On Friday, April 15, Paoli Junior Senior High School band members will participate in the High School Concert Band Festival at Floyd Central High School. The Concert Band Festival will begin at 12 p.m.
“The high school band has been working on the three required pieces for performance at Floyd during the months of March and April,” said Band Director Laughlin. “We expect to play well, demonstrating proper balance, intonation and style in our musical performance (Gold Level).”
The band is nearing the end of their preparations for the Concert Band Festival. Though, Laughlin says the next thing the band has to work on is sight reading, which is being able to read, understand, and perform the music by themselves. Laughlin anticipates they will serve a very good performance.
“After we play our concert on the stage, we move over to another room, the judge will pass out a piece of music we have never seen and we are to look at it for a few minutes, then play it for a score as well. That score, along with the points given for our stage performance – all of it combines for our total score and final rating. A ‘Gold’ rating is the highest and we expect to receive that (if everything goes well),” said Laughlin.
Laughlin feels that the band is pretty strong these days but, there is always room for improvement.
“There is always work to be done, and, always improvements to be made, whether in tone, style, blend, etc. That is one thing that is really cool about music: Does not matter how old you are, a musician is always looking for ways to get better,” said Laughlin.
Since every individual student is different, Laughlin’s main expectation out of his students is improvement.
“Band expectations are different for each student, for everyone is at different stages of expertise,” said Laughlin. “What we, the teachers, look for is improvement from each student every semester.”
Laughlin predicts, and expects, the high school band will perform well at the High School Concert Band Festival.
Anyone interested is welcome to come enjoy the band’s performance at Floyd Central at noon on April 15 and 16.
Story by Victoria Hobson
