Monday, September 28, 2009

Marching Band Weekend 1

This weekend flew by and man was it chilly. It was the marching bands first weekend out and they did great! Friday was the first football game and between stand tunes and their field performance the kids did alot of playing, it kept them out of trouble. =P The kids really enjoyed themselves.
Warm up in the school parking lot
Waiting patiently to play for the football players as they enter the field
The kids waiting for a signal from my friend and fellow band instructor (the guy standing)
My little clarinet players =)

The next day was their first show in Oswego, NY! The day started at 9am (a little early for those of us that decided to stay up late hanging out) and went till around 1am. It was one of the windiest shows i have ever been to. Our poor color-guard spent half the show chasing the flags after tosses and trying to salvage the prop. We have a giant may pole like prop in the back of the field that got blown right over with in the first few minutes. The band handled the whole situation very well. For it being their first show it was ok, little bumpy, but most of it was first show jitters. There were mistakes i had never seen/heard before, was a little interesting. They placed 4 of 4, but for everyone that we competed against it was their 3rd show. The kids are going to have a lot of work ahead of them and they are ready to do it. Some kids have a ways to go, but they have some very enthusiastic leaders and instructors!
Some of my woodwinds show day!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Band-A-Thon!

What is band-a-thon you ask? Well I'll tell you. Band-a-thon is a 25 hour long rehearsal for marching band. As a marching band instructor, I was there the from 8am Saturday til about 7:30am Sunday. It was great.

The kids made some real progress and their show that they put on for the parents went amazingly well. They had one of the best rehearsals every which was surprising seeing how we started at 8am. The day was rather uneventful, but night time held a different story.

We'll start with their downtime, which I slept through for the most part, from what I hear was rather interesting. While I slept in blissful ignorance starting around 11pm everyone else was just getting started. The first story I hear was our lovely color-guard instructor, Beth, was forced to go swimming much earlier than she had planned, and with a different set of swimwear than she had planned. She wasn't overly upset, which in all honesty surprised me, she did however proceed to hug every person she came across. The next story I heard was of two friends of mine, who will remain nameless, took the golf cart for quit the lengthy spin around the school. I still don't have all the details. The rest of the stories fall under the usual shenanigans category such as playing ditch, getting in trouble, horror stories of the poor souls trying to sleep, and so on.

At 3am we started our sectional rehearsals. The woodwinds had the fortunate pleasure of using the library and having two instructors that actually slept. Needless to say Jamie, the other instructor, and I were much to happy for 3am. After we our music time I gave each student a Santa hat, than pulled it down over their eyes(hahaha). It was time to play follow the leader, blind folded. They all grab hands and we were off!



We toured the school with various different leaders and than headed to the cold outdoors!

Once outdoors we ran and marched around the field blindfolded. Manage to lose a flip-flop in the process, but it was successfully recovered later. Next we headed back inside to the library for our last team building exercise.


That's right a trust fall! The above picture was taken from the angle of the person falling, they were standing on a table. The picture is of our human net! We actually got almost all of them to fall onto the net of woodwind players, my little brother included. At the end they all insisted that Jamie and I also fall, because trust goes both ways. Those kids are too smart for their own good. We did end up falling and they caught us, but it was the most nerve racking thing I have done in a while.

After that it was an hour of down time, and hour of ensemble rehearsal, clean-up, breakfast, and home time. After the hour rehearsal I peaced out and promptly collapsed into my bed until 4:45pm. All in all it was a great time, tiring, but great.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Hello!

I've decided this is the best way to keep friends and family updated on what goes on here in this Quiet Little Mountain Town of Norwich, NY. Instead of random phone calls, emails, and even the occasional handwritten letter this would be the best way to keep you all updated. That and I get bored and this sounded like fun =P.

But seriously this should be a good time and hopefully I won't bore you!