Wait... pumpkins and peppers are FRUIT??

I am exhausted. I took two of my kids to honor band this weekend. It was a 3 hour drive both ways... and we had to leave both days at 4 am and didn't get home until about 7:30. They did really well, and played some good music. There was a horn player that was driving me up the wall. Sometimes, when you miss a note, you need to let it go. She kept sliding around trying to find it and completely destroyed some of the pieces.... during the concert. I wanted to go rip the horn away from her and tell her to play bass drum or something. I was a little upset that so many kids dropped out. They had to call in some of the college students to fill parts, and another director and I had to play percussion. It wasn't too bad. I had a really good time with the kids and had some good conversations... about the most random things. We played animal, vegetable or mineral, and gave bonus points if you could go into details, talked about the new pictures from the Hubble telescope, hunting ethics, the 2012 thing with Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar, and stopped on the way home once for these pictures...



and another time to point out some constellations when we were closer to home.
I dragged them into Hobby Lobby. They thought it was hilarious and tried to help me pick out yarn for Christmas presents. That was in exchange for letting them pick Applebee's for Dinner. I think it is good for them to see that just because I am a band director doesn't mean I am a band dictator. I know about other things, too. I really enjoy spending time with the kids one on one, because sometimes when they are in the whole band I don't really get a chance to know them individually. I guess that's another reason I enjoy teaching lessons so much. They learn about music, about communication, that not all adults are the same. This weekend was one of those times I really enjoy my job.

I also learned a lot from the director and the composer. Daniel Baldwin composed a piece for Springfield last year, and they played one of his pieces (Clouds Descending) and he conducted it today. He is a phenomenal composer, that piece was gorgeous and he is a great conductor. The kids messed up on an entrance once. They were all supposed to come in at the same time, and they staggered it. It was wrong, completely wrong, but it sounded really good. So he changed it. I think that was one of those awesome teachable moments that stick with you. He said to them "...just because I wrote it one way doesn't mean you can't interpret it another way. That was wrong. But, you know what? That was the most awesome wrong thing I've ever heard, so we're going to do it wrong AGAIN. Remember that mistakes don't mean you are a bad player. Mistakes are how we find out what works."