All West

Have to share Carter's Al l West tryout for sax in 7th grade saga.  Only 2 people from 7th grade even went from SFA.  Carter had no idea what he was in for.  He is a very confident kid though and didn't think that much about it.  After arriving we ran into several kids from Fayette Academy.  After speaking to the mother of one girl he knew well, I realized he was out of his league.  They had been practicing for months with help from the band director (who was there).  Carter's band director wasn't there, had given the kids no guidance and advised Carter he had paid his entry fee himself (apparently because he had never taken the time to send the info to the parents) two weeks before the competition.  At one point Carter told me the band director said he really knew nothing about it with regards to band, but knew everything about choir tryouts (I believe he used to be a choir director somewhere).

While Carter was waiting outside his room and heard the other kids playing, he then realized he was out of his league.  Because of that, he didn't want to play at all but couldn't get out of it at that point.  Afterwards when he tried to leave, the door guy said he still had to play his chosen memory piece.  Carter panicked because he had no piece.  Come to find out, it was just scales, but Carter was so flustered he messed them all up.  If memory serves, they scored up to 100 and I believe Carter got a 24 or maybe it was a 15.   The poor kid was in tears and I was furious.  It took all I had not to lay into the band director the next week at school.  I decided to wait a few days to calm down and by then decided to just let it go.  Needless to say, Carter has had no desire to ever try out for All West again.

I understand it is very hard to get in (as you obviously know Carole) so I imagine it would be quite an honor to do so but at what cost???

More later.

Brenda