A/N how smart are you? If you're really smart, you'll have noticed that while I was listing people in my section, I didn't list any mellophones. This isn't because I've forgotten them, no, it's because WE DON'T HAVE ANY MELLIES!!!!!!! That's right, not a-one. But I've heard rumors that we're getting like four or five next year. But the school only owns three mellies. This could be problematic. Anyhoo, thanks to Monkeybird15, Holley, Mae-Lynn Moodle, flutistoutofstep, bouncyflute101, and ellipsis for being wonderful reviewing-type people. Keep up the good work! And the rest of you that I know are reading this - you don't have to LIKE something to review it!!!! So review it please! Sharing is caring - you r/r mine I'll r/r yours, providing it's something I know about.
A Year In Hell - A True Marching Band Story
Chapter Four - Sectionals with Melanie
When I saw Melanie, I sighed. "Hi, Melanie," I said, not wanting her to come in and take over my section.
She looked around the hallway and a look of disdain came over her face. Looking around, I could sort of see why. Ig was pounding Kirk with the whooping stick, Mikey was, now that it was safe from chair-falling dangers, endangering the life of her trombone again (which was really MY trombone) by seeing how far she could quickly extend the slide without it flying off and catapulting down the hall, the low saxes were making the most obnoxious noises possible on their horns, Fish was looking at the clouds through the gaps in the cement rafters and commenting to Luke that these were great stoned clouds, and Nikki was examining the newest dent in her crappy student model rental euph (she had yet to receive a marcher). Really, it was a sad looking bunch. I knew that they were awesome and had huge amounts of potential, but Melanie believed otherwise. She started clapping her hands together.
"Band - Ten Hut!" She screeched in her shrill voice. When she called commands, she had a habit of her voice cracking. It was really very amusing.
My section jerked into attention perhaps a beat late, unprepared for the command. Mikey's slide went flying as she snapped her instrument down - she hadn't had time to lock the slide before going to attention. I groaned inwardly. The responding verbals of "Go!" were forgotten and replaced with snickers. I was exempt from such commands, and after letting them compose themselves, I called them to parade rest.
"Red!" This time, they remembered the verbals.
I turned to Melanie. "What's up?"
She gave me one of her looks, the how-pitiful-the-sophomore-section-leader-can't-control-her-section one. "Mr. P wants me to work on Part One with you guys. He wants me to conduct it so you can learn it too."
I glowered on the inside. I was the only low brass who knew the hard lick in Part One - the lick that had the triplet runs and octave jumps in fast 12/8. But I smiled and put on my happy face. "Sounds great, Melanie. Thanks."
"No problem. Okay, guys, let's start the bar before A, so we can get the accelerando worked in."
The one bar before A contained a whole note. Kinda hard to speed up on a whole note, if you ask me. But no one did. Once we got to A it was my time to shine. I played the lick nearly perfectly - the only thing I did wrong was not separate my triplets enough. I knew that later this would be a problem, because on the field they needed to be more separated so they were heard as triplets, but for now it was pretty damn good. The only person who came close to matching me was Sam - the only noticeable mistake he made was holding the first dotted quarter too long. I was impressed - upon first meeting him, Sam had seemed a bit slow, and I had doubted his musical ability. Little did I know that Sam would become the only truly dependable foundation of the section.
As we played through the lick for the second time, I watched the rest of my section. Mikey was having a lot of trouble playing the triplets - she was new to the instrument and had only been playing for a few weeks. The trombone part involved two sets of consecutive triplets - one with two beats on an F, then a high D, the other with two notes on a G and then the high D - first position to first, a lip slur, then fourth to first. It wasn't that Mikey was having trouble finding the positions, it was that by the time she found them we were on the next bar already. I watched her bell angle go to the side as she leaned her head - one of the signs that she was getting frustrated. She seemed to think that if she squeezed the slide between her neck and her shoulder it would make her play better. Her brow was furrowed as her arm moved frantically.
Finally Melanie cut us off. "Okay, we're just going to work on the triplets - let's play triplets over and over again on a concert F, okay?" She counted off briskly. It went okay - once most of the section heard what they were supposed to play sounded like, they could play it. Melanie stopped us again. "Let's add the next note - Sam, you go down with the tubas, and everyone else goes up." We looped the triplet part, repeating it over and over. This is something that can be very helpful in learning music - repetition - but it doesn't help much when you're listening to the wrong thing over and over again. Melanie finally figured out that we weren't playing it right after I put my horn down and started clapping the correct rhythm. She stopped us and gave me a mild glare.
"Well, obviously, that wasn't the right rhythm. Let's take a fifteen minute break - when we come back we'll have a playing test on those two bars." I loved how she made it seem like it was her idea to have them play it wrong - NOT!
During that fifteen minute break, Mikey hung out with her boyfriend, a guy from a different school that was hanging out during band camp. I didn't have a huge issue with this - as long as he let me do my job and they weren't constantly slobbering like Melanie and her boyfriend were. Melanie's boyfriend joined band as a member of the pit just to be with her.
I did fine on the playing test, of course. Most of the section did. But when it was Mikey's turn, she just couldn't quite get it. Melanie relented and gave her an easier version - just playing the two sets of triplets and not the whole lick. Mikey couldn't do that, either. Melanie, surprisingly, could see that it wasn't working and had the whole section play that part, especially listening to Mikey. I was watching Mikey too. Melanie was starting to get frustrated. She had just the saxes play, then me and Nikki and Fish. When it came time for the trombones to play, Mikey was having more and more trouble with it. I grimaced as I saw tears start to well in her eyes. I walked over behind the trombones and pulled her out of the group. I shot a look at Melanie over my shoulder as I led Mikey down the hall towards the music building lobby. This was one of the few nice looks I've ever given Melanie - one of the let-me-deal-with-this-but-keep-it-up-you're-doing-great looks. Her
boyfriend followed us.
We pushed through the double doors that led to the closed-off lobby (actually, pulled is more accurate - the handle is missing on the one that works and you have to shove your finger in the crack and pry it open) and I sat Mikey down on the stairs that led to the main building.
"Mikey, what's wrong?"
She sniffled. "I can't play it! Everyone else is out there playing it fucking perfectly, and I can't even play triplets on this thing!" she cried, nudging the trombone towards the door.
I gave her boyfriend a troubled look. He moved in closer and put an arm around her shoulder.
"Mikey," I started, "How long have you been playing the trombone?"
She looked at me. Her eyeliner was streaked halfway down her cheeks. She wiped at it. "About a month."
"Well, I think you're doing pretty damn good for only playing this thing for a month, and especially for being new to brass instruments."
"Yeah," said the nameless boyfriend. "When I first started playing drums it took me forever to get past half notes on the bass and quarters on the snare at the same time,"
"How long did it take you, Kanoi? When was the first time you played triplets?"
I frowned. "I don't remember, Mikey. But that doesn't matter - you're still doing really well!"
We sat there for a minute while Mikey finished crying. "But you're a better player than me, Kanoi! You're fucking good!"
I shook my head in shock. "Dude, Mikey, I'm NOT that good. And even if I were, there's always gonna be someone that's better than you. ALWAYS. Because there's not an Olympics for band, or anything. There's no way of knowing if you're the best. You can be the best to your abilities, but someone will always be better than you."
The boyfriend nodded. "She's right, Mike."
"I guess."
I waited a minute and sat there nibbling on my lip. "You wanna work on it with me during lunch? I mean, I need to work on it too; the only reason I know it is because we were practicing the entire show during leadership camp and after the freshmen left on Thursday and Friday. I still have trouble getting from the low D to the high D."
"Okay." I think she actually smiled at me.
"C'mon, we'll get some nice cold water in the air-conditioned main and head back. Sectionals are almost over anyway."
We climbed the half-flight of stairs to the main and opened the doors. Then we had to go down two half-flights (I realize this makes one full flight, but in the middle of the two is ground level. Whoever designed our main building was smoking crack [and not sharing, might I add. But I don't do that.]) to the basement near where the uniforms are kept. The coldest water fountain in the school is in the little theater lobby, so that's where we headed. As Mikey was drinking her boyfriend (still nameless, by the way) shot me a grateful look. They hadn't been going out that long and I could tell he wasn't quite ready to deal with that kind of problem. I just smiled and rolled my eyes. Because they hadn't been going out long, he had no idea how much of a drama queen Mikey was. Little did he know that this was nothing compared to what she usually complains about.
A/N eep, I just read this and I'm not totally satisfied with how it turned out, but I wanna get something up. This is the part where I could really use grammatical (well, not grammatical, but I can't think of a better word) hints, or ways to make this chapter work better. Somehow, I guess, writing about Melanie isn't my favorite subject. . . .Ooh! I was talking to our director today and for next year he's leaning towards west side story. Not sure if I wanna march or conduct that one. . .
A Year In Hell - A True Marching Band Story
Chapter Four - Sectionals with Melanie
When I saw Melanie, I sighed. "Hi, Melanie," I said, not wanting her to come in and take over my section.
She looked around the hallway and a look of disdain came over her face. Looking around, I could sort of see why. Ig was pounding Kirk with the whooping stick, Mikey was, now that it was safe from chair-falling dangers, endangering the life of her trombone again (which was really MY trombone) by seeing how far she could quickly extend the slide without it flying off and catapulting down the hall, the low saxes were making the most obnoxious noises possible on their horns, Fish was looking at the clouds through the gaps in the cement rafters and commenting to Luke that these were great stoned clouds, and Nikki was examining the newest dent in her crappy student model rental euph (she had yet to receive a marcher). Really, it was a sad looking bunch. I knew that they were awesome and had huge amounts of potential, but Melanie believed otherwise. She started clapping her hands together.
"Band - Ten Hut!" She screeched in her shrill voice. When she called commands, she had a habit of her voice cracking. It was really very amusing.
My section jerked into attention perhaps a beat late, unprepared for the command. Mikey's slide went flying as she snapped her instrument down - she hadn't had time to lock the slide before going to attention. I groaned inwardly. The responding verbals of "Go!" were forgotten and replaced with snickers. I was exempt from such commands, and after letting them compose themselves, I called them to parade rest.
"Red!" This time, they remembered the verbals.
I turned to Melanie. "What's up?"
She gave me one of her looks, the how-pitiful-the-sophomore-section-leader-can't-control-her-section one. "Mr. P wants me to work on Part One with you guys. He wants me to conduct it so you can learn it too."
I glowered on the inside. I was the only low brass who knew the hard lick in Part One - the lick that had the triplet runs and octave jumps in fast 12/8. But I smiled and put on my happy face. "Sounds great, Melanie. Thanks."
"No problem. Okay, guys, let's start the bar before A, so we can get the accelerando worked in."
The one bar before A contained a whole note. Kinda hard to speed up on a whole note, if you ask me. But no one did. Once we got to A it was my time to shine. I played the lick nearly perfectly - the only thing I did wrong was not separate my triplets enough. I knew that later this would be a problem, because on the field they needed to be more separated so they were heard as triplets, but for now it was pretty damn good. The only person who came close to matching me was Sam - the only noticeable mistake he made was holding the first dotted quarter too long. I was impressed - upon first meeting him, Sam had seemed a bit slow, and I had doubted his musical ability. Little did I know that Sam would become the only truly dependable foundation of the section.
As we played through the lick for the second time, I watched the rest of my section. Mikey was having a lot of trouble playing the triplets - she was new to the instrument and had only been playing for a few weeks. The trombone part involved two sets of consecutive triplets - one with two beats on an F, then a high D, the other with two notes on a G and then the high D - first position to first, a lip slur, then fourth to first. It wasn't that Mikey was having trouble finding the positions, it was that by the time she found them we were on the next bar already. I watched her bell angle go to the side as she leaned her head - one of the signs that she was getting frustrated. She seemed to think that if she squeezed the slide between her neck and her shoulder it would make her play better. Her brow was furrowed as her arm moved frantically.
Finally Melanie cut us off. "Okay, we're just going to work on the triplets - let's play triplets over and over again on a concert F, okay?" She counted off briskly. It went okay - once most of the section heard what they were supposed to play sounded like, they could play it. Melanie stopped us again. "Let's add the next note - Sam, you go down with the tubas, and everyone else goes up." We looped the triplet part, repeating it over and over. This is something that can be very helpful in learning music - repetition - but it doesn't help much when you're listening to the wrong thing over and over again. Melanie finally figured out that we weren't playing it right after I put my horn down and started clapping the correct rhythm. She stopped us and gave me a mild glare.
"Well, obviously, that wasn't the right rhythm. Let's take a fifteen minute break - when we come back we'll have a playing test on those two bars." I loved how she made it seem like it was her idea to have them play it wrong - NOT!
During that fifteen minute break, Mikey hung out with her boyfriend, a guy from a different school that was hanging out during band camp. I didn't have a huge issue with this - as long as he let me do my job and they weren't constantly slobbering like Melanie and her boyfriend were. Melanie's boyfriend joined band as a member of the pit just to be with her.
I did fine on the playing test, of course. Most of the section did. But when it was Mikey's turn, she just couldn't quite get it. Melanie relented and gave her an easier version - just playing the two sets of triplets and not the whole lick. Mikey couldn't do that, either. Melanie, surprisingly, could see that it wasn't working and had the whole section play that part, especially listening to Mikey. I was watching Mikey too. Melanie was starting to get frustrated. She had just the saxes play, then me and Nikki and Fish. When it came time for the trombones to play, Mikey was having more and more trouble with it. I grimaced as I saw tears start to well in her eyes. I walked over behind the trombones and pulled her out of the group. I shot a look at Melanie over my shoulder as I led Mikey down the hall towards the music building lobby. This was one of the few nice looks I've ever given Melanie - one of the let-me-deal-with-this-but-keep-it-up-you're-doing-great looks. Her
boyfriend followed us.
We pushed through the double doors that led to the closed-off lobby (actually, pulled is more accurate - the handle is missing on the one that works and you have to shove your finger in the crack and pry it open) and I sat Mikey down on the stairs that led to the main building.
"Mikey, what's wrong?"
She sniffled. "I can't play it! Everyone else is out there playing it fucking perfectly, and I can't even play triplets on this thing!" she cried, nudging the trombone towards the door.
I gave her boyfriend a troubled look. He moved in closer and put an arm around her shoulder.
"Mikey," I started, "How long have you been playing the trombone?"
She looked at me. Her eyeliner was streaked halfway down her cheeks. She wiped at it. "About a month."
"Well, I think you're doing pretty damn good for only playing this thing for a month, and especially for being new to brass instruments."
"Yeah," said the nameless boyfriend. "When I first started playing drums it took me forever to get past half notes on the bass and quarters on the snare at the same time,"
"How long did it take you, Kanoi? When was the first time you played triplets?"
I frowned. "I don't remember, Mikey. But that doesn't matter - you're still doing really well!"
We sat there for a minute while Mikey finished crying. "But you're a better player than me, Kanoi! You're fucking good!"
I shook my head in shock. "Dude, Mikey, I'm NOT that good. And even if I were, there's always gonna be someone that's better than you. ALWAYS. Because there's not an Olympics for band, or anything. There's no way of knowing if you're the best. You can be the best to your abilities, but someone will always be better than you."
The boyfriend nodded. "She's right, Mike."
"I guess."
I waited a minute and sat there nibbling on my lip. "You wanna work on it with me during lunch? I mean, I need to work on it too; the only reason I know it is because we were practicing the entire show during leadership camp and after the freshmen left on Thursday and Friday. I still have trouble getting from the low D to the high D."
"Okay." I think she actually smiled at me.
"C'mon, we'll get some nice cold water in the air-conditioned main and head back. Sectionals are almost over anyway."
We climbed the half-flight of stairs to the main and opened the doors. Then we had to go down two half-flights (I realize this makes one full flight, but in the middle of the two is ground level. Whoever designed our main building was smoking crack [and not sharing, might I add. But I don't do that.]) to the basement near where the uniforms are kept. The coldest water fountain in the school is in the little theater lobby, so that's where we headed. As Mikey was drinking her boyfriend (still nameless, by the way) shot me a grateful look. They hadn't been going out that long and I could tell he wasn't quite ready to deal with that kind of problem. I just smiled and rolled my eyes. Because they hadn't been going out long, he had no idea how much of a drama queen Mikey was. Little did he know that this was nothing compared to what she usually complains about.
A/N eep, I just read this and I'm not totally satisfied with how it turned out, but I wanna get something up. This is the part where I could really use grammatical (well, not grammatical, but I can't think of a better word) hints, or ways to make this chapter work better. Somehow, I guess, writing about Melanie isn't my favorite subject. . . .Ooh! I was talking to our director today and for next year he's leaning towards west side story. Not sure if I wanna march or conduct that one. . .
