Yes!!! High school band! He always favored the clarinet parts in his music. We all loved his music. We got to meet him in 1993 at the Virginia parade. He signed our shirts. What great memories!!!!
just played this song this year in 8th grade in a national competition for James Swearingen as a judge and he gave my band superior ratings. all across the board! SHOUT OUT TO THE WASHINGTON JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL Bentonville Arkansas.
3:19 french horn part ..makes me tears already.I was an ex-school band in 2012 and i played 1st french horn part when i was at 13 years old.And now,im 23 years already.Ahhh,missed my french horn pieces
I played this song my senior year and my 8TH grade year. I was 3RD trumpet my 8TH grade year and 1ST my senior year and I had the solo what an accomplishment.
our band played this at an IGSMA competition yesterday. I played as the flute part :) it was fun, i think we all sounded amazing! I would love to play this again hopefully, i just don’t dont wanna play the ending because our director made us repeat it so many times.. i’ll always love this song, our band sounded so good!
this brings back memories. I played this on flute my freshman year it was our senior song my senior year and I played french horn... at our baccalaureate, we were supposed to play towards the end, then one more speach then the choir sings then we play our fight song and Alma mater one more time... we didn't do that. the person who organized it completely skipped us. our band director said we should just pack up since everyone was leaving all the seniors in band we like "no this is our last chance to play with you guys, we're playing" we felt like the band from Titanic... it was a very upsetting day. the entire band was pissed...
This song is amazing, I remember my band directors were not here, they got a group of retired people, and we were playing it really wild, they told us they thought we were playing called, "Blue Ride Mariachi Saga." Funny days, we did end up with 1's at contest. We did not play it at the spring concert, it would have been nice, but we did good still lol.
Playing this in a community college/community concert band and I'm on first trombone. I've always loved Swearingen's music, and this is one I've not played yet so I'm excited. It's not his most fun, or best piece, but it's still an amazing work of art! Can't wait for the concert next month!
I still come back to this song after playing it 2 years earlier for Concert Assessment. Since then, I've had to drop out of Band to make room for other classes, but this really does make me miss playing.
We played this in my symphonic band for both 7th and 8th grade. Got superior ratings at the Gulf Coast Band Directors Association (GCBDA) with sight reading. The most Musical out of our songs. We played The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre and Celebration Tribalesque by Randall D. Standridge. I had a wonderful all of the songs.
Indeed! Every part has something really cool to play. Epic counter melodies or ramping up the hype in the fast parts. Hope they like it at your concert
Playing this as 3rd (I think I don't remember, maybe it was another piece we got that day) clarinet in 7th. My jaw hurts so bad after playing this, it sucks.
I love how everyone is talking about playing this in high school band lol, I played this in 7th grade band because my class excelled and we had a lot of good players!
about 4 years late, (I hope you don't mind a notification from this) but I played first part for horn in 7th, not saying much though, I was the only horn player in the school (small school), It was fun though
