This year God blessed me again and set a crowded performance schedule for the

Temecula All-City Community Band!

As usual, I set the schedule for six rehearsals for the band. We decided on playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” as well as “Secret Agent Man” as our two numbers. Then, the month before the rehearsals were to start, Jerry Burdick-Rutz sent me an email from the Four Seasons Lodge requesting a band to put on a concert of about an hour in length. Well, as you can imagine, this meant we needed more than two numbers to play!

So, I dusted off the previous pieces of music played by the band. These still did not come close to filling an hour. I went to Sheet-Music Plus.com and purchased a book of patriotic music. This book had 15 numbers, and would take about 40 minutes to perform. Combined with the other pieces, we were close to an hour-long concert. While reviewing the music I realized that the Army, Navy and Marine’s songs were in the book, but the Air Force song “Wild Blue Yonder” was missing. With no time to waste, I found a MIDI file of the song and imported it into Finale. Then I printed the parts and gave them to the band.

All together we now had a total of 20 pieces of music. Playing time came to 45 minutes with no break between numbers. This was adequate for our concert needs. Now, how do you get the band to learn 20 pieces of music in preparation for the concert and parade in only 12 hours of rehearsal time? With lots of prayer and hard work by the musicians, that’s how! And so, rehearsals started…

And continued…

Then we had to get the “Temecula All-City Community Band – Covered Wagon” ready for the parade to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the Vale Ranch!

After rehearsals started, the Promenade Mall called Jerry Burdick-Rutz and asked him for a band for a concert on July 3^rd. He relayed the message to me and suddenly the band had two concerts and a parade to do during the 4^th of July weekend!

The band rehearsed with passion and felt ready for the concerts and parade.

July 3^rd, the band performed its concert at the Promenade Mall. It was good exposure. The mistakes were obvious to those who know music, but the crowd appreciated the concert. After a quick review with the band, we were ready for the parade.

July 4^th, 2:00 PM we stepped off for the parade. The crowds loved the musical selection and the band played its heart out! This was one of the best parades this band has done to date.

July 4^th, 5:00 PM we formed at the “Four Seasons Lodge” and marched through their gates playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” followed by “76 Trombones”. Then we took our seats and played the remaining 18 numbers in our small repertoire. At the end, we marched around their commons and exited, again playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever”! Afterwards the Four-Season homeowner’s association feed the performers and support crew.

It was a lot of fun and a lot of work! For 2005, I think we will limit ourselves to the parade only!