8th Grade preformance

Every year, usually on a Wednesday, towards the end of marching band season; the Cougar Marching band goes to Kingston Stadium to play for the 8^th graders who are in band from middle schools in Cedar Rapids. Jefferson and Washington are also there too. Most years, we perform in alphabetical order, which means, Jefferson goes first then Kennedy, then Washington.

We all sit on the track as the other schools perform and watch quietly. We all are supposed to support each other even though that doesn’t always happen. We aren’t there for us we are there to get as many 8^th graders next year to march. After we all march we all go into the stands in our separate schools, and sections, to get all the young ones to come to our sections. (Such as flute players go with the flutes, and trumpet players go with the trumpets, etc.)

Once we all get situated, we have pizza and talk to the 8^th graders about band. Sometimes you can tell right away who is going to do it, because they are really excited, and other times the young ones are on the edge on if they want to do it or not. No matter how many times we tell them it is worth all the time put in, some of them won’t do it.

You are probably wondering why I’m blogging about this, well the answer is simple there is no way in the world to convince every single 8^th grader to do marching band, or even stay in band at all. But once the next year rolls around and you see one of the ones that you talked to during the 8^th grader performance it is rewarding. You know, that you helped convince someone to stay in band and to march. And it’s a great feeling.

Sometimes the 8^th graders who want to do it, try to convince their friends or people they know to do it so that they aren’t alone, or at least know someone in band, the next year. Which that helps the band as whole because it puts us higher in numbers. Every year our goal is to get more and more people in band.