Toccatina, Staci Lyn.

One part of the book that stuck out to me was “Music Lessons”. Sarah explains her “joys” of playing in the high school marching band. This reminds me of my high school orchestra days and the dreadful concerts. It was my sophomore year and I had been playing violin since 5^th grade. I wasn’t as confident as I should’ve been at the time, but I knew I had talent. We had our second quarterly concert and we had a piece called Toccatina. It was one of my favorites and I knew it was the best piece I could play at the time. High school orchestras were always hectic. A bunch of high school students who think they are professional musicians. During our dress rehearsals we had to run from class to class preparing for the show, looking for instruments, bows, and strings. Finally my orchestra was on stage for rehearsal. We played through the piece numerous times, having our director stop us and making changes to our sheet music. I felt more and more confident as the rehearsal went on. The next night was our concert and I was sure of myself. I knew I would do an amazing job as well as my classmates. My parents and sister were in the audience and I was ready to show off what I was doing in class. It was five minutes before the show when my friends and their boyfriends sat in the audience. Of all places they chose to sit right in front of the stage in front of me. I thought I had this all together, the show would go seamlessly. I was definitely wrong. There is a certain way you are supposed to act at orchestra concerts and they decided to act the opposite. Cheering at the wrong times, and screaming out my name at every pause. That is not proper audience etiquette. I thought I had everything together until they got there.

Sarah had a similar experience with her marching band. I was being ambushed much like Sarah was by Andy Heap. I didn’t like the fact that the concerts were open to the public after that. I wanted everything to be perfect so I can show my true talent without being bothered by the crowd. If I was graded on public humiliation I would definitely have an A+.