9/8 Competition

Well, there really isn't much to say about our first competition. It can be summed up in one word: terrible. Utterly terrible. This is the East High Band at its worst. I take that back. I'm sure we could have done more things incorrectly, but that would be a strech. We ended up with a score of 55.35. The only other SS3 band that did Week 1 competition was Westmoreland (they were at the same place) and they got a 64.75. Some things went well. I think. The woodwinds came in on their echo part in Natural Woman, and people played the whole way through the show. That isn't saying that they played it well, but they did play. And one of the judges said that our ending triads (chords) were nicely in tune a couple of times. This is the first year I've listened to the judges tapes. We got slaughtered. We decided to perform the entire show, but we stood still for segment 3 (South rampart Street parade) and then did a scatter drill thing to get to Segment 4 (Closer Walk). When we got back to teh school and watched the tape, I mainly watched Benson's face. It was a mixture of shock, horror, confusion and disappointment. This week we've focused on re-learning the drill/music for Segment 3. And tomorrow/Friday we are going to just starting running the show. And this Friday we've got sectionals from 3-5 and Saturday from 1-3

Oh, I forgot to mention the fact the we got back to East around 11, unloaded the truck, watched the video and THEN had a section leader meeting with Benson. I didn't leave East until midnight. That was terrific.

School has been pretty crazy. I'd write more, but I'm not really in the mood. I just wanted to get a post up about the competition.

Fire Drill Friday

Gotta love fire drill Friday. Every single class gets shortened a little bit, and you get to walk out into the obscenely hot outdoors. Which are almost as bad as the classrooms. It was completely disgusting. I was soaked by the end of first period. So, the rest of the day I was : upset about band, hot, sweaty, smelly, and tired. Just like everyone else.

Yeah, band did not go well today. It was bad. In every aspect of the word. I don't know which was worse- not using Dr. Beat, or trying to use it. Either way, I got stuck trying to fix the band's mistakes every 5 seconds. And I don't like it when I have to stop conducting and then start again to keep the band together. That's just ridiculous. Plus, we've got our first competition tomorrow. So pretty much all the sectional leaders were upset after band. That's why we've got sectional scheduled from 12- 2 tomorrow (some are starting at 1). And for once, every single section is having a sectional. Except the drum majors. I'm running the clarinet sectional because Olivia needs to get some CAS hours done (I am so thankful I'm past that). And they will know their entrances in Natural Woman by the time I get through with them.

One class of note: In HOA, Hurd decided to give up on trying to teach us, so we watched some random video clips from last year (the videos from the 50s, Ike for President, They're taking taking the Hobbits....)

And in Spanish, Senora Tunison (who has had me for 2 years, this is the third) said that this was the most tired I've ever looked in her class before. Which was probably very true.

Afterschool Jenna hung out with me for a bit, then I helped my mom with some final uniform stuff. Always lots of fun in the uniform room. Especially when it reaks of smelly feet and body odor.

Then I took a quick shower, and went to my youth orchestra audition. I auditioned for Augusto and Dr. McBreardy, which somewhat suprising, since I though Scott Kelley was going to be there. The audition went well, and I'm in.

I then came home, ate some leftover stuffed shells from my birthday, finished watching West Side Story.

Now I'm just hanging out, enjoying the air conditioning. I'm going to watch the new episode of Pysch and completely dread the sectional and competition tomorrow.

End of Summer

Well, here it is. The night before the first day of my senior year. This summer felt so long, and yet so short. Here's my review of the summer:

I did write my Extended Essay, and it's not too terribly bad

I've gotten most of one of my compositions written

I've got some other random ideas for the second one and the third one I haven't even thought about yet

I did no work at all on my IB Music comparitive paper

I managed to visit 4/5 clarinet professors at the colleges I'm thinking about attending

I found out that I got into All-State

I've got some good clarinet music to work on for my college auditions

My clarinet teacher and I decided what solos we'd look at this year

I took a lot of time to relax and do nothing

I watched Disney movies, Psych season one, All three seasons of House, and on Friday nights watched the current episodes of Psych

I actually spent some time with friends outside of Band Camp

I went to Freshmen Intros and survived. And I learned the names of the freshmen

Band camp went prety well. It had it's ups and downs, as did I

And my drum majors didn't totally rebel against me when I was being a jerk for no reason (usually when I'm a jerk, there's a reason)

I read some books that I really wanted to read

I got my liscense

I was actually able to make it to Youth Group a couple of times

I re-discovered the fact that I have the most amazing family and friends in the world

I survived 2 major near mental/emotional breakdowns

That was my summer

Period

NYSFBC

Well, the NYSFBC has the schedule for this season up and running. Here's what we're going up against:

Week 1: 9/8 Westmoreland, placed 4th last year at the Dome, score of 77.15

Week 3: 9/22 Pioneer, 6th, 72.70
CSAT, Last, 64.30
Wellsville, 8th, 71.55
Dansville, 10th, 68.85

Week 5: 10/6 Wellsville, Bath

Week 6: 10/13 Westmoreland, CSAT, Pioneer

Week 8: 10/27 Johnson City. Yes folks, they followed us to SS3. Remember, they beat us at the Dome by .55 This can not and will not happen again!!!

To put it all into perspective, here are our scores from last year:

Week 1: 9/9 64.00

Week 3: 9/23 70.80

Week 4: 9/30 67.25

Week 6: 10/14 70.15

Dome: 76.85

If you're curious about past scores, etc visit www.nysfbc.org The show hosts post the scores each week after the competitions so you can keep track of all the standings

Not so Yippie

I really don't want school to start. Severly don't want to school to start. For several reasons:

1) I have to start doing IB work again

2) I didn't complete all my IB work for the summer

3) I'm a senior. That makes me feel old. And it means I've only got one year left with everybody

4) We basically have 3 mornings to rehearse until we get slaughtered at our first band competition

5) I have to fill out colelge applications, get auditions set up, apply for scholarships, write essays = ICK

6) Once again, I've only got a year left. Much as I'll be glad to leave IB, I don't want to elave my friends. Even though I'm sure they'll be glad to leave me.

In other news, I did some slight revising on my extended essay. It's 3, 442 words. That's if I put all the pieces of music in an appendix.

In a completely unrelated story, my dog was really sore yesterday for some reason and it was really sad. She could barely stand up. But she's doing better today.

In Sunday School, I kinda sorta hung out with Lauren and Tristan. They made me sit in front of them, so the teacher had a grand and glorious time picking on me. Thanks a lot guys! Then Lauren showed me her baby brother who is sooo cute! And big!

Today I also finished reading "Mr. Darcy's Daughters". It was a pretty good novel, but it had more of a modern edge to it than I would ahve liked. Either way, the author was smart to not bring in Darcy or Elizabeth and use new characters (Darcy's 5 daughters) as the basis for her story.

Well, that's it for now!

Yippie!

Thursday I finished the rough draft of my Extended Essay!! I was completely brain dead afterwards, and it probably gets worse towards the end, but the important thing is that I finally finished it!!

Yesterday I had a headache all day. It finally went away for a bit when I took a nap in the car on the way to Mansfield for colelge clarinet lesson #4. It was with Dr. David Wetzel. He's a great teacher and very down-to-earth. He was going to show me how to play something, but explained to me that he was using a really bad reed because he didn't ahve time to find a good one all week. There's a true clarinet player - always blame the reed!!

Now the only teacher I need to meet with is the professor at Houghton. I still haven't worked out a time to meet with him yet.

I can't believe that there's 3 days until school starts. And a week until we get slaughtered at our first band competition of the season.

East High Band Members - We seriously need to discuss times to have extra rehearsals, probably either Friday afternoons or Saturday morning/afternoons. It wouldn't ahve to be every week, but we NEED the extra time/work

25 days until the season premiere of HOUSE!

4 days until my birthday!!