Tonight’s the night! The big Spring Concert is finally here!
Monday Morning Musical Theatre Review: Disney’s Descendants
My school is giving its annual Spring Musical tonight. They’re doing a stage musical adaptation of Disney’s Descendants, which follows the lives of the children of the various Disney villains and heroes. It’s a cute little musical and it’s always cool seeing what our Drama teacher manages to put together.
The plot of the play itself, however, is classic modern Disney propaganda. It essentially presents a naïve view that evil is not a real threat; instead, it just needs to be neutralized with tolerance and a proper environment.
Lazy Sunday CCCLXXXV: Production Week
This past week was slammed with preparation for the Spring Fine Arts Festival, which commences tomorrow and culminates in my students’ Spring Concert on Tuesday. As such, I thought I’d look back at this past week:
- “Be Back Tomorrow” – A placeholder post to appease the WordPress daily post counter.
- “Production Week” – A recap of prepping for the school musical.
- “SubscribeStar Saturday: Spring Concert 2026 Preview” (SubscribeStar) – A look ahead to my students’ Spring Concert!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
SubscribeStar Saturday: Spring Concert 2026 Preview
Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive. To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more. For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.
The last Spring Concert of yours portly career (at least in its current iteration) is coming up this Tuesday, 28 April 2026. It’s my swan song as the music teacher at my little school, so I’m going out big.
This concert will be the biggest, most stacked concert I’ve ever programmed. It will feature a total of twenty-six (26) pieces (appropriate, since it’s 2026, but I did not plan it that way; I just realized the connection while typing this post)—ten selections from the Middle School Music Ensemble; three solo pieces; one small group performance; and twelve tunes from the High School Music Ensemble.
The Middle School Music Ensemble’s set takes about forty minutes from top to bottom, and they’ve played it all the way through every day this past week. The High School Set is a bit longer, and we have not been able to play the entire program in a single class period. A class period at my school is about fifty-six minutes; by the time we get through attendance and tuning, we have maybe fifty minutes remaining. Our best run yet was getting through ten of the twelve pieces.
As such, I’m estimating that the total performance time of the concert will be about two hours—100 minutes between the two Ensembles, and about twenty minutes for the solo and small group pieces. That’s about the upper limit of where I (and, I imagine, my administration) would like to go. Factor in some shuffling between pieces and what not, as well as transitioning students on and off the stage, and we’re probably looking at around two hours and fifteen minutes.
There’s always this weird pressure to rush on through these concerts. My point (and the one I’ll make to my admin if they object to the length) is that we routinely have sporting events that last three or more hours. Baseball frequently has double-headers on school nights, which can easily run until 9 or even 10 PM. Us wrapping up around 8:15 or 8:30 PM is not going to ruin anyone’s ability to come to school the next day. Frankly, if the admin doesn’t want to stick around (understandable—they have to make an appearance at a lot of events), I don’t mind. I can lock up the building myself (as I have done many times before)!
Ahem—but I digress. No need to get defensive on the front end. That said, it’s going to be a pretty awesome concert. It’s not just two hours of lame filler. We’re going to rock—and pop, and soft rock, and so on—and it’s going to be a fitting display of my students’ talents.
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Production Week
This week the Drama kids have been rehearsing for the school play, which is this coming Monday (my students have their big Spring Concert this coming Tuesday, 28 April 2026). That means yours portly has been rehearsing with the kids this week.
I run the sound and lighting for these plays. It’s not too difficult, but it’s quite an undertaking nonetheless. I essentially do what would typically be done by three or four people, in that I mix the sound; play the sound cues; run the lights; and troubleshoot any sound and/or equipment issues that arise during the play.
Issues always seem to arise.
TBT^2: The TJC Challenge
Two years ago I issued to my readers The TJC Challenge, a challenge to listen to all of my music on either Apple Music or YouTube/YouTube Music (you can do it on Spotify now, too). At the time, The TJC Challenge took about three hours to complete. Last year it took around seven-and-a-half hours.
Now it takes (approximately) eight hours and fifty-five minutes—let’s call it nine (9) hours to listen to my full discography. Note that only includes the stuff on the streaming platforms (twenty-three releases, although Electrock Music and Electrock II: Space Rock are combined as a double-album on streaming platforms, so technically it’s twenty-four releases); my Bandcamp page has thirty releases (use promo code challenge to get 90% off any purchase there through 11:59 PM UTC on 30 April 2026).
So, need some unusual instrumental jams (plus my singer-songwriter comedy EP, Contest Winner) to get you through the workday? Then take The TJC Challenge!
Instructions for how to do so are below, but here’s the YouTube instructions, as they’re probably the most accessible for most readers/listeners:
YouTube Method
Don’t use Apple Music? No problem. The cheapest method (no monthly subscription to a streaming service) is via YouTube. The only downside is that there’s no way to play through all albums without having to select individual releases.
Still, here’s the YouTube method:
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Hover over one the album you’d like to listen to first and click “Play All”
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Rinse and repeat for each album
Whatever you listen to, I hope you enjoy! If you do listen to my tunes, please let me know what you think.
With that, here is 24 April 2025’s “TBT: The TJC Challenge“:
Midweek Koi Pond Update IV: Purple Leopard Ramshorn Snails
Maintaining a koi pond is a hobby that can take on a life of its own. In learning about keeping koi and maintaining a pond, I’ve learned that a common phenomenon is people getting hooked on buying more fish. Given that a full-grown koi can go for $50 or even hundreds of dollars, the hobby can get very expensive very quickly. I’m thankful, then, that the previous owners stocked the pond so well.
What I find myself looking for are not more koi (not necessarily), but more species that I can introduce to the pond to increase its biodiversity. At least, that’s the rationale—I really just want an excuse to buy more snails and minnows and what not.
So far, I’ve added rosy red minnows, two small butterfly koi, ramshorn snails, and Japanese Trapdoor Snails. My next planned addition is three dojo/weather loaches, which are a peaceful, eel-like fish that feeds along the bottom of the pond. In searching for those loaches, I came upon an eBay listing for seven purple leopard ramshorn snails.
These are just a color morph of ramshorn snails. Instead of the typical dark brown, they have a slightly purplish, speckled appearance. I would not have bothered purchasing them except that they were eight bucks (with free shipping), so I figured, “why not”? They should add to the genetic mix of the existing ramshorn population.
One thing I’m learning when purchasing live animals on the Internet (read that out loud and it will sound questionable) is that, like most things in life, you often get what you pay for.
New Music Tuesday XIIa: WIP: “Japanese Trapdoor Snails”
It’s a quick installment of New Music Tuesday today, friends. I’m working on a piece called “Japanese Trapdoor Snails”; I’m attempting to capture a quintessentially “Japanese” sound, although I’m not sure if I’m succeeding just yet.
It’s for flute, oboe, classical guitar, and drums (so far). I’ll likely continue to add instrumentation as needed.
Here’s a thirty-second bit of what I have so far:
Still a bit static, but what do you think of this odd little piece in its current form? Does it have legs—or one big, fat, muscular belly-foot?
Happy Listening!
—TPP
Be Back Tomorrow
It’s been an insanely busy Monday, preceded by an exhausting weekend that only made Dr. Wife and I more worn out than rested. I’m writing this brief post before hitting the road to go home—to do more work I didn’t get done today.
On the plus side, a shipment of a handful of purple leopard ramshorn snails are waiting on the front stoop, so I’ll get those in the pond tonight.
Be back tomorrow.
—TPP
Lazy Sunday CCCLXXXIV: Education Posts
The school year is in its last legs, and soon yours portly will be transitioning to his new life of once-a-week chaplaincy and quasi-full-time writing. After my reaccreditation team visit (see below), I’ve been reflecting more and more about education; it seemed like a good time to look back at some posts on the topic:
- “SubscribeStar Saturday: Educational Tyranny” (SubscribeStar) – a piece about the systemic cowardice of administrators.
- “SubscribeStar Saturday: The State of Education Update II” (SubscribeStar) – some reflections on education a few years ago.
- “SubscribeStar Saturday: SCISA Reaccreditation Visit” (SubscribeStar) – reflections on the reaccreditation process as the observer, rather than the observed.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP