Ok, here is my very large installment on my Marching Band's first competition:
We started the day at 9:00, in the morning. We got in our uniforms, and went to a bank 'comnmunity' day thing. 10 people showed up. We did some songs, and left. we spent more time prepareing for the show, then we did playing it. after that, we had lunch. A very funny lunch. John K.,(we have two matts, johns in our section) a trumpet, spills my coke twice, (An inside joke with the trumpets, I spilled coke once, and now, it gets spilled twice more) Our band director yells at John K., who tells him (our band director) Erick did it. It gets sorted out, and John K. gets the blame, as he should, and always does. We hang out in the commons area, break Erick's black razr cell phone, reassemble it, call a gas station in West Virginia, looking for "The Purple Cobra, he sold me some bad crack." And then we get into the busses for our trip to Triton Reginal High School in Runameede, NJ (like you really care about that
)
A relativly quiet bus trip later, and we are there, in full uniform, marching in rows of two from the bus to the bathrooms, raising our hats at every elevation change (a sign of respect tword the uniform/hat) And we pass another band while waiting to get outside, they don't look at us, they wern't worthy, no one looks at us unless they yell something bad like "Go to [heck]" or something of that nature at us. We are better, so they think bad mouthing us will make them feel better.
Last year, for instence, our show was called "The Empire" it had to do with the rise and fall of the roman empire (Listen to it here[short version]:
The Rise and Fall of Rome) People would yell "The Empire will fall!" and "Sticks and stones build an empire, but fire brings it all down" They were, in essance, comparing us to the Roman Empire, and that, eventually it did fall, a very good comparison, but, it won't happen, we will never fall (I'm gloating, sorry)This year it's called "Frantic Tranquility" (if you heard the songs here:
Mvts. 1, 3, and 4 only you will agree)
Back on subject here: We got our instumenets, and headed out to a field wich wasn't in use to warm up. We stretch, and prepare best we can for the competition that the judges will always keep in their mind in the future. After doing our tradition of drinking pure lemon juice (for the spit) we get on the track and march, march, and after what seemed like an eturnity, we curved, spread out and Mr. Fanelli(our band director) about faced us and we did our field warm-up. We about faced and marched to our openig set......
The pit opened up 'bum bum bum... bum-bum bum bum... The drill was perfect, the crowd loosened up and the 'cool' beat got them into the song... until... BAM!!! The trumpets hit the impact, and everyone yells in surprise. We fade back ward and play the relaxing, 'cool' beat again. Then the runs came, the trumpets and pit did some really fast stuff, it took a while to memeroize it, but it was worth it. we fade back again and get to doing the tempo beat. It's a 5/4, 5/4, 5/4, 6/4 beat. Five beats per measure the first three times, and six the forth time, and it repeats as long as the show does. Basicly, the way it is is: long long short short(5/4) long long short short(5/4) long long short short(5/4) long long long long (6/4) Like saying "dumb dumb dut dut" three times and "dumb dumb dumb dumb" each time you say dumb, or dut, a foot touchs the ground. Then we pause, and start the next three songs. I linked to them earlier, and to make a long story short, IT WAS MAGIC. The sets were perfect, we hit all the notes, and when we marched off, the crowd went nuts. When the next band left, they didn't do anything, and it was the home band! Our band director was like a five year old, and the other band director's mouth's were open is amazement. The other bands were nothing compared to us.
When the scores came in for Group III bands (ours) we had 82, the next highest Group III had 76.167. Thats a bit more then 5 points, a lot when band competitions are won by tenths of points.
We were screaming our heads off, no one had a voice yesterday.
We came, we saw, we conquered. Long live the Roman... ahem, excuse me, the Absegami Band!!!