3/2/18 Pre-UIL Band Performance For Javalina?

    This whole week was kind of stressful.  I already hate a long week, when I work 4 nights instead of three (@12 hrs apiece), then add that Wife was coming and going all week long which means I have to slow down and interact with her, just enough.  Boy started his new internship which also means he will be running around more than normal, and I have to be aware enough to ask about his new job and stuff, of course I am impressed, it's just that work demands quite a bit of me now compared to a few years ago.  On top of everything, there was of couse, Javalina's band recital.  The band recital is what you make of it.  It can be an exercise to show how many parents give two shits, (not enough), it can also be a chance for other siblings of the band members to show how skilled they are at being annoying and making noise for no reason.  The kids weren't quite as noisy as last time when I had to eyeball an Idiot and shush her with some heavy eye contact, but I still hate sitting among the unwashed masses.
    Getting past all the BS, I like to think about when I was in band back in my youth.  Crystal City had an especially big band back in the day.  We were actually introduced as "The Pride of Crystal City, La Banda De Los Javalinas"  Back in the late 80's, the band would average about 120 people strong.  I didn't think that was that much, but that was in a school with about 400 total students in high school.  The middle school Javalina is at has close to 3000 students, yet the total band kids is around 60, so half as many kids.  What I don't understand is that they divide the kids into 3 bands for some reason.  Because of this, the concert band is only a feeble ten students.  This is hardly enough to be called a band, but they do what they can.  The symphonic band has double, but still only twenty students or so.  The wind ensemble starts sounding like a band to me, with their multiple trumpets and other instrument sets.  The smaller bands are trying to get away with 1-2 flutes and clarinets and even saxophones.
    Our full marching band might have something like 10-12 trumpets, 15-20 flutes and clarinets, at least 10 saxophones every year.  That made a tremendous sound, even before I was in band, I could hear them at my house, practicing ten blocks away in the afternoons.
    The bands last night did not have quite the power and relying on 1-2 kids to play through a technical part of a song is hard, those kids were doing the best they could, and I loved it.  I could almost close my eyes and feel the movement of the song, it being a junior high band, it still had plenty of squeeking and squawking sounds which I'm sure surprised the kids that made them too.  All in all, I think they are doing great, considering last Christmas was the first time we were introduced to them as any kind of band.  I wish them the best next week at their UIL recital.