Marching MPA

Sometimes it's strange to think of Jasmine in high school. With the older ones, it wasn't that way. But it just doesn't seem like Jasmine should be in high school already.

Yet, here we are.

Ready for school

Heading to marching band practice. The band practices for two and a half hours in the evening two days a week both in the fall and in the spring. Percussion, which includes Jasmine, practices an extra hour. So Jasmine isn't able to do dance this year because her classes were the same time as practice. But she still has Monday night choir.

On Saturday 15 bands performed three songs each for a panel of judges.Even though they didn't play until 8:00 pm, Jasmine's director required them there at 10 am. This school takes band very seriously. And MPA is always at the football field at Jasmine's school. The other schools didn't arrive until 3:00 when MPA actually started. Her band practiced from 10 until lunch, hung out for a couple of hours, went over and watched some of the smaller bands, went back to the school and changed, and then watched the bigger bands. She performed last.

The bands received ratings of superior (best), excellent, and good for music, marching, auxiliary (flags, batons) and overall performance. I think there are lower ratings, but they don't call them out. For one band they called "comments only" instead of a score.

 I watched Jessica perform in marching MPA for three years. 

It took me a bit to get a picture of her because she burst into tears when they got straight Superiors. There was a lot of stress on them for this performance.

We're glad this is behind us. The bands have concert MPA in March, so it's going to get stressful again after Christmas. They also have a band trip to Chattanooga in April.