(( Lol, gasp! I'm posting! Sorry for the HUGE delay in this people, I really am...I just had major writer's block, and was at a loss for waht to write, and life just got in the way...sorry! I'll try to update more sooner now, but I can't garuntee anything...once again, sorry for the huge delay, and I hope I didn't lose any readers because of the like, two month's span of time between the last update and this one... ))
August 17th
7:30
PVHS's Band Room
Mia Garver, the Band Librarian, looked down at the band on the podium next to Ryan. "It looks really different from up here," she whispered to him.
The Drum Major nodded back. "I know. But you are up here for a reason, not just to ogle at the view."
"Right," Mia remembered, glancing down at the folder in her hand. "Anyways…ok, I have the music for you guys," she told the band."I should have made enough copies for each part, but if I didn't, section leaders, please send a runner down to me at the copy room with a copy of the music that needs coping. Ok, SLs, come up here and get your music when I call your section."
"And then bring your instruments, chairs, stands, and music to your normal place after everybody has their music," Ryan cut in. "Guard, you guys can leave now. Battery, wait here until the rest of the band is gone."
"Flutes," Mia called out. Tiffany came up to the podium, taking the folder that Mia handed her. "I have all three parts in there," Mia told the older girl. "But I wasn't sure how many copies of each to make, so I just made a bunch. Send a runner down with the extras once you have them all handed out."
"Clarinets," Mia said next, then "Alto saxes! Oh, get the tenors music, too."
Watts nodded as he stood up and got the two folders.
"Mellophones!" came next, followed by "Trumpets!"
When "Low brass!" was called, Tyler was instructed to get all of the low brass music and to send a runner down, since Mia knew that she had messed up the number of copies.
After the rest of the sections had received their music and Max and Mia had a big mix up about the Auxiliary Pit music, Ryan sent all the wind sections off to their sectionals, leaving the Pit, who all went back to their side of the room with the instruments, and Battery, who were still sitting on the floor, looking up at him.
"Mr. Martin will be coming in in about an hour," Ryan told Kyle, "so for the time being…just…I don't know, chill? No, better yet, go teach your drummers how to march, since it is kind of important for you guys to know that…"
Kyle nodded and motioned for his section to follow him out the side band room door, and they begrudgingly did so, the upperclassmen scowling at their drums before putting them on and following Kyle.
"Max," Ryan turned his attention to the last remaining section in the band room. "I trust you can assign Pit parts and such without my help?"
"Yup," Max confirmed, holding up the folder with the various sheets of music in it.
"Sweet," Ryan grinned. "Free time! What ever shall I do with it? Hmm…I could…sleep! Catching up on sleep is always good. Or I could go to all the sections and laugh at their having to work…or, I could —"
"O'Connell!" Blake yelled from his office. "In here. Now."
"—Or I could go have a meeting with Blake," Ryan sighed. "Man. There go my plans."
"Ryan!"
"I'm coming!" Ryan yelled back to the band director. "Sheesh…"
"I heard that!"
Ryan made a face to the pit people before heading into Blake's office, a look of complete doom written on his face.
The Pities just laughed, but Charlie, seeing the look in Lily's face, grinned.
"Don't worry," he told her. "Blake's not that bad. Ryan is just…"
"Crazy?" Sean supplied.
"Interesting?" Logan answered.
"Dramatic?" Max nodded.
"Ryan," Charlie finished. "Nobody ever takes him serious. Except for when he is being in his Drum Major role. I have to give him that. He's the best alto sax player this school has seen for awhile."
"Isn't his goal in life to be a high school band director?" Logan asked.
This time Max answered. "Yup. But enough about Ryan. Time for us! Logan, go get 5 chairs and put them in a circle, Sean, go get about 8stands, Charlie, go uncover all the instruments, and Lily, you and I can stand here while the other guys do all the work. The perks of being the younger sister and section leader, eh?"
"Who's Mr. Martin?" Lily asked, joining Max in the middle of the room, where Logan was busy making a circle out of chairs, Sean not far behind in bringing the stands.
"You know," Charlie told the two younger boys with a chuckle, "you could have just brought the chair and stand racks over here instead of lugging all 5 things across the room."
"Shush," Logan ordered. "Nobody is allowed to comment on my utter lack of smartness except for me and Sean."
"Logan, you are utterly lacking in smartness," Sean said automatically.
"Boys!" Max called out, sitting down in one of the chairs in the circle. "In. Focus. Good. Now, Lily had a question about Mr. Martin. Charlie, you know him best…why don't you answer?"
"Gladly," Charlie smiled at Lily. "Mr. Martin is the Battery dude during Marching Season. He writes the Battery music and helps Kyle teach it to the Line. He basically just makes sure that they know their music, and helps with the drum solo visuals and stuff. He's a cool guy. Pit really doesn't interact with him much, but he's cool."
"We have our own instructor dude," Max continued. "Green, as we call him. He's coming in during Hell Week. Blake likes to have Drumline have their own instructors since typically, the drummers aren't playing their normal instruments during Marching season. I mean, the Battery doesn't play quads and snares and stuff during concert season, and only 2 of the 5 people in Pit are percussionists during concert season. But enough about the teachers…. now, music time."
8:00
PVHS's Copier Room
Mia was bored. She didn't like being the music librarian, but Blake has told her the year before that because she was a sucky marcher, and an even suckier musician, she needed to do something the help the band in some way if she wanted to stay in band. She didn't really want to, since she hated band, but she didn't hate Maxwell Pahl.
In fact, she didn't hate him at all. She would even go as far as to say that she loved him. Not that she would let him know, of course. Max Pahl, the cute senior guy with the goofy lopsided grin, the person that everybody in the band knew and liked, the person who looked out for everybody else before himself? Yeah, Mia was happy just admiring Max from afar.
But Mia could tell that that would be harder to do this year, with Max's little sister in her clarinet section. Kristy looked identical to Max, with their hair that looked almost black in the light, and their crazy clear blue eyes. The only difference was that Max was tall while Kristy was short, though Max did spend most of his time sitting, since he always said that standing got very tiring to him for his one leg and arms.
Oh, but those arms…Mia could spend hours staring at them; they way they rippled beautifully when Max crutched himself around; the way they could lift anything…. Yes sireebob, Amelia Maria Garver was obsessed, and she planned on doing something about it before the marching season was over.
9:30
PVHS's Band Room
When Ryan came into the band room after circling the sectionals, helping each group of instruments with their music for the first time, the Pit looked to be in a Circ-Syc. Everybody was sitting in a circle in chairs in the middle of the room, with music stands holding various pieces of music in front of them, and with a few music stands with the top put down flat. Max was holding a woodblock in one hand, an old drumstick in another, while the other four people were looking over their music. A music stand sat in the middle of them all, a few mallets and other drumsticks sitting on it, with a Dr. Beat sitting in the middle.
Ryan pulled up a chair, putting it in between Charlie and Sean, quickly glancing at the two different pieces of music in front of the two boys. Charlie had Mallets 1, Movement 1 in front of him, while Sean had Auxiliary.
"How are you guys doing?" the drum major quietly asked Sean, who quickly glanced up from his stand.
"Max is rhythming Charlie," Sean answered, leaning back in his chair.
That was what Ryan had expected. Charlie, while being the best mallet player in the band, could not read rhythms. Max, on the other hand, was the best rhythm sight-reader. The two of them often paired up, which Ryan thought was good.
"No, see, Charlie, you're rushing the second and third eighth notes," Max was telling Charlie. "It should be 1 e, and a 2, not 1 e anda 2, which is how you are playing it. Hold the 'e' a tiny bit longer then you think you should, and you'll be fine. Ok, now, tap it."
Charlie nodded and grabbed two mallets from the stand in the middle, and holding them upside down, tapped the rhythm that Max was helping him on. When he was done, he looked back up to Max, a hopeful expression on his face.
"Good!" Max praised. "Much better. We'll work on it later, ok?"
"Well, it looks like you have things under control here," Ryan cut in. "Do you have all the parts handed out and stuff?"
"Yeah," Max nodded. "Well, for the first and third movements. We were about to start the third movement."
"Well, that'll have to wait," Ryan said. "We've got ourselves a bit of a situation in the second movement, brass wise."
The band was doing a medley of Beatles songs. The first and third movements featured two songs each, whereas the second featured just Let It Be. However, it was by far the most challenging musically. The melody of the two stanzas of the song was a brass quartet, and quickly went into a heavy drum set and guitar-oriented piece of music. Blake had been trying to figure out how to get Kyle from on the field with his snare in the first movement, to onto the sidelines where he could play his drum set, and then back onto the field with his snare again for the third. Sean had volunteered to play guitar, since that was his true music passion.
"Brass situation?" Max asked. "But they can all play their music."
"Not well together," Ryan responded. "And Tony has having a hard time with his mellophone part, since it is really difficult. So, how good are you with the other brass instruments? I'll take over here, helping these guys with the parts that they already have if you can go help the four before we do a group run through."
"Sure," Max agreed. He gathered his crutches and grinned at Charlie. "One y and a two," he told the boy. "1 e + a 2."
9:33
Some Random Room at PVHS
Tony groaned and put his mellophone on the ground. Abby followed suit with her trombone, as did Hannah with her trumpet and Tyler with his baritone.
"Well, this sucks," Tyler decided.
The four brass players were all mad at them selves. They could all play their parts perfectly fine by themselves, but as soon as they added other players they just sucked, and they couldn't figure out why.
"What did Ryan said he would do to help us?" Abby asked. She was a quiet junior. By far the best trombone player in the band, but she wasn't a very good leader, so she settled for just being the best player.
"He said he'd go get Max," Hannah answered. "Max is an awesome horn player."
"Rock on horns," Tony said automatically. "But will he be able to help? I mean, he doesn't play the mello or anything else."
"I guess we'll find out now," Tyler said, nodding towards the door, where Max was coming in.
"Hey, guys!" he greeted, smiling at Hannah when she pulled him up a chair. "Ok, so, what do we have here…" Ryan had given him the score to the second movement, and he quickly glanced over it. "Ok, so, the movement starts with mallets and alto saxes playing the opening bars…Trombone, you come in in the pick ups to measure 5…baritone, pickups to measure 9 through 12. Why don't you two play that now?"
Abby and Tyler nodded, and at Max's cue, Abby started playing, with Tyler coming in where he was supposed to. Max quickly stopped them, shaking his head.
"You guys are playing it right, but it's not really blending when the melody switches instruments," Max explained. "Try to blend more. Abby, you can hold that last note out a little bit longer, and Tyler, you can come in a tiny bit earlier, so you two are playing at the same time, so it makes it sound more…flowy. Ok, try it again."
Abby and Tyler played it again, but this time following Max's instructions. Tony and Hannah clapped when they were done, and Max smiled.
"See, that was better already," Max praised. "Now, Hannah and Tony, I take it you two have the same problem when the melody switches to you two in the second verse. Take my advice on what I just told Abby and Tyler, and see if we can get rid of the problem the first time you guys play it. Oh, and Hannah, mind that note jump there. I don't know if you have a problem with it, but just be careful there nonetheless."
Hannah and Tony played, and this time it was Abby and Tyler who clapped.
"Good job," Max smiled. "Ok…the drum set comes in in the middle of your part, Tony, so don't mind it. You and I can work on your part a little more more alone later, if you need it. Abby and Tyler have it lucky, since they only have the mallets and altos playing. Ok, I think you guys have it! I'll have Ryan come back in to listen, but he said it was just that melody switching instruments part you guys had trouble on. Do you want to go over the chorus, where two of you play it together?"
Tony looked over at the other three people before shaking his head. "Nope, I think we've got it. Thanks, Max."
"That's what I'm here for," Max grinned. "Oh, hey, Tony, let me see your music for the other parts."
Tony handed it over. "I'm so excited this show," he commented. "The music is kick ass, and from the little that I've heard of my section play, they sound awesome. I can't wait to see what the finish thing looks like."
"So, how excited is Tiffany for this year's show?" Tyler asked Hannah, Tiffany's best friend.
"Oh, she was thrilled," Hannah smiled. "She and Charlie had their first kiss during freshmen's year Homecoming during Let It Be, and you know how much she loves the Beatles overall. Hey, Max, what about Charlie?"
"Oh, he can't stop grinning," Max answered. "He's been humming Yellow Submarine all day. But yeah, I have a feeling this year is going to be awesome. I mean, it's our senior year - "
"Your senior year," Abby interrupted.
"Our senior year," Max continued, "Ryan is an awesome drum major, we finally get senior privileges, and our show is kick ass. What can go wrong?"
(( Man, rock on Beatles. Why them for a show? Well, basically because I was at a loss for what to make their show. My band's show this year was Pirates of the Carribean, which every band in the entire country seemed to do, so I wanted to do something a bit more orginal. And on our band's 5 hour bus ride to NYC for our band trip this year, we had a long discussion about how much teh Beatles rock, because my friend has like...30 Beatles CDs, even though there are only about 15 origanal. And because I have a bunch of Beatles songs stuck in my head...
Oh, and random author's sidenote: When we were in NYC this weekend, we went to go see the Broadway show "Movin' Out" (Billy Joel's songs put to dance) and there was this sax player that was AWESOME. I didn't even pay attention to the dancing..I just sat there and stared at the sax player. He was the best player ever, I swear...man. It was awesome. ))
