Category Archives: music

Honor band

I was in the band in high school. I played flute. (Go ahead. Throw out your best American Pie joke. I’ve heard them all.) I was a member of the colorguard. I loved every single second of it. Most of my favorite memories of those years are tied to one band event or another, and I took pride in being a member of the band. I learned so much in my years in band. There are many, many elements of my personality and point of view that were molded through the discipline and leadership band demanded of me.

But I’m going to be brutally honest here. The band was the afterthought when I was in school. My years were spent battling for attention from the community, the rest of the school, and even the state as no matter what we did it wasn’t good enough. Membership dwindled. Those of us that cared surely had our moments of wondering why we even tried at times. But then there were those moments when it was magic. And it was those moments that kept you going.

Fast forward to today. My nephew is a member of the high school band, and its a whole different world for him than it was for me. Membership is swelling. There is a pride that you can FEEL when you are in the band’s presence. It is NOTHING like it was when I was there. It’s a bazillion times better, stronger and respected.

The Texas House of Representatives Resolution honoring the Yoe High School Band.
The Texas House of Representatives Resolution honoring the Yoe High School Band.

When I was a member of the Yoe High Band, we couldn’t have even dreamed of being acknowledged by the Texas House of Representatives!

They’ve won at the state marching contest. And, as the resolution reads, they were named the State 2A Honor Band.

These kids… they have talent beyond what I could have dreamed of having cultivated when I was in band. Their band director, Steven Moss, clearly is an amazing leader. He works them hard. But he also treats them with respect and rewards their efforts and successes. From the top-down this band is, in a word, amazing.

Last Friday, I traveled with my parents down to San Antonio, TX, to see the band perform for the Texas Music Educators Association conference. I sat in the front row and was moved time and time again by the performance.

TMEA State 2A Honor Band
TMEA State 2A Honor Band

One of the pieces they performed was commissioned by the band to be written specifically for them. How many bands can really say that has happened for them!? Sure as heck wasn’t going to happen when I was there!

During the performance, they took a moment to honor the band, band director and to thank certain guests in attendance in the audience.

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Drum Majors accepting the state honor for the band.

They asked all Yoe High alumni in attendance to stand and be recognized for setting the foundation on which these kids have built upon. I’ll be honest, I was a little amazed by this, even as I stood up. I joked later that we set the bar low, so they had no where to go but up. But that was purely my being funny. In reality, I think part of the band being where it is today IS due to our fight in our years to be acknowledged and recognized. We had to go through those years to, today, stand up and go, “HEY! PAY ATTENTION! The band is amazing and deserves all the support and recognition and honors it gets.”

I’m going to piss people off with this. And I don’t care. Texas is a football state. Generally, we Texans will eat, breathe, sleep, drink and live the game. Even if its just armchair quarterbacks.  Its in my blood, and I won’t deny that. But it also makes me downright ANGRY to see the band programs in so many schools get brushed aside to make more money available for the football programs. To hear people suggest a band director should be payed less than a football coach gets me seething mad.

Studies upon studies have been done that prove music helps learning. I know when I was in school, very, very few band students failed out of being able to participate. Show me a band student in college today who didn’t get there through sweat, tears and hard work both with their instruments as well as in the classroom. Whereas just recently CNN did a report about college athletes who read at a 5th grade level.  Think about that for awhile.

I’m not here to point fingers. I’m just here to point out that these students in this band work their fingers off and deserve every bit of attention and respect they’ve gotten… and then some.

Me with my niece and nephew after the concert
Me with my niece and nephew after the concert

 

I’m so proud of the Yoe High School Band. I’d be proud of them even if my nephew weren’t a member, but its safe to say he’s my favorite member and makes my pride in the band more personal.

Congratulations, band! You have done Cameron, Texas proud. You’ve done yourself proud. You have surpassed everything I could have ever dreamed of doing when I was a member of the band… you amaze me every day and remind me all is NOT lost and there is still a lot of amazing and positive youth in this world. You don’t get to hear about them much, and I’m sorry that is the case. But keep it up, and all the positive accolades will continue to come your way. You deserve it all.

Sending love from your fan and alumni member living in Music City…

Country Music: Looking back to look forward

A little over a week ago, I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum with my parents.

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I’ve been to the Hall of Fame a few times. I went first at their old location in 1997 over by Music Row. Then went in 2007 with my friends Anna and Lindsey, and in 2009 with my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and niece.

This visit I went with a slightly different mindset. I’ve been through the fed-up-with-country-music stage, and today I’m more in the mode of embracing changes we see. (To a degree. There’s still some SERIOUS crap being put out on radio, and even calling it “change” doesn’t make it okay.)

So I went in with an eye for the evolution of music through the years. Dropped smack dab in the 1920s at the start of the tour, you can’t help but go, “Man we’ve changed a lot.” even as you go, “I still see elements of this today.”

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You see the changes that came with TV and more influences of rock. Cross-overs of Elvis, Ray Charles and John Denver. The Southern Rock influx and the Outlaws. I found myself realizing that we have over time embraced the changes that occurred through the years… changes that lead to the time that many (myself included) considered a golden time in country music: the 90’s.

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I think, though, that it could easily be argued that the 60′ into the 70’s were also a golden time for country in a way.  Merle Haggard, anyone? Johnny Cash? Buck Owens? Waylon Jennings?  We look back at these greats today, just as we’ll some day look back at Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, Clint Black and Joe Diffie.

Country music didn’t fall apart and die in the 80’s… it shifted and changed. It advanced. It opened the doors for what the 90’s became. And today… even as I myself at times shake my head at what country music has become today, I also know its all a part of the process. If we never changed, we’d still be pickin’ banjos on the porch with every song sounding pretty much the same.

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And this change… this change is why you see many of the “old timers” opening their arms so quickly to the new comers. They were all once new artists, trying to find their way through the crazy, crazy music business. All trying to walk the line between being true to themselves and doing what the labels demand and giving fans what they are begging to have on radio.

As you walk through the Country Music Hall of Fame, you walk through that struggle along with the artists of the past. And suddenly… suddenly you understand a little better what’s going on in music today. At least I did. And it made me step back and re-evaluate the things I’ve pushed back against over the last couple of years. The influx of rap and hip hop into country isn’t exactly a new thing. I mean, isn’t the “Devil Went Down to Georgia” a country rap song at heart? We embraced that and its still heavily played in honky tonks today. Maybe we really DO need to look back to look forward and if not embrace, but at least accept the changes today as simply part of the creative process.

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