With three bands and close to double the members of the HHS Symphonic Band, the Jan. 22 concert containing HCPS eighth grade band members and those in the HHS program required extra cooperation, communication and synchronization among the musicians and conductors.

Freshman saxophone player Carissa Roberts was pleased with the eighth graders performance considering the difficulty of the music.

“I think the eighth graders did pretty well, because we did some pretty complicated stuff. Even the people next to me who were seniors were getting it messed up, and those were the pieces the middle schoolers brought in,” Roberts said.

Roberts found the eighth graders mingling with and learning from the veteran band members.

“We have a lot of down time and during that down time we kind of messed around and they made friends with a lot of the older kids, so they hung out with them and kind of learned what to do and what not to do,” Roberts said.

Roberts, too, took on the responsibility of filling that leadership role.

“What I did was when we had a half hour of down time for supper and stuff I took them on a tour of the school and explained how stuff works,” Roberts said.

Having practiced together all day, Roberts hopes the younger kids got positives out of the experience.

“I hope they learned that they are good musicians and they can grow, that there’s also a process of growth, like you aren’t going to just become good overnight, and I hope that they gain self confidence and understanding through this,” Roberts said.

While some used their educational connections to bond, others engaged band members they weren’t familiar with.

“The Thomas Harrison people hung out more with the Thomas Harrison people and older people they knew from Thomas Harrison, and the Skyline people hung out with more of the older people from Skyline, but there was some intermeshing with the schools and everyone was nice to each other and everyone had a good time,” Roberts said.

While Roberts benefited individually from the day of practice, she also found positives in the potential of the rising youth.

“I learned that my ebrochure can hold a lot longer than I thought it could. I also [learned] that there are some pretty cool new people coming to school next year and I’m going to have some new friends,” Roberts said.

The larger group of musicians can cause confusion and other difficulties when playing.

“For one thing, space is a big issue; you’re constantly running into people on the stage and it’s really hot on the stage. Also tuning, because you don’t know if you’re out of pitch or someone else is out of pitch and it’s a lot harder to hear yourself. Also it’s not always the easiest to see the conductor, so it’s not always easy to get everyone to play at the same time,” Roberts said.

Although there was the occasional problem, Roberts still found light in the situation.

“I liked that we could get a fuller sound out of it, we had a really good number of people in each

section and it was just nice to know that if you messed up, someone else got it right,”

Skyline Middle School eighth grader Jerome Li enjoyed the larger venue.

“There were a lot more people and it sounded different in the auditorium,”

Li had the opportunity to play more, as well as collaborate with other people.

“I practiced a lot more and we worked on teamwork,” Li said.

The older members assisted fellow Skyline eighth grader Kervin Lopez Rojas, among others, with their music.

“They helped me a lot with the music because I had trouble playing the set,”

Lopez Rojas benefited from the practice and relationships he built.

“I met a lot of new people and learned a lot of new techniques of [playing] instruments,” Lopez Rojas said.