On February 5th and 6th 2025, Redwood’s jazz band performed at the Jazz Festival.
Featured Image from The Silver Bullet
By: Milo Rachal
The jazz festival, in basic words, works like this:
Participants perform a set, which is 3-4 songs, and these songs will be assessed by musical adjudicators. The adjudicators, after the set, give their comments to the participants.
After this, participants will go into an improvising room where they will learn from the adjudicators how to improvise. This improvisation is every part of the music, including but not limited to the beats and notes. This is, obviously, completely on the fly, with the intention to help students to learn to adapt quickly and expand their imagination.
The next room the participants go into is review and notes. The adjudicators go over the set that the participants performed earlier, and provide notes on how they can improve. This has the clear intention to help students understand their mistakes and what steps they can take to correct them.
The next room is then sight reading. Sight reading is defined as the skill and ability to read and perform music at sight, without preparation. Sight reading is an important skill for any type of musician to learn. The adjudicators assess how well the students can sight read, and teach them how to as well.
Photo M. Rachal/Gigantea
A few students who participated in the Jazz Festival share what it was like and how they prepared for it.
Wesley Scholl, ‘28, performing for the first time, said, “It can be nerve-wracking, for sure, but if you know your music and you get up there and perform it, it’s fun!”
Caleb Spink, ‘27, said, “For me, I prepared by listening to the piece over and over again, and then practicing with the group of course.”
Emmanuel Rodriguez, ‘26, said, “Actually doing it is a little nerve-wracking, because anything could happen. A drum could tear, or someone can just mess up. But, this being my third jazz band, I’m used to it, I have a routine now. I take deep breaths and memorize as best as I can.”
Milo Rachal
Hi guys! I'm Milo, pretty chill don't worry, just trying to have some fun and get good stories out there!
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Tags: arts & entertainment, jazz band, rangers, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood jazz, redwood jazz band, redwood jazz festival, redwood journalism, rhs, rhs jazz band, rhs jazz festival, visalia ca
