The conducting snore-osium was actually kind of interesting, although my face is still numb from the neverending playing and I am fairly certain Holst's First Suite will be stuck in my head for the rest of my life, and strangely enough all the conductors looked vaguely familiar, either in the sense of looking like somebody's dad or a random tuba player. The weirdness never ends! Anyway, for about five minutes there, it almost made me want to be a conductor/band director type person. Which got me thinking...

In an alternate universe, if Mangofarmer were a band director...

-Freshmen would never EVER be in wind ensemble. Of course this is barring certain types of instrumentation, like if there were a freshman ophicleide or basset horn player lying around, they'd be in. And this is assuming the school would be big enough and what have you. But in general, HOTSHOT FRESHMEN DO NOT NEED TO BE MAKING UPPERCLASSMEN FEEL TERRIBLE ABOUT THEMSELVES. (Bitter, much?) Outside of the most extenuating circumstances, Dr. Band Director believes in this mantra as well, as does Dr. Flute Teacher. Seniority is good.

(In an alternate universe, notice Mangofarmer also has a bit of an attitude.)

-The flutes would sit on the band director's right and the oboe player would sit in the middle of the front row.

-I would encourage, but never require anyone to do marching band. Concert band and marching band should be two separate entities.

-Call me immature, I would never perform Grainger, because Grainger is just dumb! Even his bastardized Irish Tune. Grainger was a hack and a cornball and is probably rolling around in his grave right now so I'm sorry, Mr. Grainger, I'm sure you must have been a nice person I just really hate your music.

-If I were a high school band director, I would make sure every section would get a group lesson once a week. To this day it absolutely boggles my mind how counterproductive the way they teach kids to play instruments around here. Having a herd of sixth graders all in one room trying to teach them all in turn how to play is just silly. (But who the Detroit is crazy enough to want to teach middle school anyway?)

-In these lessons, I would also encourage them to learn the solo repertoire for their instrument or do solo festivals or things like that, pertaining to whatever state this would be. It bothers me that in some regions of the country (like this one) the focus is on the band as a whole and not the individual player. Kids in high school not knowing how to play scales with sharps? Bad, bad, bad.

(On an unrelated note- I just called my sister a "gooftard". Good stuff.)

-I would have as many people guest conduct my band as possible. Being exposed to new ideas is a good thing.

-Once a week after school, I would make the trumpet section write "Flutes rule and trumpets drool!" a hundred times each on the blackboard, just for good measure. :)

This is an alternate universe we're talking about here, don't you remember? :)

Enough geekism for now. What the heck am I going to do with myself on Monday? No loan check till Tuesday, otherwise I'd go see ROTK again, as my sister did on Thursday, the little bitch. Bah.

Have a lovely evening all. :)

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