The Life of a Socially Awkward Band Girl

November 6, 2013

So we had our first concert of the year tonight... we could've done so much better.

I think our bad luck started when Nate showed up 30 seconds before we started warming up instead of the call time 20 minutes prior. And our second oboist didn't show up until warmups were over, so that was really cool.

Our concerts are structured so that the freshman band goes first, followed by the non-auditioned band, finishing with the wind ensemble, my band. The freshman band was pretty good- they played two pieces that were a good fit for their band. However, I think it was Watson who cut them off in the 3rd bar of their 1st piece because no one could figure out where beat one was. He just kinda looked at them for a while, regrouped, and started over.

The symphonic band was great. Their oboist is progressing very well, and she had a few solos that all sounded really well prepared. And they didn't get lost, which is a huge plus.

So then we walk up after symphonic band exited the stage, I get all nestled into my seat, get my reed on my bocal, and we play a few long tones to get the air moving. Our first piece went pretty well, nothing too dramatic. Our second piece was Ave Maria, and Nate had a solo. It was absolutely beautiful, but he seemed really upset about it after we finished the piece. That's weird for him though, because he always seems so confident and almost cocky, but he was really shaky and kinda vulnerable-seeming, you know? Anyway, we played a Grainger piece after that, and that went pretty okay, just a few cracks and stuff. Not a huge deal.

But then we get to our last piece: "Give Us This Day" by David Maslanka. If you don't know of Maslanka's work or this piece, listen to it. The first movement went really well for us- our clarinets were fantastic, our piano string plucker guy picked the right notes, we were in tune, it was awesome...

And then we get to the second movement. Our trumpets like to play very fast, and our percussion and horn sections like to play very slow. We got about 80 bars of playing around the beats and in the wrong measures and not playing at all before Sherlock cut us off. Now this was something that I didn't know could be done. I'd never seen the wind ensemble get cut off during a performance ever. According to Jake, who's in symphonic band, everyone thought it was a grand pause or something until Sherlock said to start at measure 85 and then everyone kinda groaned and gasped a little because it had neeeevvvver been done before. It didn't get much better from there though, to be completely honest.

What's even better is that our band was one of 16 bands to be selected for a national festival in Indianapolis in the spring, which basically means we're one of the best 16 bands in the entire country. If we're among that list, I have very little hope for this country's future in music education.

.Xx