This January band students from all over the district combined to participate in the OKC All City Band.

OKC All City was held on January 17-19 at Southeast High School. The clinicans were David Nixon from Southeast and Andre Francisco from Rogers Middle School.

HCP students participating in All City for the first time were freshmen Kate Williams and Lydia Sharpe, sophomore Jeremiah Jacobson, juniors Daniel Heckman and Ryan Biggers, and senior Matt Webb. Seniors Guillaume Saaty and Mitchel Williams have participated in various honor bands throughout this year, including Oklahoma Baptist University and CODA Band.

Kate Williams described her All City experience as “a hot mess” and lacking the structure that OBU had set. She prefered OBU’s arrangement of seperating the students by grade instead of combining everyone into a single band.

By participating in various bands Kate hopes to gain experience from each one. “If I don’t make it in these bands at least I will have the experience of trying it again because it’s kind of nerve-wracking going in and playing and you don’t think about how nerve-wracking it’s going be until you get in there” she said.

Biggers enjoyed his time at All City. He felt as though the music was more advanced but he enjoyed it. “I learned different styles and how to play better just because the people around me taught me different ways.”

Mitchel Williams was disappointed with the honor band. “There wasn’t much leadership and it was really chaotic and sporadic and messy, not very organized,” he said. Williams enjoyed some aspects, but if he could change anything about the clinic it would be the organization. “I really like the idea that with each clinic I learn something new so if it’s anything like a new style of playing or a way that I can make myself better, that is really important for me as a musician.”

When compared to OBU, Saaty commented that “the level of preparations that is taken is very low and it feels just very unprepared.” After participating for three years, he added that he enjoyed learning different things from different clinician’s perspectives.

Kelli Taylor, band director, said she didn’t feel the music was “outside of their range of abilities.” She has high expectations for her band students and she felt that they met those standards.

She said that her students took the clinic more seriously than other schools because they cared and for that reason they put on a good performance and felt proud of themselves. She was happy how her students performed but wished they had learned more about music, technique and performing.

“There were some students who didn’t really seem to care to be there, they didn’t seem to be trying very hard to get better so I was really proud of my students for taking the time to  care about their performance,” Taylor said.

Although the program had its difficulties, Taylor was glad they participated because it gave the students an opportunity to compare themselves with other students. It’s important, she said, to work with students “specifically in our district and not necessarily with all the big 6A schools like Edmond and Moore and those people that make all the big honor bands.”