my tonsils removed, and so I couldn't play my trombone. Therefore I played percussion: the jingle bells and the wood block. We got to the high school at about 12:45 P.M., and we unpacked all of our things, got our stands ready, and went out into the old gym.

Then Mr. Jangula, the sixth-grade band director, showed us how he would count it off, and he had us play our warm-up song. He tuned a couple instruments and helped us go through our songs. Later we packed up our instruments and left them right where they were. Then we went out into the entryway and got cookies and bottled water. Then we went and loaded onto the bus, came back to the school, and had a normal rest of the day.

At 6:00 P.M. Mommy, Abigail, Hillary, and I went out for supper at Perkin's. We left at about 6:40 P.M. and went to the high school to get ready for the concert. I got in at about 6:50 P.M. and went to make sure my wood block was where I knew it needed to be and my jingle bells were ready for me to play right away. Then the fifth-grade band went out, we played our three songs, and then we went and sat on the bleachers.

About an hour later, all the bands performed a final song. It was a wreck! Mr. Jangula started so quickly, but the seventh-grade and older bands thought they'd take it nice and slowly for us little kids. The high schoolers wouldn't let our drummers on the bass drum, so the beat was off, and no one started at the same time! The high schoolers hadn't even looked at their music for that song yet, so that was the first time that they had seen the music. It was just a disaster, but it was kind of funny at the same time. Everyone was complimenting everyone else, and everyone was saying how well we all performed . . . except for the last song. It was a pretty fun night."