C&SR is next Tuesday. The percussionist we had playing bells for SR moved today. This leaves us five percussionists. We had all parts "covered", but the triangle player was going to just observe since the triangle part doesn't exist in the section we will be playing for the level 3 this year. The person playing triangle is a second semester move in who cannot play mallets (they have no idea what they are doing on it). My options are... a) Leave out the bells part and have them just observe (might raise questions as to why the mallet part isn't being played when there is an available person) b) have them "fake" playing the bells (might be obvious to the judges depending on the part and how visually observant the judges are)
I'm not moving someone else off of another part to cover bells. With less than a week left, the kids are comfortable with their parts and I'm not going to throw them a curveball like that (plus, the triangle player isn't that strong on anything else. We put them on triangle since it is usually a very simple part). Honestly, UIL should have adjusted the percussion instrumentation listing when they announced the cut. What would you do?
For percussion (or any instrument) all parts must be covered if there is a student (can’t opt to sit out in the back if there is a part), but… as stated before, the part is not hard and they can use soft mallets and try their best!
