Waterfordos,

Just warning you, I’m about to employ, in utterly shameless fashion, a terrible, dreadful pun.

Ready?

It’s high time to sing the praises of the Waterford High School Music Department. 

See, we got through that together and I believe we are better citizens for it.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

In the past month or so, there’s been some excellent news coming out of the music department at the school.

Senior Hillary Hodge was earlier this month accepted to Berklee College of Music in Boston and plans to study music management.

Hodge plays euphonium and trombone in the Waterford band and she lends her voice to the high school concert choir.

Waterford High music teacher Tim Fioravanti wrote in email a few weeks ago that it’s a proud moment for him and the high school music program.

And Hodge isn’t the only impressive student musician at the school.

I had the pleasure to interview the Sayles twins -- Emma and Molly – and Clancy Emanuel, all WHS music students, about a month ago, before the program scored some hardware at the annual Berklee high school music competition.

I came away impressed with the quality of our conversation.

In the journalism game, reporters, obviously, talk to lots of people every day. 

Usually, reporters want to mine the person they are talking to for whatever ore of information we need and then scurry off to finish our stories before closing time at the bar.

And while the job is truly wonderful when you have the chance to talk to an interesting person on whatever topic we’re writing about, this gig is even more fascinating when you meet someone who can wax knowledgeable  other topics as well.

I tend to come down on the side of the polymath, rather than the specialist.

In other words, a decathlete is, to me, inherently more intriguing than a running back that only gets the ball on third down.

In course of my conversation with  Clancy and the Sayles sisters, we started out gabbing  about the high school music program, but then the chat turned to  pop music as well as high school life.

I would think music played a crucial part in how interesting those students were in conversation.

After all, music forces you to communicate an idea through a medium other than spoken or written language.

I would think it alters your perspective on how you describe and experience the world, and enhance what you have to say about it.

Then again, as a sometime pop music reporter, I’ve met bass players who couldn’t put two words together with superglue.  But they are the exception and certainly not the rule in this case.

Anyway, all this is to say that I always look forward to talking to the music students at Waterford, as much as I’m sure their teachers, parents and colleagues look forward to hearing them sing and play.

Note:
Usually included in this frothy font of information, known throughout the far reaches of the  Day-verse as the Waterford blog, are some amusing riffs about other towns named Waterford as well as  some artwork I’ve been enjoying and a  song I think you might like.

I’ve been told these amusing bits are stupid and self-indulgent.

Trouble is, 99.9 percent of everything I consider worthwhile in this world is stupid and self-indulgent.

But, there’s plenty on my plate today, so I’ll give it a rest…this time.