Our middle school had a 100 person symphonic band! But there’s a huge drop off in participation once the kids hit high school for a variety of reasons. It kills me that the MS band is bigger than the HS band when the middle school has fewer than 400 kids (so 25% of the school does it) and the HS has almost 1,300 students (huge regional HS).
Football isn’t big here. Now some students go to games, which is a huge change from my childhood (then it was only football/cheer/band parents in the stands), but it’s not a huge thing. I wish we could separate marching band from football. Such a waste of my Friday nights (I’m tired and loath football, so it’s so boring).
Help a new band mom out. I’ve tried googling, but is symphonic band just the concert band? As opposed to marching band? Our MS has ~300 band kids and while I’m happy he’s enjoying it now, I’m thankful he’s not outside practicing in 110° heat. I feel like I’m melting walking to my car!
My 6th grader brought his instrument home for the first time today. Our pup was not sure what to make of the loud noises emanating from the big brass monster. 🤣
Our district has regular concert/symphonic band in middle school. You take band as one of your electives for lessons and band practice is once a week in the morning before school. They perform in 2 concerts. In addition, the 7th and 8th grade band members attend a band competition.
At the high school level, there is concert band, wind ensemble, marching band, jazz band and pit band. Concert band and wind ensemble are electives. Everyone registers for concert band when it’s time to do schedules. Then the band director adjusts the lists. Wind ensemble is the more advanced group and he decides who is ready for that class. At concerts, the 2 groups perform separately. Marching band is open to anyone. We have several kids who can’t fit band class into their schedules but are in marching band. Jazz band is also open to anyone but as the director says if you can’t hang/keep up, he may ask you to step down. This is a recent post COVID development. Previously, jazz band was audition only. Jazz band starts up after marching band season ends. Pit band is for the school musical and is by invitation only since the scores are extremely challenging. There is also a district wide honors band where each of the 3 high schools send their best students. There are also a couple kids who audition and perform in regional honors band.
100% they are. Someone I work with is on that side of things and she has been on one about masks and shutdowns all week. And same with people I see online. So weird.
It’s because of BA.2.86. Rates are increasing and this particular variant is concerning. Plenty of epidemiologists are worried, so maybe they’re ramping up their rhetoric in preparation.
This coworker was going on and on the first day I was back at work last week after getting covid. Like… ma’am. It’s very clearly making the rounds (I was not the only person out). We had an assistant principal and teacher out the first week and then I caught it week 2 of school. And this round sucked. Definitely worse than Omicron, because I got that one too. Lol