As much fun as rehearsals are, the goal is to get out and perform. And while it may appear that the main purpose of this goal to perform is to entertain others, in my mind the real accomplishment demonstrated by a performance is the knowledge that I have learned to play several new pieces of music. That I have, maybe, learned a new technique. That I am growing as a musician and that we as a group are able to listen to each other, follow our director and play a piece of music that hopefully can satisfy the other goal of entertaining an audience. Once I recognize the first goal then I pay attention to that second goal of entertaining.
Each semester we play one concert that combines bands at the Community Music School. This year the concert is December 9th at 3 pm in the CMS performance hall. The audience is often family and friends, although anyone is welcome to attend. The CMS concert is what I think of as our formal performance where we can demonstrate to ourselves the accomplishment of the first goals we have set for ourselves. We also often have one or two concerts that we call outreach and we perform for the community. While one might assume the outreach performances would be the more formal concert because the audience is made up of the general public, I think the band gets more excited to play these and thinks of them as the fun performances. I would compare the difference between the two types of concert like when you were in school and had to do the mandatory end of semester concert for a grade and your parents were in the audience. Your parents may have enjoyed the concert but they are family and they would applaud even if it was a horrible show. The other concert is like when you got to go on an overnight school trip and did a performance at the location. People in the public are not required to stop and listen to you play but they do and when they applaud, you feel like you really did entertain them. This fall, the New Horizons Band Too had the opportunity to do an outreach concert and play with the East Lansing High School Band for one of their fall concerts. That was a thrill to play with them in a large hall on a raised performance stage. We were able to share the fun of playing with a larger audience and also share the stage with a group of very accomplished musicians. I think we accomplished our goals for that night. NHB has two more outreach concerts this fall at local senior centers. Are we performance ready? I think so because we sound pretty good in rehearsals and as always, we are having fun, which is really the overarching goal.
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AuthorDaniel Zarka Archives
March 2019
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