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[Who is Puffer Fish]

Aww, maybe next year. ):

Mine went well...my prepared pieces had very few errors, my scales were flawless (might have messed up once on chromatic, I don't know), but my sight reading was horrendous.
I only hope that my other scores balance it out to at least a decent degree. I'd like to make it ONCE, really.  

[Terra of the Lilies]

I'm still gonna be in it, I just feel bad now. D= I get nervous like this for playing tests, too. It always happens while I'm playing...it really sucks. xd

I know some people who have the most trouble with scales. I don't know how it is for percussion, but I just find them really easy. I've always been good with scales, apparently.

I can't wait until spring concert season! I know one of the stuff we'll be playing because we sight read it last year...it's amazing! Lots of oboe stuff out in the open. :O And I know a lot of the other music will be hard, too. I like hard music. =D

 

[Who is Puffer Fish]

Good lord, my audition failed.

I got 63/180 on the sight reading, and 300/600 overall.
I was fourth from last, and the lowest score from my school.

Percussion scales are really easy if you know them. All the notes are laid out for you.

Hard music is fun once you know it...I hate sightreading hard music because my director kills me for messing up a lot x_x  

[MHHornfreak]

Well sounds like it was a pretty hard audition D:
Sightreading can be pretty hard, i do it all the time when i sit in for other jazzbands.

There's always hope for next time.
I remember my last audition i failed but when i tried out the next year i blew them away!

Hang in there and show em what for!


Oh and yay for paying gigs! My jazzband is playing at a private party tis weekend and we're getting payed and fed! x3  

[Peutaiite]

sad
There isn't really any of the "audition" band stuff where I live.
Which means I'm stuck with a band that pretty much fails, and half of them don't care.

It was a crushing feeling being sent to the grade 9/10 band. Here's the story.

The senior band was always grades 10, 11, 12, and junior band was grade 9. I HATED being in junior band in grade 9. We sucked, and because most middle schools weren't as good as my old middle school, we played basically the same level as grade 8. I could go weeks to months without practicing, and I could still play everything in band easily. Needless to say, it was an extremely boring experience.

But all that would change in grade 10. Senior band! I was so excited to actually need to practice for once! We were three weeks into senior band, ans I was loving it. It was WAY better than band last year. We actually sounded good. But then the unthinkable happened. Our BD told us that there were only like 20 grade 9s in junior band, and that they sucked. So.... all the grade 10s had to be in junior band again. We were all mad. I was almost in tears when she was announcing it. A bunch of people were talking to her about it after, and I went up to ask her something. Before I could ask, she said, "By the way, you will be one of the grade 10s staying in senior band. Out off your section, I think you'll be able to handle the music the best." I was SO HAPPY! Nothing could bring my mood down.

That night, while excitingly explaining the good news to my parents, the phone rang. It was my BD. She told me that one of the other altos had a job that they already scheduled on Thursday afternoons, so they can't be in Junior band. Which means that she would be in senior band and I would go down to junior.

It was much more of a let down this time; because I wasn't going to be in junior band. My spirits were raised so high, only to be smashed into pieces. Now I'm in junior band. We are extremely out of tune, we basically suck compared to senior band, and half the band skips every lunch rehearsal. Our first concert is next week, and we are going to epically fail.

I would love to be in one of those "audition" bands you guys were discussing. I'd be able to be in a good concert band for once! Unfortunately, there are none that I know of, and I'll be stuck in junior band another year.

I shouldn't get my hopes up for next year though. With my luck, I'll probably be in junior band again.  

[Terra of the Lilies]

I used to be amazing at sight-reading. But now I need a good five minutes to look at the piece before we play it, which we never have time to do during class. D=

Peutaiite: Ah, that sucks. I hope you don't have to deal with that again next year. D= Try asking your director about stuff you can audition for, I'm sure there's plenty of things. I'm really happy that we don't separate our concert band by level. One, we don't have enough people for that, and two, the freshman get to play the harder stuff. It's really tough at first, but as I learned last year and can tell from this year's freshmen, those who work harder improve immensely by the end of the year and can play some of the really intense stuff. This year's freshmen, though...it really doesn't seem like they're trying, and I know my director isn't going to dumb down the music for people who don't practice, so...no idea what's gonna happen.

 

[Peutaiite]

Terra of the Lilies

I used to be amazing at sight-reading. But now I need a good five minutes to look at the piece before we play it, which we never have time to do during class. D=

Peutaiite: Ah, that sucks. I hope you don't have to deal with that again next year. D= Try asking your director about stuff you can audition for, I'm sure there's plenty of things. I'm really happy that we don't separate our concert band by level. One, we don't have enough people for that, and two, the freshman get to play the harder stuff. It's really tough at first, but as I learned last year and can tell from this year's freshmen, those who work harder improve immensely by the end of the year and can play some of the really intense stuff. This year's freshmen, though...it really doesn't seem like they're trying, and I know my director isn't going to dumb down the music for people who don't practice, so...no idea what's gonna happen.

smile ya

I think there might be an all star band for the school board at the end of the year, but I'm not sure.

Our band is kind of the opposite. I haven't really liked many of the concert band songs this year, (too easy) and any song that's a challenge the BD has switched for a different song.

Ooh, that doesn't sound good. Well at least he's not dumbing it down. Hopefully they'll improve soon.  

[Terra of the Lilies]

Peutaiite

smile ya

I think there might be an all star band for the school board at the end of the year, but I'm not sure.

Our band is kind of the opposite. I haven't really liked many of the concert band songs this year, (too easy) and any song that's a challenge the BD has switched for a different song.

Ooh, that doesn't sound good. Well at least he's not dumbing it down. Hopefully they'll improve soon.

"She", actually! =D She works us really hard, and winter concerts are never breathtaking...but last year's spring concert was phenomenal. Everything went pretty much perfectly. I know for a fact that the concert coming up soon won't compare to that, but spring will hopefully be better.

On another note, I went to my old middle school's concert tonight...I'm really impressed. Tone quality was amazing for the sixth graders, they played harder pieces than last year, and a lot of the eighth graders have some real talent. The chorus was brought back after four years, too. I now have new hope for our middle school music program. :]

 

[Who is Puffer Fish]

@Peutaiite: Ask your director about it. Maybe (s)he might consider having auditions for the program. It makes the band so much better when the people in it are at the proper playing level for it...that's why we have two concert band classes.


In other news, my winter concert is tonight and I'm afraid something's going to happen...knowing my band's luck, the trumpets are going to implode at some point. (A trumpet mouthpiece smacked the section leader in the side of the head today after it flew out of the instrument, another's tuning slide kept falling out, etc)  

[Terra of the Lilies]

...How does that even happen? xd I'm sure it'll be fine (or is fine, 'cause it's probably happening now). My concert is in about a week and a half, but the percussion's concert was tonight. They were good. =D

Edit: Got the information for all-county today! I made it, along with a lot of my friends. :] The chairs right now aren't official yet, but another sophomore got first chair flute (only male flute, too xd ), one of our clarinets got in, my friend got second chair bass clarinet, my friend got first chair sax, our drum major got third chair sax (I'm suprised...he's really good), three of our euphoniums made it (including an amazing freshman =D), one of our trumpets, and a couple percussionists. Yaaaay, I won't be alone at rehearsals!

 

[Who is Puffer Fish]

None of us really even know how that mouthpiece came out...all we know is the section leader's head is apparently metal since it clanged.

And I was right! The triangle's holder-string broke on-stage and scared the trombones half to death...luckily it was right before we started and our director gave us time to fix it lol. Other than that (and things that aren't really band related but band member related), everything went awesomely.

Congrats on making it! (:
My friend is a freshman and he made first chair bass trombone. He's apparently more awesome than I previously thought.  

[MHHornfreak]

Man that gig was fun!
We got fed and got paid $50
It was also fun playing big band arrangements of christmas songs
Off to the next christmas gig this weekend, another christmas party xD

I need to work on the chord changes in those songs.  

[Tubariffic]

Finals made me disappear, but I have returned.

Our football season ended last week D: It was our 3rd playoff, and it was in Montana. The Alumni gave us money to fly the band across the country, but we didn't for some reason. And we lost. The championship game is tomorrow, we should be there. Our team relies on the band so much. If we traveled we would have won most likely :/
They won the national championships 3 times in a row before I got here, and now we were knocked out in the 2nd and 3rd round since I've been in school. Maybe next year. We won our conference 5 times in a row now xD  

[Terra of the Lilies]

It just ended? D= Wouldn't that be really cold? I was sort of glad that our football team didn't make finals because I would freeze to death...

Lots of band stuff next week for me! Two in-school concerts on monday (we're only playing a couple things, but we're still missing class and getting the largest audience we'll ever have xd ), our actual concert is tuesday night, and wednesday we go perform at the middle schools. I have to play alto sax, tenor sax, and oboe that day. xd My favorite part is afterwards, though...we're getting lunch at a sort of shopping-area place, and it has Five Guys. :] I love that place. The food is so greasy...yet so delicious. Then we have a secret santa thing afterwards. We're missing the entire day of school. =D

 

[Tubariffic]

I had five guys for dinner tonight :3