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Robert Aguinaga

Mrs. Jones

English

17 May 2019

Appreciation Paper

In middle school, I was heavily involved in band. I played jazz, percussion AND regular

ensemble band. I went from the alto saxophone to the baritone saxophone to the tenor saxophone

within my 3 years of middle school. Once I got to high school, I didn’t do jazz, nor percussion,

and I honestly thought I was too cool for band. It got to a point where I started to ditch practice,

missed performances and didn’t take my instrument home, and I overall just stopped caring

about band. I still stuck with it, though because I made friends in band and deep down I still

enjoyed playing the saxophone. This continued until my junior year of high school when I was

transferred to Golden Valley.

When I was transferred to Golden Valley (GV) I was filled with resentment. I didn’t want

to go to GV because I had already had a girlfriend at Merced High and we were inseparable, but

we were ripped apart because of our poor decisions; dramatic, I know. I soon got over it and

accepted that I’m officially going to GV. The first day of school, I went to my 1A class which

was band and played some music with the GV band. After 1A, my band teacher, Mr. Vasquez

(Mr. V), called me into his office and encouraged me to join his jazz ensemble. At first, I was

kind of reluctant for a few reasons; one reason is because I was still kind of bitter about being

there at GV and not at Merced High and another reason is because I haven’t done jazz since the

eighth grade. I ended up telling him that I would love to join his jazz ensemble, and I only told
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him yes because everyone there seemed nice and very welcoming, especially Mr. V, and also

because I did enjoy jazz in middle school, so why wouldn’t I enjoy it in high school?

After being put in his B Jazz ensemble, which is the second ranked jazz ensemble (A Jazz

being the first and C Jazz being the beginners rank), we all had to do improvisation. When it was

my turn to improv’, that was the best I’ve felt since I was in band in my junior high years. Ever

since my first day in that Jazz class, the love that I had for band in my middle school years

rekindled and I didn’t want to make the mistake of quitting again.

If you’re still wondering who this appreciation letter is about, it’s about my band teacher

from GV, Mr. V. I appreciate him because he gave me the opportunity to fall back in love with

not just music alone, but the genre it holds within itself, jazz. Mr. V taught me a lot in just 1 year

than Merced High taught me in 2 years. Sadly, I left Golden Valley without saying anything, not

even a goodbye or a thank you to Mr. V, for Merced High, and honestly it was very stupid of me

to just leave like that because I left a very high quality band teacher with a great heart for music

and his students and basically just someone I look up to a lot. I learned that I shouldn’t quit at

something I love doing because I let my ego get to me.