HS Orchestra

Mike Certalik (?) led the Bozeman HS Orchestra through a warmup in which the orchestra played through some tricky rhythms and accidentals. After that, he had them play through again, only faster this time. He played along, clearly having the piece memorized, as he was playing WHILE talking to another student. After that, they played it again, even faster, and then once more, as fast as they could. Some students got lost and dropped out, but most were able to keep the pace and finish, and the warmup continued to sound good, even with a couple small timing issues and a little sketchy intonation at times. I don't recall the name of the piece they played next, but I did notice that as they played, the posture of the class seemed to be one of "Sit however you like". There were students slouched in their seats, there were others sitting attentive, and there always seemed to be a student getting up to go to the bathroom, I assume, as they would leave the class for approximately 5 minutes. Mike kept the class pretty well managed, even though he seemed to have a really lax way of running things. He never raised his voice, or even really spoke that much, and never showed much excitement either, although that could have just been the mood that day. It seemed to be the norm though, as no one acted like it was different.