  This morning, I had another rehearsal with the Wausau Band that&nbsp;I’m going on tour with. We had a rehearsal last Monday too. Now, for both rehearsals I have left pissed off. The reason? I hate it when people think that any moron can play percussion. For our tour, we didn’t have enough percussionists, so someone decided to throw these three non-percussionists into the section.
One is a high school trumpet player, one is a teacher who doesn’t know how to read music. The other one, I don’t know her story, but she seems to think she has some abilities when in fact, she clearly has none. On Monday, we gave these three people easy parts. A cymbal roll here, a gong hit there. The HS kid was standing next to me and I was watching his cymbal part go by as he stood there drooling. So I start playing his part to show him how it goes. Then I say, “You try it now.” The kid has no idea where the beat is, doesn’t know how to hit the cymbal, just basically sucking all over. I couldn’t take it! I took his mallets away from him and said, “You’re done,” and I played the rest of his part for him. Today, same song, I decide to give him another chance. This kid is freaking retarded! I’m taking his part away permanently.
I don’t want percussion to suck. This other lady, she’s another case altogether. She keeps saying she can take on harder parts. We give her a crash cymbal part today. Every time she’s supposed to crash, she moves her arms as though she was crashing, yet I hear nothing. She does this repeatedly. Is she playing air cymbals? Not a fricken sound comes out of those cymbals!
In fact, throughout the whole rehearsal, I don’t hear a note from her. She stands at the bells, she holds the cymbals, she just doesn’t play. I want to push her down and take her music away! Seriously, I would rather have 5 sticks in my hands and try to cover all the parts myself than have someone who is incompetent try to play percussion. It does take musical skill and technique to play percussion!! I don’t know what I’m going to do at the next rehearsal. If these non-percussionists don’t get better, I am taking their parts away for good and I will play them myself.
I am a teacher 5 days a week. I don’t want to have to take my practice time and teach them how to play. This is a professional group. Take some lessons if you need to, just stop wasting my time. By the way, my xylophone solo is flying along. I’ve actually managed to get it up to tempo and it’s memorized. My only concern is my nerves.
When my hands shake, I tighten up spazz all over. I just have to relax and play the music. ANOTHER RANT: I can’t get MTV in this town. It sucks. It sucks ass. I am totally addicted to the Real World and Road Rules. Since my parents get MTV at their house, I’ve been setting up a VCR and taping the shows. Then, when I come home to visit, I put in a new tape and take the full tape home. So I should have 6 hours of Real World/Road Rules. Well, somehow I must’ve messed up when setting the timer on the VCR. I just tried watching my tape and it is full of shit shows like Punked, Pimp My Ride, and I Want a Famous Face. On the one tape, I have the episode of I Want a Famous Face where the cross dresser wants to look like Jennifer Lopez. It’s on there three times! Is MTV programming really that retarded or am I not able to function a VCR properly?
Maybe a little of both. So now I’m pissed because I’ve missed a month’s worth of my shows. On to another subject… Last Tuesday, my band had their final concert of the year. It was a great concert with lots of musical things happening. We had a few squeaks and fracks, but I was very pleased with their end result. After the concert, we got yet another standing ovation! That’s 3 for 3. As I was standing on the stage after our last song, I felt someone come up from behind and give me a big hug. I couldn’t turn around to see, but then I saw one of my seniors, Ehren,&nbsp;walking towards me. He joins in and gives me a hug too. When I see&nbsp;Amanda coming too, I realize that my three seniors are all giving me a group hug (it was Jake behind me. ) The three kids are all squeezing me and the crowd is taking tons of pictures. Me, I was smiling from ear to ear!
The three of them hugging me was better than any gift I could’ve received. I really felt appreciated and I was glad the audience could see that my students appreciated me too. A few days after the concert, I receive an email from a former band mom. She said that this year’s concerts have been the best she’s ever heard, all due to my skills. It means so much to me to hear from a parent. I’ve saved every email I’ve ever gotten and I plan to whip them out of the school board ever tries to cut my position. Actually, I’m pretty sure that if my job was ever in jeopardy, I’d have the support of the community and students behind me. This community has been so supportive and complimentary to me since I started working here. I feel like I’m really making an impact on the band here. 
