Band Geeks

Bossy - Senior Year

I told you yesterday that Bossy started band in elementary school. She enjoyed the clarinet and all of her woodwind friends, but as she got a little older and a little better, she decided she wanted to branch out. That's when we bought her first saxophone.

My mom had given us the two clarinets, so I had never paid for an instrument before. It was September of 1995 and Bossy was not quite 11 years old. I must have been totally out of my mind! I walked into Riverton Music and plunked down nearly $1200 for something I wasn't even sure she was going to like. Thank goodness she arose to the occasion.

Bossy loved the sax! But after five years, she was ready to leap again. It seems like every time she changed instruments, we ended up spending more money...her beautiful new tenor sax cost about $1700 and that was in 2000. She was a sophomore and band was a big huge hairy deal for her. I wouldn't say it was her whole life, because she also did Track and Field and she was an amazing student, but band was certainly a big thing.

During her junior year she earned a position on the Band Council. Her job was to take care of all the uniforms and she put her heart and soul into making sure everything was arranged just so. She was certain it was time to upgrade the old plastic clarinet so we bought her a wood clarinet for Wind Symphony. She also stopped marching with her instrument and she joined the Colorguard. Band was definitely in her blood.

She played in the BHS Symphony which included early morning practices, Wind Symphony and both Jazz Bands. For a while she joined the Murray Symphony as well. Life was all about band and band friends. We had invested an incredible amount of money in instruments and band trips. It was time for our investment to pay off.

During her senior year, she started applying for scholarships. She was a Sterling Scholar Finalist in Music and her grades earned her academic scholarships at several schools, but we were hoping for more. She finally settled on Snow College. They offered her a tuition waver for academics and a fee/housing waiver with a little money for books...and all she had to do was agree to play in their band. What a deal! (She probably would have done it for free.) With the credits she had already earned at Bingham, she managed to graduate with her Associates Degree in just one year.

When she returned home, degree in hand, she started applying at other schools. The University of Utah offered her a scholarship to play in their marching band, but she accepted another offer... Gamer asked her to be his wife.

She still loves music, but the saxophones continue to gather dust. I keep waiting for the day one of these three clarinetists will decide they are ready to leap. And they better hurry up...Sport is old enough to start band next year.

***Bossy here, I needed to jump in and correct something. Hopefully this won't result in me losing my admin rights to the blog. First of all the U of U offered me $75 to play in the marching band, which was basically enough to cover the uniform fee and I am pretty sure they offer that to everyone. Secondly, you forgot JSO (Jordan Symphony Orchestra). It is the district-wide high school orchestra. My junior year I played clarinet and my senior year I learn how to sight-transpose the bassoon part for bass clarinet. As for the Murray City, I only subbed in at the last minute for a clarinet that was sick right before their Olympic performance. I actually subbed in a lot over the years for bands of all levels.

Oh and my favorite concert was with JSO. We performed the back ground symphony for the Children's Monster Concert in 2001. We were recorded in the Tabernacle and conducted by the leader of MoTab. We filmed over two days and one of them was my birthday and Craig Jessop sang to me. It was an amazing experience to work with children's choirs from around the world on that collaboration. ***