On Thursday, November 2nd, Mr. Hemmo’s Intermediate and Advanced Guitar Orchestras traveled to three different middle schools: Magee, Secrist, and Gridley. Although Advanced Guitar had a few prior performances, this was Intermediate’s first, so there were definitely some jitters.

A senior from Intermediate Guitar Orchestra, James Conner, was feeling pretty exhausted. “I’m tired, I’m hungry, I want this day to end, but let’s go – we have an hour and fifteen at Beyond Bread after this,” he said.

Advanced freshman, Isabella Machalik, was feeling pretty calm and said, “I’m fine with it, I already know I’m gonna do amazing.”

Mr. Hemmo was “super excited because of all the hard work people put in.”

When the guitar students arrived at Magee, they began setting up and practicing. Intermediate Guitar performed first to open up for Advanced. Intermediate’s setlist consisted of La Sandunga, Yesterday, and Hey Jude. Advanced Guitar’s setlist consisted of 2 Spanish Airs which has 2 parts, Tango, and Nora Bene.

After both guitar groups performed, Mr. Hemmo asked the middle schoolers a few questions such as “What’s a tango?” A student named Zach replied, “A dance.” After that, Mr. Hemmo opened up the floor for questions.

A student named Hayden asked, “Why don’t you guys use guitar pics?” Hemmo replied, “We don’t use guitar pics because we perform classical music.”

A student named Kaitlynn asked, “How many classes do you guys have?” As I’m sure you all know, we have 6 a day, just like Magee.

Another student named Ally asked, “How long did it take to learn the songs?” Hemmo responded, “In the 11th week of the school year, Advanced Guitar got Tango, so they learned a super hard song in only 3 weeks. You can practice and get it…take chances; don’t be afraid.”

A kid named Griffin asked, “Can you be in both band and guitar?” Our very own guitar student, Paul Adams, is in both!

Another student, Giselle, asked, “Who’s your favorite?”, and of course, Mr. Hemmo said all of us.

Our last student, Justin, asked, “Does it hurt your fingers?” Advanced guitarist Anna Cowser said yes, while Ryder Thatcher said no.

Lastly, a teacher asked how many students in guitar, also attended Magee in middle school – there was one in Intermediate and four in Advanced.

After the concert, I asked some students how they thought it went, and here’s what they said: James thought, “It went pretty good up until Yesterday – we messed up a little bit, but besides that, we did pretty good. Advanced Guitar did pretty good as well, they didn’t mess up, not that I know of.” Advanced Guitarist Mercedyz Larez said, “I think we all did really good, we projected sound well, most kids were super polite while [we were] performing. Overall, I think it was a pretty great performance.” Mr. Hemmo said, “I think it went excellent, both groups played very well for the first performance of the day.” The staff member who accompanied us on the trip, Ms. Armenta, was “…very impressed, you guys did an awesome job, I loved the last song.”

After the visit to Magee, the class visited Beyond Bread for an early lunch. Since we finished eating early, we got to walk over to Bookmans to look around for a little, which was so fun!

At Secrist, guitar performed at an honor students’ ceremony, which parents also attended. The president of the TUSD board was also there and presented Mr. Hemmo with flowers! Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to open up for questions, but it was still a great experience.

Our last stop was Gridley. Many of the first-year guitar program students had Mr. Nickles, the Gridley guitar teacher when they attended, allowing us to skip right to Intermediate instead of starting in Beginning Guitar. After we performed, Mr. Hemmo asked the students what their favorite part of Tango was. Students had answers such as, “The feeling kinda flows throughout my body,” and “I liked when they hit the guitar.” Mr. Nickles said, “For me, it felt like y’all were dancing throughout the entire ensemble, the melody would pop over here and there. I love tangos, it was really well done.” After that, only one kid had a question, and he asked, “Do you guys ever get together outside of class?” We never do.

Our entire music program has a very bright future ahead of us considering at least 13 of the musicians I met at Gridley plan to continue their instrument at Sahuaro.

At the end of our visit, Mr. Nickles said, “It’s pretty transcendent to know that the people I knew already had the potential to find these voices inside of them, and were able to manifest at a higher level than we could achieve. It’s refreshing, like when a snowball rolls down a hill and gains shape and size. They have incredible abilities, it was fantastic to experience, I would pay money to see this.”