The next week we had Monday and Tuesday off school for an ACSI convention.
But did we have off band? Of course not. A few people were gone playing
at ACSI honor band, Mr. Gunter along with them. And the rest of us were up
on the field in the heat, from 10 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon,
working hard.
Yes, we did work hard. I'd expected that people would slack off after Saturday's victory in Modesto. But much to my happiness, we kept right on pushing. On Monday we started by running two laps, then learning a new basics exercise. We worked on cleaning up the second half of the closer, which we hadn't performed on Saturday. We also managed to have some fun while working. Richard's cell phone went off during an on-field break, and he answered it (why, I have no idea... he's a tuba player). When Todd, our drill designer, discovered that he was on the phone, he came up close to Richard and shouted, "AND BAND, RESET!" right into the phone. Everyone laughed.
We returned the next day for more. I was convinced that our instructors had a delusion that we couldn't get enough and just lived to come back on days we had off school. That day we relearned practically the whole ballad. Todd must have decided he didn't like our scatter sets, because he threw in all kinds of random visuals all over the place. In my opinion, they broke the flow of the ballad, but hey, Todd knows best, right?
That Thursday, once school and regular rehearsals were back in session, we got a lecture from Mr. Wilson about people missing the Monday and Tuesday rehearsals. "It's very frustrating," he said, "when there are 30 people out there working hard and trying to make it great, and 10 other people don't even bother to show up." I was right there with him. It was frustrating. But that night we did our best ever full run of the entire show, and that made my day.
Homecoming was Saturday. I always enjoyed homecoming because it was just so much fun... there were so many things going on. This particular homecoming, we would be playing pep band with the junior highers, and also performing our field show at halftime. I was also singing the national anthem with vocal ensemble.
Our instructors, in a rare moment of gentleness, decided to give us a little break. We didn't have to be at school until 11:30 on Saturday, as opposed to our usual 9:00. When I arrived, everyone kept asking me why I wasn't getting into uniform. I must have said, "I'm singing the national anthem with ensemble," about fifty times.
At noon we rehearsed with the junior highers for pep band. It was so exciting! There were about 80 wind and percussion players crammed into our band room. We ran through all our songs, and then Caitlyn and I ran over to the choir room to warm up our voices and run through the national anthem with ensemble. We all headed up to the stadium in time to see the coronation. One of our senior snare drummers, Drew, was crowned homecoming king, which was exciting. The 12 of us in ensemble stood around waiting for a while, and finally we were told it was time to sing. It went well. After we sang I grabbed my uniform bag from the rack at the end of the track, found a good spot on the chain-link fence, and proceeded to strip out of my jeans and T-shirt (I was wearing whites underneath) and get into uniform. The color guard girls, who happened to be walking by, laughed as they saw me frantically stripping.
Once I was safely in uniform, I headed up to pep band and ate lunch (bad Kelly, eating in uniform!). At the second quarter I left yet again to go get body miked, and the rest of the band followed shortly for hats and gloves. We warmed up facing away from the field. We were standing in our rehearsal arc when we were informed that our team was going to kick a field goal... right over us. "Don't move," we were told. "Just stay still. We'll tell you if you need to move." It was hard to stand perfectly still and know that you might get knocked out by a football at any second. Ben whispered something to Jason, one of our instructors, who nodded. Ben set down his trumpet and turned around. I figured it was some assistant drum major duty thing, until the football came flying into the middle of the arc. Ben leaped after it and almost caught it. Everyone, even Mr. Gunter and Mr. Wilson, laughed.
Shortly thereafter, we performed our show in its entirety. It was decent for not having had practice beforehand. Then we headed back up into the stands for some more pep band.
When the game was over (we won 34-0), we got a little break until 4:00, when we started rehearsal... in uniform (or in Drew's case, in tuxedo). It was a decent rehearsal. We worked on pieces of everything. Our instructors did get a little frustrated, though. Mr. Wilson got on the mic and yelled at us about "pizza and a coke". This was what he used to say we were slowing down. Every time we slowed down, it was because we were stopping to buy pizza and a coke.
At the end we did a runthrough that wasn't all that great, but then again, we were all exhausted. And I was getting a little frustrated because people were making me feel stupid for the smallest mistakes I made. It was very degrading to have sophomores telling you, "You messed this up," especially when they couldn't do half their drill right.
I went home that afternoon thoroughly drained, and not too excited about coming back for more in just a few days.
Yes, we did work hard. I'd expected that people would slack off after Saturday's victory in Modesto. But much to my happiness, we kept right on pushing. On Monday we started by running two laps, then learning a new basics exercise. We worked on cleaning up the second half of the closer, which we hadn't performed on Saturday. We also managed to have some fun while working. Richard's cell phone went off during an on-field break, and he answered it (why, I have no idea... he's a tuba player). When Todd, our drill designer, discovered that he was on the phone, he came up close to Richard and shouted, "AND BAND, RESET!" right into the phone. Everyone laughed.
We returned the next day for more. I was convinced that our instructors had a delusion that we couldn't get enough and just lived to come back on days we had off school. That day we relearned practically the whole ballad. Todd must have decided he didn't like our scatter sets, because he threw in all kinds of random visuals all over the place. In my opinion, they broke the flow of the ballad, but hey, Todd knows best, right?
That Thursday, once school and regular rehearsals were back in session, we got a lecture from Mr. Wilson about people missing the Monday and Tuesday rehearsals. "It's very frustrating," he said, "when there are 30 people out there working hard and trying to make it great, and 10 other people don't even bother to show up." I was right there with him. It was frustrating. But that night we did our best ever full run of the entire show, and that made my day.
Homecoming was Saturday. I always enjoyed homecoming because it was just so much fun... there were so many things going on. This particular homecoming, we would be playing pep band with the junior highers, and also performing our field show at halftime. I was also singing the national anthem with vocal ensemble.
Our instructors, in a rare moment of gentleness, decided to give us a little break. We didn't have to be at school until 11:30 on Saturday, as opposed to our usual 9:00. When I arrived, everyone kept asking me why I wasn't getting into uniform. I must have said, "I'm singing the national anthem with ensemble," about fifty times.
At noon we rehearsed with the junior highers for pep band. It was so exciting! There were about 80 wind and percussion players crammed into our band room. We ran through all our songs, and then Caitlyn and I ran over to the choir room to warm up our voices and run through the national anthem with ensemble. We all headed up to the stadium in time to see the coronation. One of our senior snare drummers, Drew, was crowned homecoming king, which was exciting. The 12 of us in ensemble stood around waiting for a while, and finally we were told it was time to sing. It went well. After we sang I grabbed my uniform bag from the rack at the end of the track, found a good spot on the chain-link fence, and proceeded to strip out of my jeans and T-shirt (I was wearing whites underneath) and get into uniform. The color guard girls, who happened to be walking by, laughed as they saw me frantically stripping.
Once I was safely in uniform, I headed up to pep band and ate lunch (bad Kelly, eating in uniform!). At the second quarter I left yet again to go get body miked, and the rest of the band followed shortly for hats and gloves. We warmed up facing away from the field. We were standing in our rehearsal arc when we were informed that our team was going to kick a field goal... right over us. "Don't move," we were told. "Just stay still. We'll tell you if you need to move." It was hard to stand perfectly still and know that you might get knocked out by a football at any second. Ben whispered something to Jason, one of our instructors, who nodded. Ben set down his trumpet and turned around. I figured it was some assistant drum major duty thing, until the football came flying into the middle of the arc. Ben leaped after it and almost caught it. Everyone, even Mr. Gunter and Mr. Wilson, laughed.
Shortly thereafter, we performed our show in its entirety. It was decent for not having had practice beforehand. Then we headed back up into the stands for some more pep band.
When the game was over (we won 34-0), we got a little break until 4:00, when we started rehearsal... in uniform (or in Drew's case, in tuxedo). It was a decent rehearsal. We worked on pieces of everything. Our instructors did get a little frustrated, though. Mr. Wilson got on the mic and yelled at us about "pizza and a coke". This was what he used to say we were slowing down. Every time we slowed down, it was because we were stopping to buy pizza and a coke.
At the end we did a runthrough that wasn't all that great, but then again, we were all exhausted. And I was getting a little frustrated because people were making me feel stupid for the smallest mistakes I made. It was very degrading to have sophomores telling you, "You messed this up," especially when they couldn't do half their drill right.
I went home that afternoon thoroughly drained, and not too excited about coming back for more in just a few days.
