Marching Band

Sorry everyone, my bad, it's open now.

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!!!

Sorry, J, but I just don't care enough to read a post that long.

I did read it. Maybe once I learn more about music I'll understand it.

Long story short: We beat the [doo-doo] out of the other bands.



And pictures from that competition are on the absegami band site (linked to my sig.)

For the last month and a hald Ive been taking private lessons. I also play the trumpet J. It's a little more confusing than I thought it would be.

Three valves have more combos then you think. Then there's ameture, tounge arching, speed, double touging, triple tounging, keeping time, hitting the right pitch, hitting the right lenght of the notes, tone, being sharp or flat, the fingerings, I could go on for a while.

One thing you learn as a trumpet player: practice makes permenant. If you practice the wrong stuff, you won't play the right stuff when you have to.

Do you like it? After you get the C major scale down pact, it get easier, beginer music rarely goes higher then then a mid C, and rarely lower then a low C.

Let me guess what you have:

Bach Bb Student horn. (TR300? that's mine) PM me if you need tips or anything. OK?

Yeah I enjoy it alot. I think thats the kind of trumpet I ahve but it's at my school right now, so I can't go check. I will PM you if I need anything.
Oh, and hitting the right pitch was really hard for me to learn. I finally got that down though.

Here are some really funny Band jokes, you don't even have to be in band to get them:

http://manzano.aps.edu/activities/band/Humor.shtml#flute

above the flute jokes are 409 reasons you know that you have been in band too long, below are some really funny jokes about instruments.

http://www.geocities.com/sax411/humor/dictionary.html

Now you know what I'm talking about with this dictionary.

http://www.rpi.edu/~kuurem/marchingband.html

20 more reasons defining if you've been in the band too long.

And I have already.

Hey, there's been a press release from my band to our local newspaper:

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Absegami High School Instrumental Music Dept.
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FIRST PLACE AWARDS​

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Congratulations J. and good luck in your competition this weekend!

I was in band in middle school, but sadly I dropped out in 8th grade. I played alto sax. I didn't want to take marching band because I was too lazy to go to practice every afternoon. You have a lot of dicipline to stick with it!

not ready yet.-->[OK, I have my competition(as in my band doing their show with music/moves) on a dvd, and I'll send it to you through yousendit.com.

Just PM me with your e-mail, and you get to see this thing I've been talking about since July. You acuatly see me in the bottom left corner a couple times, and it's a pretty good video.]<--not ready yet, Sam is educating me. sorry.

And as for the championships (I'll make it short):

We came in fourth place, (losing to a band that dropped their drum on the field) and we were very [angry] at the results. Our scrore dropped from a 96.65 to a 94.9, and the show I have here is 20 times better then that one. But you can't have a NJ band win a PA competition. Politics. Our band director and staff are thinking about pulling out of the circut currently are in and going to a new one. The End. I hope that was a better summery then my previously long ones.

We don't have band at our school. If we did, I would probably try it.

What ever happened to J anyway?

I don't think he has been here since the relaunch or was he?

I don't think he gave a reason.

He Hates Us!!!!

I do not hate you. I just found myself misplaced... And I find it extremely ironic that you said that on my birthday...

As another note, last year, the 2006 Absegami Marching Braves placed number one out of the top 10 bands within the USSBA National Championships that took place at the US Naval Academy Football Stadium. This year, we swept the central jersey and state jersey championships, while coming in 3rd at Norther States, and 2nd at the 2nd Annual USSBA National Championships.

I think he was being ironic.

Nope he hates us. Still. Even though hes back he still hates us.

I hate hippies :/ Are you all reefer smoking hippies? I do not think so, as you all seem to be able to use teh intertubes correctly.