NOTE: All characters in this story are real, the events are mostly real,
and...well I guess that's it.
Around 6:15 in the morning, I walk into the band room of HBHS. That is, on a good day. On a bad day I wait out in the hallway for Mr. Voakes to come and unlock the freakin door. Which on a bad day can be as late as 6:30.
It's another morning of jazz band, just like every other day. I look around the room that I think of as my home, and plop my stuff down on the built in "risers". As I'm always the first one there I usually pull out a book and wait for my best friend Alli to show up. She's the piano player in jazz band and my best friend. About 5 minutes later she walks in the door and tosses a greeting to me. We're both exhausted, like every normal person who is up at 6:20 in the morning. Soon Jackie comes in, a percussionist who is a member of our drumline, which practices at the same time we do. Even though their instructor almost never shows up. Around the same time our bass player Malachai and freshman trumpet Jordan show up. Jackie calls out a greeting, and I either wave or mutter a hello. At exactly 6:30, the time class is supposed to start, everyone walks in all at once. Upon seeing my buddy Chris, I walk over happily and say hi.
Now right now this may sound quite normal to all of you, but it doesn't ever stay that way. No, not at HBHS. We all get out our instruments, grumbling and moaning about it being too freakin early (AN: the person who grumbled most about it being too early was up at 4 in the morning during homecoming week to go over to the houses of those who had been named princesses) and we begin to warm up. We pull out the jazz books (no not the jazz books!!!) and start doing scales till our lips are so dead we won't be able to play any songs. That's when the real playing begins.
Mr. Voakes calls out the name of a song he wants us to play, and we dig through the immense amount of music in our folders to find it. Then just as we're about to play, he realizes that we never tuned. He tunes the bari first, which is always flat no matter who plays it, leading to an unhappy yell from Peter because he now has to shove the mouthpiece on. Apparently this isn't an easy feat. We manage to tune, and then finally we can play the song. Us trumpets are really excited now, until we look at the music and realize it's Bill Bailey (AN: Bill Bailey is a saxophone feature that has 64 measures of rest at the beginning for trumpets). So then Chris, a sign of how brilliant he is, manages to have the entire trumpet section lean on me so they can all fall asleep. So now I'm trying to count measures and support about 4 six-foot guys on me at the same time. If I wasn't such a "nice" person I would have dropped them all on the floor. However I just stand there grumbling and counting measures. Then when it's finally our turn to play we put up our horns and...Mr. Voakes has the entire band stop because the saxophones played wrong.
In the meantime, Chris and the other Jordan are coming up with sick jokes, and figuring out ways to point the jokes at me. I know they mean well, but I just shake my head and mutter about how brainless they are. Being the only girl in the jazz band trumpet section, I've gotten used to the crazy antics that the 4 other male trumpet players manage to come up with. Cause they're all good guys, really they are.
Eventually we make it through the song, that is after about 4 times of stopping and having the saxes play their parts over and over, and Mr. Voakes calls out another. Ooh.this is the song we have choreography in. Yay!!! So then we get to play, and do little flashy moves that Chris came up with. It was brilliance, pure brilliance. This goes on and on until either Mr. Voakes tells us we can leave, or the bell rings. Having the bell ring is bad because then I have to run across campus to get to my Spanish class. But, that's my life, and I don't intend on changing it.
Around 6:15 in the morning, I walk into the band room of HBHS. That is, on a good day. On a bad day I wait out in the hallway for Mr. Voakes to come and unlock the freakin door. Which on a bad day can be as late as 6:30.
It's another morning of jazz band, just like every other day. I look around the room that I think of as my home, and plop my stuff down on the built in "risers". As I'm always the first one there I usually pull out a book and wait for my best friend Alli to show up. She's the piano player in jazz band and my best friend. About 5 minutes later she walks in the door and tosses a greeting to me. We're both exhausted, like every normal person who is up at 6:20 in the morning. Soon Jackie comes in, a percussionist who is a member of our drumline, which practices at the same time we do. Even though their instructor almost never shows up. Around the same time our bass player Malachai and freshman trumpet Jordan show up. Jackie calls out a greeting, and I either wave or mutter a hello. At exactly 6:30, the time class is supposed to start, everyone walks in all at once. Upon seeing my buddy Chris, I walk over happily and say hi.
Now right now this may sound quite normal to all of you, but it doesn't ever stay that way. No, not at HBHS. We all get out our instruments, grumbling and moaning about it being too freakin early (AN: the person who grumbled most about it being too early was up at 4 in the morning during homecoming week to go over to the houses of those who had been named princesses) and we begin to warm up. We pull out the jazz books (no not the jazz books!!!) and start doing scales till our lips are so dead we won't be able to play any songs. That's when the real playing begins.
Mr. Voakes calls out the name of a song he wants us to play, and we dig through the immense amount of music in our folders to find it. Then just as we're about to play, he realizes that we never tuned. He tunes the bari first, which is always flat no matter who plays it, leading to an unhappy yell from Peter because he now has to shove the mouthpiece on. Apparently this isn't an easy feat. We manage to tune, and then finally we can play the song. Us trumpets are really excited now, until we look at the music and realize it's Bill Bailey (AN: Bill Bailey is a saxophone feature that has 64 measures of rest at the beginning for trumpets). So then Chris, a sign of how brilliant he is, manages to have the entire trumpet section lean on me so they can all fall asleep. So now I'm trying to count measures and support about 4 six-foot guys on me at the same time. If I wasn't such a "nice" person I would have dropped them all on the floor. However I just stand there grumbling and counting measures. Then when it's finally our turn to play we put up our horns and...Mr. Voakes has the entire band stop because the saxophones played wrong.
In the meantime, Chris and the other Jordan are coming up with sick jokes, and figuring out ways to point the jokes at me. I know they mean well, but I just shake my head and mutter about how brainless they are. Being the only girl in the jazz band trumpet section, I've gotten used to the crazy antics that the 4 other male trumpet players manage to come up with. Cause they're all good guys, really they are.
Eventually we make it through the song, that is after about 4 times of stopping and having the saxes play their parts over and over, and Mr. Voakes calls out another. Ooh.this is the song we have choreography in. Yay!!! So then we get to play, and do little flashy moves that Chris came up with. It was brilliance, pure brilliance. This goes on and on until either Mr. Voakes tells us we can leave, or the bell rings. Having the bell ring is bad because then I have to run across campus to get to my Spanish class. But, that's my life, and I don't intend on changing it.
