5th grade band concert
I had to leave work early to go to my granddaughter's first (and last?) band concert. After all, her own mother wasn't coming because she "hates crowds". Well, so do I; suck it up. I have a cartoon on my office door, captioned "Fun with Venn diagrams", in which the intersection of "cute" and "painful" is "grade school music concert". Actually it wasn't painful. Partly, that was because it was short (half hour), there was a paucity of saxophones, and most of the music was, at least by intent, in unison. I found it interesting to notice how much music could be made from 3 notes, how various familiar tunes were orchotomised to fit technical limitations, the Scelsi-like microtonal harmonizations...all the technical stuff. Lots of kids gave little intros to the songs. Sara was the best announcer, as well as being best dressed.
Afterwards, she returned her cornet to me; she's taking general music in middle school next year. I was somewhat disappointed, but probably got points by affirming that, as an adult-in-training, it was a decision she was capable of making. If I'd been a parent rather than a grandparent, I might have urged her to stick it out, but then, I would have been more involved and it might not have come to that. Her real love is singing, which she does quite well, and she's learned something in band. I don't have an issue really about her doing music. But the girl needs to excel at something and to claim her power, and neither her mom nor stepmom really provide a culture of excellence.
Afterwards we had Madison (grandgirl #2), who was full of all kinds of difficult-to-answer questions like "Are soldiers bad?" and "Is the sun yellow all the way through?" She doesn't get talked down to by Grampa...
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