The NMA Concert Band

When we played as Navy professionals, we heard with our ears. Now, when we gather but once a year, we hear with our hearts, too.

And our hearts hear well the marches, suites and medleys the Navy Musicians Association Concert Band plays during days and nights of rehearsals and performances.

The ear is, of course, the more technically accurate measure. In fact, you can study ear training--we all did. A few months of practice can measurably improve the ear's ability to discern different pitches.

But there's no short course in "heart" training. It takes years of experience--joys, sorrows, losses, hopes fulfilled and dreams dashed--to prepare the heart to fully comprehend the effect of a concert band full of MUs. 

Conductor Wilbur Smith and the NMA Concert Band provide us a great service every year. The ensemble is excellent, of course, but it's not an excellence that can be measured by tuning forks, oscilloscopes or audition boards with clipboards and grading sheets. It can only be measured by the heart. And by that more-important standard, the band measures up well.

Final grade: 4.0.