As you may or may not know, our family is part of Joyful Noise Homeschool Band. We started in fall of 2009, and have come quite far since then, in my opinion.My brother, King Peter, has moved out of Beginning Recorder into the Beginning Guitar class. His music reading skills are not the best but he is starting to actually enjoy his classes. He loves his teacher, Mr. Garwood, who constantly mixes funny, personal stories in with his teaching. Right now he is learning A, E, E minor, D, C, A minor, and G chords. He is also learning "Temporary Home" by Carrie Underwood for his concert.
My sister, Jill, has moved up to Intermediate Band with her flute (go sis!) and likes it a lot more than Beginner Band. She is currently learning the "Raider's March" from the Indian Jones movies, "Polka Dots", and a few concert scales. She tests every other week on certain songs from her flute books and so far she has passed on almost all of them. She is only a few more practice minutes from earning a Gold Honors tag.
I made it into Intermediate Orchestra (thank goodness) and really, really like it. I have new teachers this year, Mrs. Madjet and Mrs. Pettis, two sisters who can play every orchestra instrument. This year we have 2 cellos, a base, a viola, and 10 violins. We are working on our concert pieces, which include "Allegro from Two Trumpet Concerto" by Antonio Vivaldi, "Stone Mountain Stomp" by Carl Strommen, "Sakura, Sakura", "Habenara" by Georges Bizet, "Fancy Fiddles", and "Kesh Jig". We are learning and memorizing the C major scale, G major two octave scale, A major scale, and D major scale. I am required to practice 150 minutes a week. My teachers want us to be good enough by the end of the year to move up to Chamber Orchestra (even though most people spend 2 or 3 years in intermediate).
I finally convinced my best friend to come and play for Joyful Noise. She is playing in the Beginning Guitar class. I see her every Friday and we hang out for a few hours. We made it our goal in January to meet every person (est. 400 kids, more or less) who attends Joyful Noise by the end of this year. So far we have met 14 new people, not including the ones we already knew. :-)
