Last week was a whirlwind of a week. Monday: FHE; Tuesday: Melanie's Orchestra Concert; Wednesday: Melanie's Band Concert; Thursday: Melanie's Jazz Band Concert; Friday: Arts Night at Carter's school; Saturday: Scout Expo; Sunday: Ward Council, Church, Choir Practice, Home Teaching with Ben. Needless to say when I finally climbed into bed on Sunday night I was exhausted.
You get to enjoy my sad attempts at taking pictures. I apologize in advance.
This is Melanie with her amazing friend, Lindsey (Melanie is on the right). They're both in percussion together, and both are two of the four 7th graders who were chosen to play with the orchestra this year. They're really good little percussionists. They just need a little more confidence. Especially my Melanie. She's had fun playing with the orchestra and hearing the difference between an orchestral setting and a band setting, instruments as well as students and the director.
Here is Melanie playing with the band. She's sporting her very serious face. I'm usually terrible and stick out my tongue at her or do something else to make her smile and relax a bit, but I couldn't stick out my tongue because my camera was in the way. There is a myriad of percussion instruments to play, but this year she played a lot of bells and marimba and vibraphone and occasionally she played the snare drum. She really enjoyed band and the band director this year.
She's playing the bass with the jazz band right here, and by "bass" I mean setting the keyboard to sound like a bass. She's got this crazy drive to learn how to play the bass now, which would be awesome, but she's still working on her drumming and just started piano lessons, so the bass playing will have to wait. There are just a handful of percussionists in jazz band, and the students rotate between bass, piano (those who can play), and drumset.
Melanie has really had to come out of her shell to play well on drumset. It's been so rewarding and fun to see her talents develop. She has a lot of musical talent, and I'm so glad she's thankful for that blessing in her life. 
Carter's elementary school has a school fundraiser at the end of each year. Each grade performs a couple of stereotypical cute songs. I can't remember what Carter's class sang because I was so enthralled watching him interact with his really good friend (good friend is wearing the glasses, and Carter is on the right of him). They were absolute GOOFBALLS singing with their class, but really cute at the same time. They're like two peas in a pod, those boys. Scary. ;)There are more pictures and more stories about the rest of the week, but I didn't want to cram it all into one post. So you'll just have to settle down and be patient for the rest of the updates!
4 comments:
Thanks for an update. :) I had no idea Melanie was a percussionist. That's awesome! She continues to amaze me all the time.
I LOVE IT! She rocks :) It's so cool to see girls as percussionists! If you haven't heard of Evelyn Glennie yet, you need to look her up! She was even on Sesame Street, which means she is somethin' else! She is a vituoso percussionist and she is deaf. She is awesome! Melanie would truly be inspired :)
It's really hard to take pictures inside dim rooms, especially from a distance. I think they turned out well!
I always wanted to play the drums, but yeah, I think I would have been too shy for all that it takes to be a percussionist. That's great that she's in all three groups, what a lot of work!
And Carter looks cute at his concert too!
Fun to read now that my internet works again. Pictures were really good. It is hard to take them when they are at the back of the stage.
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