Tyler and the Junior High Band Concert at UMD.

Tyler was chosen to participate in a Junior High band concert that was being held up at UMD yesterday. Kids from all over the state were hand selected to play and Tyler was one out of 17 (I think) from Monticello to bring his baritone up to Duluth for the day.

After some expert parallel parking (for those of you who have never been on a college campus, parking is the hardest thing to find. The line to get into the public parking lot was a mile long AND I couldn't wrangle up the $2.00 to get in. I know poor planning on my part. So, I was driving around and was finally lucky enough to find a spot, for free, and had to revert back to my knowledge of parallel parking and driver's education training. I was quite proud of myself cause the spot was tight!)

The auditorium was packed! There were over 300 kids there as well as many, many parents but I was lucky enough to find a seat right in the back. I sat down and quickly figured out that Tyler was in the first band playing but I couldn't find him on stage to save my life. I looked and looked and then finally realized that he must be tucked behind the curtain on the right hand side of the stage.

So, you won't 'see' Tyler playing but you can 'hear' him in the video clips. It was quite impressive to say the least and fun to observe. The first song they played was called: A+. Now when you listen to it, you might hear some odd sounds like the kids didn't know what they were doing but the song was created so that the kids could make mistakes on purpose.

I don't remember the name of song 2 was but he's another clip for you.

After they were done playing their 4 songs, my guess at where Tyler was on stage was correct. He was hiding behind the curtain and the right hand side of the stage. Oddly enough, the kids in his area were from Braham and Pine City and his band instructor was from North Branch (all towns in our area.) :)

I was able to catch him outside before I left. His cheeks were flushed and he looked exhausted (he had to be at the school by 5:15am) but he told me it was a fun day.

Three cheers for Tyler! Good job bud!