Another Music Weekend

Once again our family has a busy weekend. Last weekend Jonathan was tied up Friday and Saturday rehearsing with the National Capital Band ahead of this weekend’s CD recording. The recording session started early Friday evening and will conclude mid Saturday afternoon. Jonathan has been excited by participating in this project that leads up to the band’s trip to Switzerland and France.

For the fifth weekend since the beginning of the year, Josh has been involved in a music event. Last week was the three days of honor band at George Mason and this weekend is All-District Band. The District Band rehearsal started Thursday evening, continued Friday morning and afternoon, and will run from 8:30 to 2:30 on Saturday followed by a concert in the evening. Being in the top district band they are playing music that many college groups would find challenging. Stretching experiences like Honor Bands and District Bands help to push and challenge youthful players to move to the next level.

Josh does not mind being busy with his music as he sees it as a major part of his future. Between New Years and November, Josh will have had only five or six weekends where he has not been heavily participating in a musical event of one type or another, and none of which are TSA events.

Jonathan’s interest and knowledge was more rounded than mine at the same age. Though he had a more rounded and broader exposure by the end of high school than I, in the last five years Jonathan’s interest has narrowed somewhat upon TSA music. While Jonathan’s interest has become more limited, the breadth of Josh’s exposure has exploded.

Observing the way in which Josh’s knowledge and interest has expanded over the last year has been an interesting and exciting. Whereas at his age my interest was dominated by brass bands, Army music is only a minor interest to Josh. His musical participation and exposure is the broadest in the family and continues to expand. He is finding great satisfaction and fulfillment with musical expressions that are outside the Army. He finds them to be more challenging and enjoyable. He has a growing desire to play orchestral and concert music. He desire is to write items for concert bands and jazz ensembles rather than for Army bands. There is a budding interest in traditional choral music and one day in the coming few years may even try to write a vocal item. Josh sees Army music as part of his heritage and start, it is not a major factor is his thinking about his future.