Jasper band hits right note at UIL band competition

By GEORGIA PURDY
Newsboy Correspondent

Newsboy photo/Georgia Purdy SEVERAL JASPER HIGH SCHOOL band students lift up the UIL Sweepstakes Award that was earned in the marching, concert and sight-reading contests recently.

The Jasper High School Band has won the UIL Sweepstakes Award given by the UIL for bands who earn a Division I rating in marching, concert and sight-reading contests.

Band director Jeff Parma said that Jasper’s band has a history of earning this award.

“Last year is the first time we didn’t get this award in a number of years, going back to when Rusty Lay was the director,” he said. No 3-A bands in our area got a Division I rating at the marching contest.”

Still, it isn’t an easy thing to do because it means a group must excel in three vastly
different areas.

“It’s very difficult,” Parma said. “The two, marching and concert band, are so different. You are going from outside playing to concert. Those are two different techniques.”

Bands competing in a stage concert play three different pieces of music, two from a prescribed list and one march of their own choosing. They perform before a panel of three judges like they do in the marching contest.

At the end of the contest, bands receive a critique with comments from all three.

“You are an outstanding band and your community should be very proud of you and your excellent teacher,” wrote one of the judges.

The sight-reading contest places them in a situation where they are given
a music they have never seen before. To make sure that contestants have no knowledge of the music, the UIL uses a unique strategy.

“For the past eight years, the UIL has hired people to write original works so that no one can have seen it,” Parma said. “There are six different levels of music and 3-A bands read Level IV.

A band director has a total of eight minutes to work with the students. You go through the music verbally, but students cannot play their instruments during that time.”

These original works are frequently difficult, Parma said, and sometimes aren’t very good because the composers have a set of criteria that must be included.

This year’s selection, however, was well written.

One of the sight-reading judges wrote the following:

“Nice band sound from you all. I’m impressed. There is good teaching and good learning going on in Jasper.”

Drum major and clarinet player Andrew Kier said that students had worked hard and it was evident.

“I thought we were prepared,” Kier said. “We had a good ensemble sound. We had been working on that for a while. That’s really important.

You don’t want to go in there and just be noisy.”

Kendric Garmon, a senior who plays saxophone, made a significant switch in order to improve the band’s sound on one of their prepared pieces.

“About two weeks before the performance, I was switched to playing the French horn’s part,” he said. “We only have one horn. I am proud of being able to handle that.”

Parma said that Garmon is the kind of student who can be depended on to do that kind of thing.

Garmon also said that in a concert band it is difficult for everyone to do everything well together as a group; but the group had been working so hard that he knew they would do well.

“I knew we would do well even if we didn’t we didn’t make a Division I,” he said. “I also knew we would be happy with what we did.”

Garmon’s view reflects Jeff Parma’s philosophy of doing one’s best rather than concentrating on how the judges rate you.

“We tell our students to do their best rather than focus on the numbers,” Parma said. “Worry about having a musical experience, a good performance, rather than a particular rating.”

Perhaps it is that philosophy that gives these youngsters such confidence to do their best and that excellent performance will yield excellent results.