This year God blessed me and allowed me to be the Director of the

Temecula All-City Community Band!

I have always wanted to be the director of a band. This year the Temecula All-City Community Band was in danger of not having a director, so I volunteered to run the band this year.

Time was short as I started the second week of June. I needed to get flyers out so the musicians in the schools of Temecula would know about the band before they left school at the end of the school year. If they did not find out from the school it would be much harder to recruit them for the band. I was only able to get flyers out to the Chaparral High School band director. The Chaparral High School Platinum Sound Bands sponsor this community band by making their band room available for rehearsals.

The regular director of the Temecula All-City Community Band (TCMB) was heading to California State University, Chico to teach at their first annual drum major camp. The two drum majors of the TCMB also went to this camp. So building the band was completely up to me. I was told by a member of The Raven Marching Band associated with the professional football team the Baltimore Ravens that recruiting for the band was the most difficult part of keeping a community band going. Boy was she right!

I was given contact information for a local newspaper; The Californian and contacted them for help. They ran two articles about the band and helped jump our membership from 7 musicians to nearly 30 musicians! Without their generous help this band would not have been able to march. Two local music stores, Piano Tyme, and Sounds of Music both in Temecula also assisted in the recruiting effort by allowing me to place flyers in their stores.

Eventually, the band consisted of four trombones, two sousaphones, one baritone saxophone, one tenor saxophone, three alto saxophones, four clarinets, four flutes, one drummer playing the quints, six trumpets, one drum major, two tall flags, two water wagons (we really appreciated the cold water at the end of the parade, thank you!), and one marching violin!

We worked hard through six two-hour rehearsals. For the younger musicians, I modified the music to fit their playing abilities. We only lost four musicians from the rehearsals, one had to go to Fresno, two joined another band in the parade, and one just didn’t show up after the first rehearsal. Next year I hope to have some assistance so that I can keep the dropout rate to zero.

We had four families represented with at least one parent and one or more children. This made the band a true all-age, family oriented community band. What a joy! Everything seemed to fall in place so easily that I can only thank God for blessing the band and answering my prayers for his helping the band to bring his gift of music to the people. We played for his glory and he blessed us!

The next to the last rehearsal before the parade was dismal. Our drum major was unaccounted for and we had to take our secondary drum major off the tall flags and put her in the front of the band. This eliminated the two tall flags from the parade band since we needed two flags for the show. The second tall flag twirler took this in stride and said she would be glad to pull our water wagon in the parade. She just wanted to make sure she was in the parade. I felt really down after this rehearsal and again prayed for God to bless the band. I gave the band to him to play their music for him and to bring his gift of music to the people.

At the final rehearsal, the missing drum major reported for duty. The tall flags were back. The week at drum major camp really improved our drum majors and they were eager to use their newly acquired skills to help the band. Not just in marching, but in musical direction and teaching. The drum majors took the band and directed allowing me to play my baritone saxophone with the band. The last 20 minutes of the rehearsal took us from a bunch of musicians playing the same song, to a band performing music together as a single unit.

July 4^th, the day of the parade! We checked in at 8:15 and the band members began showing up at 8:30. In the grand tradition of the Chaparral Platinum Sound, we used our warm-up time to tweak the performance, polishing our music and marching in the last 45 minutes before the parade! At 20 minutes to parade time I called a facility and water break and told the band to line up at 9:50 AM, 10 minutes to parade start time.

At 9:50 we lined the band up for a photo opportunity and were called to our staging point. A quick click of the lens and we were lining up for the parade. The parade started and we waited for our position. Then the parade coordinator called for unit 13 and we joined in the parade. The route was lined its entire 1½ mile length with people standing five or six deep on both sides of the street. Newspaper estimates stated that there were as many as 30,000 people attending the festivities.

As soon as we hit the parade starting line the drum major called for a roll-off and we played our traditional “Troopers’ Battle Hymn”. Once the song was finished, the drums play about 24 beats of a gradually slowing tempo and the drum major whistled for instruments up and gave a three whistle beat. The band began to play our second number “America the Beautiful” and a great cheer went up from the audience. This gave the band so much energy that we played better than in any rehearsals! You may not believe it, but when the flutes and clarinets had the melody in the second stanza of “America the Beautiful”, the brass players played so softly that I could hear these soft instruments from the back of the band! Even the drum major and tall flags at the front could hear them! Our tall flags even said they could hear our marching violin from way up front!

The cheering of the crowed started at the beginning of the parade and continued non-stop clear to the end of the parade. The band played better than ever and even managed to march mostly in step. It was obvious that the audience loved the performance. The drum major kept the music going with breaks of only 24 to 30 beats between songs! This really thrilled the audience as everyone along the route got to hear music from the band!

After the parade the band felt that they had put on a fantastic show and began to talk about next year’s parade! Some had so much fun that they were talking about getting the band together for a Christmas Concert! Maybe it is time to get the Joyful Noise Band going?

Yes, God blessed the band for using their God given gift of musical performance to bring God’s gift of music to the people. I am happy that God allowed me to take a small part in this event.

Thank you for your support and may God Bless All of you!

Sincerely,

Wade E. Walker, Jr.

Director Pro-Temp

Temecula All-City Community Band

July 2002.