It was the best of concerts. It was the worst of concerts.

My kids are musical. Zaven plays cello, Caly plays violin and trumpet and sings in the chorus, Zoe has perfect pitch, and Quinn knows more song lyrics than actual words. And this week, all that music came to a head. In the past 7 days, I've been to a professional musical show, a school band concert, a school chorus concert, an afterschool strings concert, and a Christmas party featuring professional violinists and singers as well as group singing.

It all began last weekend, when Zaven, Scott, and I got to go to a professional performance of Stomp! in Cincinnati. And while I really enjoyed it, they were not the best show of the week. Of course, they were not the worst of the week either. That honor fell to the middle school chorus. They were doing one of those productions where there's a recorded soundtrack for them to sing along with, and a fairly stupid play that they read off of scripts. Yup. Read. In barely audible monotones. In their defense, the teacher explained that several students had gotten sick that morning and these kids had filled in at the last minute. But it was bad. Very, very bad.

On the flip side was the strings program. Now you may think that a meet-for-half-an-hour-once-a-week strings class with over a dozen beginning violin players would sound like a screechy nightmare. But they are GOOD. Really, really good. I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera to record them. It was a joy to go hear the results of all their hard work. They always blow me away, too. The class is taught by a little old woman in her 80's whom you can barely hear speak, but man can she teach a kid to play the violin. And even if my kids weren't in it, I'd go to that program any day of the week.