Jazzing It Up

As you know from yesterday's 4:30am blog post, yesterday was the state jazz festival! And let me tell you it was a super fun day. I got to the school at six and it was very funny because some people were in pajamas, and most were a bit more than half-asleep, and that includes myself. We headed out around six-thirty for our three and a half hour drive up north. Thank goodness it was a coach bus so we were comfortable :) It was probably one of the quietest rides on a band bus that I've ever had, probably because it was so early. I just killed the time by texting Lucy and reading some Harry Potter.
We did stop a little over halfway to get something to eat which made me very happy because by then I was STARVING! Some hashbrowns and and iced tea from Dunkin Donuts were just what I needed :) Finally we pulled in at the high school where the festival was being held. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot though, there were cries and groans of dismay from the whole band as we realized that we'd walked into a complete dead zone for cell phone coverage. This of course made my mother very worried that I wasn't answering her texts and so forth, because they couldn't come through. LOL.
We went up to our homeroom and once we dropped off our stuff, a good sized group of us went around to get a general idea of where things were, a good lay of the land. After that, we decided that if we didn't want our director to get mad at us we might as well go listen to one of the other band's combos so a few of us went to do that which was fun, and the others went to find food. The band was fairly good, but when they were done we had to go back to the homeroom and help our combo get ready. After the combo played we pretty much just chilled. Ate some food, talked a lot in the cafeteria, went to the combo awards, went back to the homeroom, listened to chill music, sung four part harmony to Jason Maraz's "I'm Yours", polished my trumpet until it gleamed so much it was painful to look upon it, until it was time for our warmup. Also, our band director was in a really good mood, making jokes and everything which is a real change from how he usually acts, let me tell you!
Our warmup was KILLER. I played a few notes and they sounded just amazing so I took it really slow and easy and our band just sounded really really great. All my nervousness totally dissipated because every good musician knows that you can only have a good performance if you have a good warmup. Warmups are so so very crucial. We went out to play at 4:30, and it was awesome. I was TOTALLY on fire, which I was super happy about because I played loud, high, and strong, my solo was great, and the whole band was nailing it. It was certainly one of the best times we played our songs, and finally, FINALLY I was playing exactly like the lead trumpet player my band director wanted me to play like. After performing, I was so happy. We had more chill time before the awards so I grabbed more food, and me and a friend had a lot of fun at one of the table in the cafeteria where they had lots of instrument and mouthpieces for students to try out. We had fun playing some sweet trombones and trying out about a million different trumpet mouthpieces. Then came our awards ceremony and our band got SECOND PLACE. We were so amazingly happy. Ahh, what can I say? I was an amazing day; I love hanging with the band, I love being a band geek.