Good morning MSHS and middle school band folks. Mr. Waters here with some announcements and band news.
In normal conditions, we would be preparing for Alabama All State this weekend. What a great loss for those students who earned a position. Other things have been on my mind that we are missing……Spring concerts, middle school Atlanta trip, solo and ensemble, night of jazz, percussion performances, winterguard championships, honor bands, band banquets, honor day and graduation performances, and auditions.
Speaking of auditions, we decided to do a Majorette virtual audition, I am happy to announce our 10 MSHS 2020 majorettes: (no particular order)
Allie Smith, Ellie Claire Swinney, Josie Clark, Lexi Thompson, Lydia James, Maggie Heyne, Maya Stevens, Norma Ornelas, Riley George, and Sammi Goodwin.
Congratulations to these students. We were very impressed with the auditions and look forward to working with you next semester.
ALL OTHER AUDITIONS:
Ladies and gentlemen, all other auditions will be live. The first available week that we are allowed to get together we will hold auditions. As of now, that date is June 4th we hope. The first week of May we will send out all audition material and information for you to work on. Hopefully that timeline will hold up and we can get together.
It would NOT surprise me if that date gets pushed back and we cannot meet then. If that is the case, we will still hold auditions at the first available week we can.
I want to share with everyone some discussion the directors have had and decisions we have made regarding marching band in 2020.
- We are planning right now as if the fall semester, band camps, and all other activities will happen without interuption.
- If for some reason we lose our summer camp, MSHS and other band programs we have spoken to will not compete in 2020 and do a PLAN B show. This will be a show with music and choreography on the same grade level.difficulty level but have less movement and drill design. Our “comeptition” show will simply become our 2021 marching band show. We already have a plan B show picked out that will be so enjoyable to do.
- In the event there is “No Football” (gasp), our plan C is a mixture of music and visual fundamental teaching. We would learn our plan b show music and aux would learn their choreography to be done as standstill events whenever possible. Wind and Percussion would work on a lot of fundamental work and exercises, early work on concert music, have a fall concert called “Music of the Theatre”, and auxilary would learn routines to recorded music.
Our fingers are crossed that we get our summer band camps, but if we don’t then we initiate plan B. The rationale for plan B: If we lose summer band camp, a total of 65-70 rehearsal hours, then we not only lose drill learning, but music learning, basics fundamentals, we wont even know our warmups the first day of school!! The first week of school would literally be starting from scratch which just makes it impossible to attempt a 7.5 minute 65-75 set competitive designed show. We hope we can use plan A, but we do have a plan B ready.
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS:
New videos coming soon for the hyperdoc!
Trumpet players! I recieved an email from Mr. Joe Gray, trumpet teach from UNA. He is inviting any of you to a Zoom meeting along with his UNA trumpet studio students. This meeting will be a masterclass with three profession trumpet players from THE US ARMY BAND “The Pershing’s Own” Monday 4/27 from 12-1:30. What an awesome opportunity to be able to hear from three top notch professionals and even ask questions. He will send me information on this later this week. Watch for a post this weekend with information.
Help if you can:
We need to get all the 8th grade middle school students up to date on this information. If you know any PLEASE forward this email to them. Also, have them SUBSCRIBE to the mshs side of the website so they can get these updates as well.
On a personal note, I hope this email finds all of you healthy physically and mentally. At this time, I am enjoying time to do things I normally don’t have alot of time to do. Yardwork, fishing, game nights, cooking, and netflix binge watching shows. But to say I miss you and miss music making as an ensemble would be a gross understatement. I find myself sometimes in a fog-like state thinking of how different life is right now, but I dig myself out when I think about how excited the future is.
Parents: The staff is well aware of the hardships you are facing. SOme of you continue to work as normal, but some of you not so much. You find yourself suddenly with many more stresses in your every day life. Take care of yourself and know that the directors do not want to add any more stress to your current situation. Some of these situations and hardships will continue through the Fall and the band directors know and understand. Our first priority is to keep your kids in band and to enjoy this activity in whatever capacity we are given.
Dr. Chad Holden, your past principal, is now our Muscle Shoals City Schools Superintendent! We are so happy for him and look forward to seeing all the wonderful things he will accomplish in that role.
Seniors, one of my goals this summer is to find a way for us to have the senior get together at the Waters house. I am really serious about this one. It is a MUST event. Let’s watch and see this June how everything plays out.
FINALLY: I need help from the current leadership team. I would like you to make a 30 second video answering this question “Why do you love band” or “What makes band so great”. With your permission, we will compile these into one video cutting and spicing. Send to Mr. Waters email: dwaters@mscs.k12.al.us (please make it as professional as possible and not longer than 30 seconds-get right to the point)
Thank you and have a blessed week everyone
YWNWA
