Every year in the spring semester band kids put up their marching shoes and pull out their mutes for one thing that even non-band people may know of, LGPE. It stands for Large Group Performance Evaluation, and exactly like the name implies a large group of band students perform and then they evaluate how good your rendition of three different pieces are. Each piece they play has a “level” to it ranging from one to six, one being the easiest and six being the hardest. The piece is then graded on a different but similar scale from one two five, one being the best score and five being the worst. They also must do something called “sight-reading” which is just a musical comprehension test where the ensemble gets six minutes to study a piece and then to the best of their abilities play that piece in its entirety. On March fifteenth and sixteenth of this year, the band took two different groups to perform, the second and third-period band classes.

Our concert band, the second-period class, went first on the fifteenth playing a three to four recital meaning all the pieces they played were level three or four. They played a march by John Edmonson called “Normandy Beach”, a ballade called “Earth Song”, and one mixture piece called “Last to Defend” by “David Shaffer”. They received all ones for their hard work. Mrs. Pruitt said she was “very proud of them [and] they exceeded my expectations. They were well

behaved in class and very attentive and it shows in their scoring.” They scored a two on sight-reading which is very impressive considering they have six minutes to learn an entire piece.

The third period, the symphonic band, went the very next day Friday the sixteenth. Their pieces were level five to six so they were at the top of the rankings and playing very difficult music. They played a march by Henry Fillmore called the “Foot Lifter”, a ballade by Eric Whitacre called “October” and a mixture piece called “Folkdances” by Dmitri Shostakovich. They were awarded all ones for their very difficult show. They also received a one in sight-reading and a very honest judge said, “I’ve heard a lot of groups today and I can assure you that this is one of the better ones I’ve heard”

All the students were very proud of each other and this marks the end of all the important band marks and as one senior, Logan Hall put it “It’s the end, I’ll get to play on the spring concert but it’s not the same. I’ll never sit on stage waiting for the judges to give the signal, I’ll never feel that same kind of adrenaline and I’ll miss it a lot.”