Preview Night

Kairi and the rest of the marching band has been working hard getting ready for the 2009-2010 season. Kairi spent last year playing mellophone, since French Horns are not used in her marching band. This year, a lot of high school seniors left and were not replaced by incoming 7th, 8th, or 9th graders, so the band was very short in quite a few important areas. The band director asked Kairi before band camp began if she would be willing to split time between mellophone and trumpet. In the end, however, she was asked to play trumpet only.

While not very pleased (she has a lot of friends in the mellophone section), she decided to take up the challenge. I think it says a lot about her skills and what her band director thinks of her that he was comfortable asking her to play a different instrument this year.

For this year, the band has chosen to perform songs from the musical West Side Story. I am still discussing with Jenn whether it was an approriate movie for Kairi to watch at her age. I think it would be a good idea for her to watch it, just to get an understanding of the story.

This evening, the band put on their preview night. Jenn, Nick and I got to sit in the football stands and watch as the band showed parents four of the six songs that will be included in the show, and played a few stand songs. We were originally going to bring Faith and Juli with us, but Faith had a "episode" and was picked up early by Cyndy. They will be with us for our first football game of the year on Friday, though.

The show started with "Maria" and after a trio with Kairi and two other trumpets, transitioned into "Cool". Next they played "I Have a Love", and followed that up with "Jet Song". There are two more songs they don't know the sets to yet ("Somewhere", and I don't know for sure, but I think the final song might be "Tonight"). This is farther along than they were with their previous show at this time last year (preview night last year, I think they only played three songs).

After playing the songs, the band director asked for one family member to come onto the field with each band member. I went down this year (although I think we ALL went down last year) and went through the sets with Kairi. First time, the drum major used a cowbell to count off the beats, and the second time they actually played the music. It was great seeing Kairi having fun and enjoying the music, even though she didn't have dinner until 9PM tonight (my fault!). She told me her favorite song was "Maria".

After I went back up into the stands, the group gathered into a half circle and played "Wipe Out" (including obligatory tuba dancing) and The "Hey" Song (Rock and Roll Part 2). They then marched back off the field and almost forgot their traditional "march into a spiral in front of the high school doors".

I am excited for this season to start. I can taste the french fries already! (and feel the cold stadium benches.)