Lessons yet to learn

We had a rehearsal and the parent/friends show yesterday. I have to say that I was surprise that the students were not prepared for rehearsal yesterday. It was pretty obvious that most of them had not spent much if any time on the end of the show as I had told them too. The deal is that if the students do the things I ask them to do and they do not get what they want out of band, it is my fault but if they don't do the things I ask them to do then they have nobody to blame but themselves. I think it is a pretty good deal. Any way the end of the show was not acceptable at rehearsal and guess what? It was not at the parent show either. Things did not just fix themselves. The lesson to be learned is that if the preparation is done, things will go your way about 90% of the time and if they preparation is not done...well things will not go your way. I do think the show went alright. I also think that the performance level of the band was better last Thursday. I have not gotten much feedback about the show so I am not really sure what others thought about it.

With proper preparation and attention to detail most of the nervousness and anxiety can be taken out of complex tasks. Anything less is just chance. I don't like leaving things that are important to me to chance.

The band has made a commitment to being competitive this year. Remember though everybody must do what they should individually to be successful as a group.