Blue Notes

Bobbie’s Song is 30 years old today.  Happy Birthday to the muse and the music.

Well, it’s official.

This morning I submitted my letter of resignation to the fine folks at the Sultan School District, bringing to a close my four years as Assistant Music Director.  This is not a surprise to anyone involved, but it’s hard to believe the time has gone by so quickly.  It’s been a wild ride.  I am filled with a variety of emotions ranging from sadness to pride, but mostly gratitude for getting to be part of such an amazing program and anticipation for moving back to professional musicianship.

I’m not completely gone, however.  From here on out I will continue to be involved as another supportive member of the community: writing the odd arrangement, sitting in the pit for the musical (if they’ll have me!), continuing to run the parent group web site, and cheering from the stands.  In the meantime, I’d like to thank the students, parents, staff, faculty, and especially my family and Jill Sumpter for being so supportive and encouraging these past four years.  It feels like I have over 200 new nephews, nieces, and cousins now — good thing I don’t really have to remember all of their birthdays…

Here’s wishing them all the best for the future of the program.  Don’t be strangers!

Wow.  Today marks my one-year anniversary at Microsoft.  Things are still a little surreal, as those of you who know me can imagine.  I’ve spent most of my life as an Apple and *nix bigot, and I still use those systems on a daily basis, but after being here for a year I’ve gotten a lot less religious.  Are you sitting down?  I really and truly believe that Win7 is shaping up to be a solid OS.  There, I said it.  I’ll still run OS X at home though.  😉

So what has happened in the past year?  Just the important stuff:

• I gained my Freshman Fifteen (and then some)
• I’m starting to go gray
• I made it an entire year without one of these wags sending a joke email from my machine

I also learned that there are 53 1/3 Peeps in a pound.  (It’s traditional to bring in a pound of goodies for every year of service on your anniversary date and M&Ms seemed too dense to go around.)

It’s been challenging, interesting, and eye-opening.  I hope they keep me around a while longer, it feels like I’m finally getting the hang of the place!

Yesterday was the last marching band competition of the year, and my last as Assistant Band Director.  Four years ago I told the school district that I would do this for four years, and a quick check of the math shows this weekend to be my last one as an official member of the field marching band staff.  To be honest, I cannot think of a better ending to this wild ride.

The students may tell you that they were disappointed with a fourth-place finish out of a field of eleven that were scheduled in our division.  They may express frustration that the third-place band was only SIX ONE-HUNDREDTHS of a point ahead of us.  They may wish that it had rained, which has always been a good omen for us, instead of being clear and mild for the first time in recent memory.  What they did not experience, however, was the feeling of how amazing their final show of the season was to the audience.

Throughout this past season I have watched a rag-tag group of students running the gamut from alarmingly hyperactive to borderline catatonic come together as a unit and really execute on basics: dynamics, articulation, and (for the most part) marching in step.  Their musicianship and showmanship came through in the end.  They took music from West Side Story and brought out the feeling and passion impossible to convey merely through written notes on a page.  When they stepped off the field afterwards, our percussion coach and I were both teared up with pride.  We shared the conviction that, no matter what the final scores turned out to be, they knocked it out of the park.

They connected to the audience.  And that is what music performance is all about.

I will definitely miss the hard work and great times found during marching season.  I hope to continue to be a supporting member of the community as a session player, webmaster for the parent group, and perhaps other odd opportunities to help out that come along.  In the meantime, there is Show Choir, Jazz Band, the musical, and a zillion other things between now and the end of the year.  After June 2009, I know that these students will continue to grow as leaders and musicians and continue to make their community proud.

It’s about that time again. Marching band season is almost over and amidst all the angst and drama that comes with the unique mix of ages and maturity levels in high school there’s a palpable feeling of camaraderie, very much like close friendship yet something different. Former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges describes it like this:

“We feel in wartime comradeship. We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those, who will insist that the comradeship of war is love – the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war’s intoxication. […] Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship – that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime – is within our reach. We can all have comrades.”

While artistic competitions, with very few exceptions, cannot be called “war” in the literal sense, there is something about reaching deep within ourselves for the good of the larger team that evokes a sense that we are part of something greater than ourselves, and that our individual contributions are important, indeed critical, to our collective success. Having a common desire to reach a goal requires trust and respect from everyone, for everyone, and seeing students develop these traits in front of my eyes is always a poignant, humbling experience.

One sees and hears stories about the youth of today and how everything is going down the tubes. Clearly the people who propagate these stories have never experienced (or at least never fully appreciated) the spectacle of a marching band competition. It is impossible not to be moved by literally thousands of young musicians and performers who have put in countless hours working to be their best, travelling insane numbers of miles and hours, all for just ten minutes of opportunity to impress a handful of judges. Just as in sports there are rivalries between schools, but none so bitter that there is no cheering for one another. When the days get long our band sometimes blows off steam by joining hands and weaving snake-like through the competition facility grounds. Earlier this year one of our biggest rivals joined in, interspersed with us and having a great time. Seeing things like this restores one’s faith in humanity and the future.

In my youth I often stated that I never wanted children. Somehow I wound up with not only two incredible lads, but hundreds of amazing student artists and musicians whom I respect and admire for their tenacity, optimism and talent. I am proud and grateful to be able to work with them, share in their challenges and triumphs, and to be reminded first hand what camaraderie – and friendship – is all about.