In the first etude, there's this little sideways S thing. One of my band directors told me what it was but he kind of confused me. He started going off about a G but there was no G. I wanted to ask again but he had to leave.I will ask again tomarrow but maybe someone can help me before that? And maybe he'll confuse me even more.

-Jello-

I think what you're talking about is a turn. If you go to it explains how to play them.


<Added>

Sorry, the URL didn't show up. It's

http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory23.htm

Thank you so much! It says it's a cadence..? i'll figure it out.

i don't know exactly what it's called, but there's one in one of my Senior Regional Orchestra etudes so i had to ask my friend what it was. You didn't specify what the note was, so let's pretend it's a C. it's kind of like a trill, but when you get to the note, you would play it, one below it, the note again, one above, and the note again, quickly. So if the note was a C, you would play: C-B-C-D-C (or wahtever that would be depending on the key signature).

interestingly, my friend told me the oposite of what the site posted a few posters back says. The site says:
"The general shape of the turn is a sequence of four notes, the note above, the note itself, the note below, then the note itself again."

the site's probably right, come to think of it, but whatever.
hopefully that helps?