Going for the Gold

One more week.

Ten or more hours of ensemble practice.

Countless hours of the music and drill running through my brain.

Welcome to finals week.

When once again, I become caught up in an even more constant stream of marching band, to fix every single little detail so that it is completely flawless.

Sometimes, our band is so caught up in being perfect, it scares me just a bit. Winning is so ingrained into our thought process that any other outcome is just not there. We know what we need to do in this next week, and we're on the right track now, after scoring very very well at last night's show.

The standard that we must meet.

Probably the most important thing to our band director, the thing that we must uphold at all costs.

The only thinkable outcome, the one we must achieve to fully have had a successful season.

 I welcome myself now, into a very crazy week as we go for the gold.

PSAT, Fiddler, Florida

Today has been an exciting sort of day.

I started it off with the PSAT. I wasn't nervous going into the test, and I didn't need to be because honestly, it was pretty easy.... I felt really really good about the reading and writing parts especially and the math was easier than anticipated. YAY.

The really exciting thing that happened today was that they posted what the musical is going to be for this year along with the cast list. Last year was Les Mis which was simply incredible and this year it's time for....

*drumroll*

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF!

I'm really excited. Fiddler is a great musical and I really like it so this should be a lot of fun. Bring on the pit rehearsals!

Another really cool thing that's been happening that I don't think I've told you yet is that I'm going to Florida over February vacation - with the band! We get to do some performances and workshops at Disney, and spend time at all the theme parks there, plus spend a day at Universal at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. SO EXCITED. It's going to be an amazing trip, and I've been feverishly fundraising for it. I made my first payment today, so it's now official. Florida, here I come!

Only bad thing today is that I've felt awful and sick. Of course this has to come up when I have tests tomorrow auditions for All-State and districts on Friday and Tuesday respectively and a show on Saturday. This better clear up, NOW.

Whirlwind

It certainly has seemed like a whirlwind this past week- hence my not posting which I apologize about. Must get better about that. Sorry. Anyway, there have been three big things happening this week.

The first is, of course, marching band. Naturally, I'm totally loving every second of it....well...not the seconds when my water bottle exploded but pretty much every other second. We have worked hard for several hours every day this past Monday-Friday usually around 4 to 9 in the evening. It's been a lot of fun to get back with the family (and oh what a crazy family we are) doing slides and flip-flops and jazz runs in advanced technique block, frantically memorizing music, marking and re-marking sets with chalk and soap, marching and playing and getting yelled at and singing and marching and getting yelled at again. It's been good. Really really good.

The second thing has been nowhere near as much fun. Summer homework. I've been working like crazy reading biographies, textbook chapters, articles, and novels, answering questions, doing reading logs and taking an AP practice exam. Thankfully, I am nearly done and should finish tomorrow or Monday. I have made great progress the past couple of days, for example I just sat down today and wrote a two and a half page essay on why John Brown was an influential person in American history.

Not cool.

Very very boring.

And finally, the hurricane. In a few hours Irene will strike my area, and who knows what's gonna happen then. As one of my friends posted on facebook today, 'I live in Maine! I should be worrying about moose attacks and blizzards, not hurricanes!'. Hurricanes are kind of odd for us out here, I mean we were supposed to be hit by Earl and Kyle last year but they both went out to sea, but Irene isn't going to do that. She's going to be tearing into here tonight, so tomorrow and Monday should be interesting. For those of you also on the East Coast where the hurricane has already hit or will hit, good luck and my prayers are with you! I will try and give you an update of how I am doing through the storm tomorrow, but if the power is out I'll have to wait on that :)

4th Festivities

Ahhh....it sure is good to be home! I'm going to try and really enjoy this week here before I leave on Saturday...for the rest of the month. 

Our family had a great time up in Bar Harbor for the weekend. As I mentioned in my previous post, my mom, dad, brother, aunt and her boyfriend, and I went for a hike up Acadia Mountain. We did Flying Mountain last year which is pretty much just a big hill, so this was more strenuous, but more fun too! X kept being crazy and jumping off of rocks and scaring people and pretending to be a monkey while caw-ing like a crow. Don't ask me what was going through that boy's mind, because I don't know. On both the way down and up there were some nice rock ledges to scramble up and down which was quite fun, although that was the time that I was glad that I had left my camera at home, else it probably would have been smushed onto the rocks. It was very nice and windy at the top which was a relief, so we stayed and rested up there for a bit. It was very cool to look all around and see all the other mountains in the area. It's crazy how many mountains fit onto Mount Desert Island...

We went out to dinner that night which was nice, and then for the 4th we started out the day by going into town for the big 4th of July parade. Who knew that Bar Harbor put on such a long and awesome parade? There were all sorts of mini racecars and floats and firetrucks and clowns and such. plus they all throw candy and because I have been marching in parades with the band for so long a had forgotten how much fun it is to dive for the candy thrown into the streets. Bwahaha. One of life's greatest pleasures. 

After the parade, there were festivities in the park so I had some french fries, a cherry and blue raspberry snowcone and I also got a wicked cool wallet before we left for the campground again.  The afternoon was pretty chill, we went swimming, read books and lounged around and ended the day with a meal of chicken salad sandwiches (or fake chicken in the case of my mom and I), potato salad, and corn on the cob with homemade strawberry shortcake for dessert. YUM!

We headed home after that and so now I'm just chilling here this week before band camp starts, doing laundry and a whole lot of practicing. Somebody around here is shooting to get first chair, if you know what I mean... ;)

March Through The Sun

Today? Uh....BRUTAL.

I woke up and honestly, the fact that I showered really didn't mean much after the parade.

Right away I checked the hour by hour forecast online, and learned that it was extremely humid, and also in the high 70's-mid 80's.

Now in middle school, these temperatures are uncomfortable when you're in uniform, but it's ok to deal with. Middle school uniform is only jeans and the band t-shirt, you see. I honestly got a little annoyed when I heard middle schoolers complaining about the heat and having to wear full length jeans.

I mean REALLY? Did they not see what the high school marching band was wearing? 

I don't have any pics from today yet, but I was able to grab one from the fall when we were lining up for our formal photo so you can see what our uniforms sorta are like. 

^^Seriously only like 2 of six rows of the band. And of course I'm in front. Because I'm short. I'm the fourth one in the right in the front row in fact.

So, as you can see, our uniforms consist of black bib pants, black marching shoes, black gloves, heavy formal jackets, and Aussie hats with plumes, although we went without the plumes today. :'(
Only our faces show, which means during the cold shows in the fall, we're kept nice and toasty. Today, we were too toasty. Way too toasty.

We were in uniform at eight this morning, and did warm-ups and block before going to the beginning of the parade where we just waited around and roasted for a bit before step-off at ten-thirty. I had already begun to overheat and the sun was still hiding behind some clouds!
Of course, right at step-off the sun decided to show its bright shining face and make the temperature spike yet again.
This of course made the whole of the rather long parade route almost unbearable in our stifling uniforms.
Sticky, sweaty, gross, you have NO IDEA how relieved I was at the end of the parade to be able to strip off my jacket, and pull off my gloves and hat. Felt soooo good.
Now I know why they wait to collect and clean the uniforms until AFTER Memorial Day....

Anyway, after the parade I also had my first driver's ed class which was good! It's back to school tomorrow which I'm not that excited about, but I'll deal with it. It's the home stretch after all!

Here Comes The Sun

Jocee at the Cupcake Dictionary is having a blog party! It's perfect because it's called the 'Here Comes The Sun: Blog Party' and then sun has finally been out and shining brightly these past few days around here.

So link up, it's going to be a lot of fun and to participate in some of it I'm going to do her little question/answer thingy.

• What would your dream summer vacation be? Personally I love my summer vacations already because I get to spend them doing some of the things that I love most, being at Pilgrim Lodge, band camp and marching band :)
• After a rainstorm, what you think of when you see the sun peeking out from the clouds? Usually I'm like 'THANK GOODNESS. It's rained far to long, now let's have some SUN!'
• If you were stranded on a desert island with the sun streaming down on you and had ONE palm tree for shade, you can only have three things with you; what would they be? Well, since I'm a logical person, I would have a BIG container filled with drinking water, that could also catch rainfall, I would have a giant beach umbrella that would shade me from the sun and that I could huddle under in the rain, and I would also have a fishing line so I could catch something to eat.
• Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry or neapolitan? Well, considering I'm a terrible decision maker, neapolitan. 
• If you saw your celebrity crush walking down the beach with a surfboard, what would you do? Uh...faint? I don't even HAVE a celebrity crush... 
• If you went back in time for a day, what era would you go back to, and why? Sally no like these questions....Sally like where she live now....
• What's your favorite thing about waking up on a summer morning? NO SCHOOL!!!!! YAY!
• Your soundtrack or theme song(s) for the summer: for the summer? The marching band show! So basically, my soundtrack for this summer will be National Treasure.
• Say you went to California to visit family. What's the first thing you would buy? Well, since it's hot in California, and I'm addicted to ice cream, I would buy ice cream.
• Manicure, pedicure, or facial? Pedicure. Things get scraped off my fingernails too easily.
• What's your favorite color combination? I enjoy a soft green, blue and yellow, or a bright red, black and white.
• If you were at the beach and you wanted to write a message in the sand, what would you write? I do like drawing in the sand but I don't usually write anything, I just draw treble clefs. If I was going to write something I would probably have no inspiration whatsoever and end up writing something lame like 'Sally was here.'
• You're stuck in Paris with $10,000. What do you do? Ahh Paris....I miss it so much. From my experience there, I would probably blow it all on baguette and crêpes and pastries and chocolate......
• What's your most favorite type of summer weather? When it's early evening and the worst of the heat is gone and it's not very humid and there's just a slight breeze and the scent of sweet grass and barbecue flots through the air.
• Blowing bubbles while taking a bubble bath? Uh...YES. That sounds awesome.
• Cupcakes or dictionaries? What kind of a question IS this? CUPCAKES!!!!!!!!

Heehee, that was fun. I guess I'm off now to ready my trumpet and trombone, we've got out spring concert tonight and I think it should go really well!

Six Flags

Yesterday was a great day spent with the band. We headed down to West Springfield in the morning and played in the festival at the local high school. We did very well, and got gold!

After playing, we headed over to Six Flags New England to spend several hours at the park.

It was very fun and I got to go on four roller coasters :) 

Here are pictures of them, curtsey of Google Images.

It was totally awesome and epic.

The bus ride home wasn't that great however, I was wet from the log flume, extremely tired, not feeling too great and the bus weirdly just stopped working and stopped at the side of the road not once, but three times. Yay...

All in all though, it was awesome :)

Blogger is Confusing Me.......

So....I wanted to post yesterday, and I couldn't. Because for some reason Blogger was down, and no one could get on, blah, blah, blah....

And then, (this is really weird), I get on Blogger this afternoon, on Treble Clef, and my latest post is 'Google Loves Mr Men' which was posted on Monday.

Which I'm thinking cannot be right because I so wouldn't have not posted since Monday.

Blogger, or something, deleted my most recent post.

My post about upcoming final exams, 'The End Is Near' is nowhere to be found. Not on my dashboard, not on my edit posts, not on my blog, the comments on that post weren't under the comments tab anymore....

Sally is very confuzzled. Very confuzzled indeed.

But aside from that, my Friday the 13th has gone very well, and I wouldn't say it was a bad day at all!

Tomorrow is going to be such a fun day, we're driving down to West Springfield, Massachusetts for a band competition and spending the next seven hours after the performance at Six Flags! Going to be so so great, and I'm excited. Band and amusement parks....it really couldn't get much better :) 

Avatar

We all know the movie Avatar, right? You know....the blue people?

Like, this movie?

Anyway, it's a suuuuper awesome-ly good movie, and because I'm a band geek and know this, it's got a really great soundtrack. Imagine my delight then when I'm told we're playing selections from it for our upcoming concert.

I was pretty much like: EEEEEP!!!! WE'RE PLAYING SONGS FROM AVATAR!!!!!!

And I was able to listen to the arrangement the same guy arranged a Lion King medley that we played earlier in the year and he's really good, and this arrangement was no different. So here are the YouTube videos for the soundtrack and just imagine our band playing them. It is. SO. TOTALLY. EPIC.

Enjoy! :)

G is for Gig

G is for Gig

Well....concert would be a more accurate term for what I'm going to talk about but that starts with a C and I needed a word that started with G and this was the best I came up with. Yeah it's slang, yeah it's not grammatically correct, but it just so happens to be the best word for the topic of this post. Hmph.

What in the world is a gig? You may ask this question. Dictionary.com seems to have several different meanings for the word 'gig', and the definition I wanted was.....at the bottom. Welcome to my life...

Anyway,

gig4

noun, verb, gigged, gig·ging. Slang .

–noun

1.

a single professional engagement, usually of short duration, as of jazz or rock musicians.

2.

any job, especially one of short or uncertain duration: a teaching gig out west somewhere.

–verb (used without object)

3.

to work as a musician, especially in a single engagement: He gigged with some of the biggest names in the business. 

Today, as you may have guessed, we had a little concert, or, as we may as well call it, a gig. It was a judged affair and went very very well. In our clinic/critique afterwards the judge basically just told us we were awesome, he didn't have anything to work on with us. That was pretty cool, I guess they really thought we were good. We'll just have to see what our final score came out to be.

Our pieces were called Deer Path Dances, Country Wildflowers and Sky Dance. Sky Dance was by far my favorite. It was really high and big and bold and fast and plain AWESOME. Totally cool.

Now just time to prepare for our Pops Concert at the end of May. I know we're playing a medley of Elton John stuff, a piece called Music for a Darkened Theater which is like a medley of songs from action/thriller/horror movies, and a third tune that may or may not be a concert band arrangement of Owl City's Fireflies! I know my band director bought the chart and the score earlier this year and he was thinking of doing it for this upcoming concert and I'm really hoping that he will. I would so love to play that song in band...

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.

Bagels + Music. Who Knew?

Who doesn't love a warm, freshly baked, toasted bagel, topped with you favorite cream cheese? I think my favorite two bagels are a sea salt bagel from Scratch Bakery, served cold with just plain bagel, or a toasted everything bagel from Mister Bagel with yummy veggie cream cheese. Ooh. I'm really starting to crave bagels just writing about them! I must remedy that.

*Runs downstairs*

Darn. No bagels in the kitchen...oh well. I've got a couple slices of pizza from dinner last night, that will make a good snack once I'm done with this post.

Anyway, if bagels themselves are so awesome, what happens when you combine bagels with my favorite thing EVER- music?

Ahh, the result would be interesting, wouldn't you think?

Well, this is a story of music and bagels.

Yesterday, we had a sub in band, so we all just sat around and treated it like a study hall. I was sitting with my friends Hannah, Cara, and Isabella and we were talking a bunch, but I was also bored. They all had had homework assigned in their previous class but I had none, and 85 minutes is a long time to sit around doing nothing, plus I had forgotten my Harry Potter book at home which made me sad. So. 

First I was like 'Oh, I should do some practicing.' But all the practice rooms were taken. 

Then I thought 'I'll work on the coda of 'Bring Him Home'. But my chord changes and basic outline of the song were...at home. So basically I ended up right back where I started. And I'm not sure how it started but either Hannah or Cara was like 'Write us a song, Sally! About bagels!' And they went on to explain how it needed to have noises that went 'whoop! whoop! whoop!' and it needed to start out really chill, and then be all attack like and then slow and pretty and happy. Oh, and there had to be chanting of 'Bagels, bagels, oh my soul.' included. 

So yesterday, I wrote them a song about bagels. And it was probably the most fun I have ever had arranging or composing and I was laughing throughout the whole process. But the song came out quite nice actually, and I have the computer recording in this video for you to listen to. However, please be warned that this recording is simply AWFUL. It pays no attention to dynamics, tempos, balance, articulations, fermatas, etc. Plus the slide whistle doesn't, uh, slide and make the 'whoop! whoop!' sound it's supposed to and the clarinet sounds like a 5th grader is playing it. Quite annoying actually. Soon, hopefully, we will have a much better recording that we play. But now I present you with my composition of:

Bagels, Bagels (Oh My Soul)

March Musings

Yo peeps. LOL, I guess I'm feeling a little gangster (or 'gangstah' if you want to say it the way we Mainers do) Must be the new shirt I'm wearing...kinda gangster, grunge-like. Or maybe I just really wanted to start my post with 'Yo peeps'. I dunno.

Anyway, some musings on MARCH.

March is our 3rd month (duh), but in the time of the Roman empire, March, or what they called it, Martius, in celebration of their god, Mars. Just a little fun fact for ya :)

So now that it's March, I am so ready for the snow to disappear. That would be fantastic. I want it to get warmer and sunnier, and have the birds singing, the grass to grow, and for the early spring flowers to pop up from underground.

I'm tired of the snow....so I'm desperate for winter to end and not go on into APRIL as it has in the past. Seriously, a few years ago we got little snow during the winter, it was pretty mild, we got through March, it seemed like spring had sprung....

and out of nowhere, in the middle of April, we had two huge blizzards.

That wasn't a lot of fun, especially when we thought winter was gone.

This winter though has been pretty chilly and we've gotten a bunch of snow. The band room has been absolutely FREEZING since, like, November because the heat didn't turn on.

It was literally 51º (F) in there yesterday! Brrr! So cold, I had to use my plastic mouthpiece.

And then today, March first, what do they do?

THEY ACTUALLY TURN ON THE HEAT.

And once the heat is on, it's quite nice in the band room, actually. 70º (F) this morning to be exact. It was quite nice! My only question is....why couldn't they have just turned the heat on last December?

So that's March so far....I always find it a long, and often boring month, so I sure hope it goes fast!

i'm a tuba failure

So...confession.

I pride myself on being able to learn instruments fast and easily.

Perfecting is another matter, I'm talking basics here although there are some instruments I'm quite good at. (I'd say I'm best at trumpet family, trombone and mallet percussion)

Cornet, trumpet, these are my main instruments. This is what I try to always be perfecting. I'm good with trumpet family.

In the middle of my 7th grade year we got XanFan's trombone. Because trombones are way cool, I of course wanted to try it out. And I was hooked. 

So I promptly learned it and was ready for all the 8th grade trombone music thrown at me in 8th grade.

In 8th grade in one of the jazz bands I ended up learning a LOT of percussion stuff. I had previous piano experience, and by the end of the year I could do mallet stuff really well as well as auxiliary percussion and a tad of set.

Also in 8th grade I decided that it was about time for me to learn a woodwind. So I started clarinet. And after the first couple tedious days, things came quickly.

 

That's all I learned officially. But I've played my friend Anna's mellophone several times and that's been easy and Lucy had an old flute lying around which I promptly picked up, played, looked up a fingering chart online and immediately began teaching myself to play flute.

But today, XanFan brought home the tuba he's been learning. And he played it for a while and then he said 'Sally, do you wanna try?' 

So I did.

And it was an epic failure. Could barely get sound out of the monstrosity.

And that is why you are not go to see me playing tuba anytime soon....

But tuba....beware.

One day.

I SHALL CONQUER YOU!!!!!

A Little Warning

Hello dear readers, and happy 2011! I'm sure it's going to be another great year of blogging! However, it seems as if the beginning of the year may be short of posts. Unfortunately.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made the pit band for our school's musical, Les Miserablés. Practices were intense before vacation, and now, with school starting up again I've got pit Monday, Wednesday, Friday for three hours and so that takes up a lot of time. By the twenty-first, the pit has rehearsal every night from 5-9 with the performers and obviously that's a huge time commitment up until the days of our six shows.

That being said, I'm really going to have to not be on blogger during this time, just as I'm barely going to be on facebook. I need to work extremely hard on my music for pit, I'm lead trumpet and have a crucial part and have to play it well. I also have upcoming midterms to study for plus all my regular homework and activities to do. Therefore, I'm going to stay on blogger until JANUARY 15, which is my blogoversary and Treble Clef's 2nd birthday, and I couldn't miss that! Part of the blogoversary will be a contest and that contest is just going to go on while I'm on break. I will be gone starting January 16 and I should return on Valentine's Day, February 14. So, almost a month I guess.

But don't worry, I'll be here a few more days, just wanted to give you all a head's up :)

Missing Marching

It's so weird. In marching band we're worked so hard all the time, you'd think that we would at least get some relief once it was over and just chill, and not think about it for a while.

Not such the case. Why do I feel such a strong attraction to something where we get yelled at all the time, among other unpleasant things, like extreme heat and cold? And yet, I love it.

As some smart person once said "At home, at school, at the mall and pretty much everywhere I go, I am a person, and I have a name. But when I get out on to the marching band field, I become a little dot on the drill chart, with only a letter and a number for my name."

Every day I find myself involuntarily singing or humming or thinking the melody of 'Minuano' or 'See The World'. Everyday I find myself walking around the house backwards marching, dressing the lunch line, and attempting to keep three pace intervals between people. 

Yeah, call me a band geek all you want, because it's a title I'll readily accept. Oh marching band....I miss you :)

(and here's even more proof!)

You are 85% band geek!

 

WOW!! you are such a band geek!  that is so incredibly amazing. you might be told a lot that you need to get a life, but your just fine being a BAND GEEK!!

How much of a band geek are you
Take More Quizzes

Are u a band geek? Your Result: Band Geek   You are a band geek! you are most likely to tune out of everything around you and only pay attention to band! you will have no life (which is ok i guess)
Not a Band geek
Are u a band geek? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Are You A Band Geek? Your Result: Yes, you are a band geek   You are a band geek, in that you love to play a wind or percussion instrument, and that you are involved in one or more band activity, like marching band, jazz band, on more. You might even like to practice your instrument.
No, you aren't a band geek
Are You A Band Geek? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

You are 91% Band Geek!

 

Wow. You are the Ultimate Band Geek. Your life pretty much consists of living, breathing and dreaming about ... well band. All of your friends are in the band and your career of choice would probably be in music. The band has been and continues to be the biggest part of your life. There are plenty of people who have scored this high, maybe you should go find them. Weirdo.

Are you a Band Geek?
Take More Quizzes

You are 100% band geeky!

 

Help the people trying to be band geeks! you know enough about being one that you could seriously help them out!

How big of a band geek are you?
Take More Quizzes

awesome marching band quiz Your Result: Trumpets   YES!   congratulations you are a trumpet.  the awesomest instrument in my opinion.  you are cocky, and have the biggest ego.  and you are very loud, obscene, and obviously heard. by everyone in the band.
Mellophones
Low Brass
Flutes
Clarinets
Saxaphones
Drum Line
Pit
awesome marching band quiz Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Marching Band has taken over 100% of your life!

 

You live and breathe Marching Band. Without it, you'd be lost in this world. You want to be first in your section and know everything there is to know about band...and maybe some things the band director doesn't know.

Has Marching Band Taken Over Your Life?
Take More Quizzes

Oh yeah....I'm a band geek.

just...so...tired.......

Ever had one of *those* days?

Days that are just so long and busy and tiring you're literally a slug the next day?

Yeah.....

This was yesterday.

Cornet Crazie rolled out of bed at 5:30 in the morning and got ready for school. She left around 7. School started at 7:30, with study hall for first block. Freezing cold, she went and got some coffee in the cafeteria, which both warmed her up and brought her energy levels up to a reasonable standpoint so that she could get some work done. She stayed by the heaters in English and French, and was able to get through her geometry test OK too. 

School got over at 1:50 and she headed over to the band room for jazz band. At 3:25, jazz let out, and the main office closed and the heat was turned off. Cornet Crazie ate a quick snack and set up her mutes, trumpet and flugalhorn for pit band rehearsal which started at 3:45.

By 4:15, the room had begun to get very very cold as the heat was off, the band room is a large open room, and one of the doors to the outside does not close all the way. By the time pit band got over at 5:30, and Cornet went outside to her mom's car waiting outside, she couldn't tell much difference in the indoor and outdoor temperatures. (Outside it was 26ºF)

She then drove over to her trumpet lesson which went from 6-6:30 and she finally got home around 7. Her family ate dinner and she started on her homework which took a ridiculous amount of time to complete and when it was finally done it was very late at night so she was very sluggish the next morning.

So yeah. This morning I was sooooo tired. I just wanted to sleep sleep sleep. Plus it was like 10 degrees outside so I wore sweatpants to school, which made it feel like I was wearing pajamas, which made me want to sleep. I also had bio first block, and there's no food or drink allowed in the science rooms so no tea or coffee to keep me awake in biology. I had to keep slapping myself so I wouldn't drift off.

I think I'll go to bed early tonight....

Typical. Just Typical.

Everything always goes perfectly when before something important...and only gets screwed up when you need it to be perfect. Isn't that just so typical? Things get busted on the day you need them most?

Yeah.

So we have a band concert tonight. My first one of high school. :)

Everything's been pretty good, I know my parts, my trumpet's been in excellent working condition...

Of course that changes today.

I was sitting in band. I had done my extensive warmup, mouthpiece buzzes, lone tones, lip slurs, scales, chromatics, finished off by some tuning and I was feeling pretty good. Good chop day, nice clean sound, just what you want for concert day.

And then. things went funky. First, my sound went from bright, loud and clear, to airy, soft and scratchy. Which was odd because a couple minutes previously everything was fine.

Then I went to play a high B flat and ended up landing an octave below, though my face was set for the high note. I knew it wasn't fatigue because I'd just started playing, so I took a look at my horn.

Valves all the way in, facing the right direction. No block in the leadpipe. Slides functioning well. All the usual culprits were working fine. It was very odd.

And then I saw it. The tiniest of things, that yet made me not be able to play. Both spit valve pads were missing, letting air escape through other openings, and forcing my sound to be pretty darn awful.

How annoying. Of course, my band director didn't have any that he could put on, not even the normal cork ones (I have the better functioning less wearing out neoprene ones).

Thankfully my mom was able to rush it up to the music store to have it repaired before our concert later.

That was way too much trumpet drama than I really needed today....

The Final Push

Every night for the past week, I've looked up at the gold medal above my bed and thought 'Another one like that. Exactly like that, but with the year 2010 engraved instead of 2009.' 

This year we knew it was going to be hard to get a gold medal at marching band finals. For one, you had to get an overall 5 stars to get gold, instead of last years scoring which was only on a scale of 1-4.

For another, my band director took a huge risk in the music we played this year, in that it was well off of the beaten track of marching band music.

It was the most complex show he'd ever written, and the longest too.

But we also had a great band.

And we kept improving throughout the season earning 3's, and then 4's, but even at our show last weekend, there were still no fives. In would take a truly incredible show to earn a gold medal for the 6th straight year, and uphold our reputation as the best band in the state.

So what did we do? We worked HARD. We'd been working ourselves for the whole season, of course, but this was the final week, our last chance of the season to make it perfect. And so we rose to the occasion with great practices, intense marching, visual additions, and music modifications, and by the end we had only two questions.

Would we be able to pull it off on Saturday?

And what would the judges think?

Yesterday morning dawned sunny and freezing cold, with a temperature of only 33ºF. Brrr! We were at the school at 8am for formal pictures and then we had our final practice. Practice was very good- but cold! I was ever thankful for my plastic mouthpiece, but my trumpet was like ice, and was almost impossible to get sound out of at the beginning! The whole band was extremely thankful of the hand warmer that our *awesome* music boosters passed out.

Practice was soon over though, and we all had a yummy baked potato lunch up at the school before getting on the buses. The bus ride was fun as everyone was really pumped up for the big show and there was a lot of throwing stuff... *sigh* I think I got hit in the head by about three or four packets of mini pretzels.....

The ride was only an hour, and soon we made it to the host school! We got to watch about four or five bands perform before heading back to our area which was nice, except that there weren't any seats left and we had to stand. :P

Finally, it was time to perform. The walkway heading to the band's entrance to the field was lined with pumpkins carved with music notes, "5 Stahs" (the chief judge has a heavy accent and it's become quite popular with all the bands) , and other marching band stuff. It was cool. 

Our performance was AMAZING. Really, all the things we had worked all season to fix, were fixed, and it all came together perfectly. And it paid off too. We were all shaking during retreat when they announced our scores, and we couldn't believe it when we got 5 stars (or 'stahs') in every caption! It was nearly impossible to just stand there after without showing any emotion like we had to do.

So we got our gold medals, we upheld our reputation and had a totally awesome 2010 season.

That's just totally cool.

 Yesterday's (freezing cold practice)

 Headed for the show! (Equipment trailer)

 We trumpets can be.....silly sometimes.

 But we can be serious too.....if need be.

Show! I <3 AstroTurf SO MUCH.

Retreat and awards.....GOLD MEDAL BAND!!! WOOT!

(disclaimer- photos taken by our music boosters)

Nearing The End

There's something about being out on a field for four hours or ever more in either 102º weather at the end of August, giving up your last week of summer, and then freezing to death in the throes of October nights that really pulls a group of people together. Which is why when I get to this part of the year, I have mixed emotions. I'm happy because the end of marching band frees up my Saturdays and some weeknights and I feel light it's just less stressful. But it's sad too. The group that you perform with in the marching band that year will never be the same again, because all the seniors are leaving at the end of the year. And right now, we're about to reach that end. Tonight's our final full ensemble practice, tomorrow marks our last sectional, and Saturday? Finals. Tonight's all about perfecting. Modifying, perfecting, fixing, perfecting, cutting, perfecting. It's all for Saturday, it's all for pride, reputation, and that new gold medal. It's thrilling. Here are a few pictures from last Saturday's practice and show for you to enjoy :)