Practice Does Not Make Perfect... Only Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

We're sitting on the bus, waiting to go to our first competition.  It's raining.  Ugh, I've never performed in the rain before.

The rehearsal actually wasn't too bad.  I was complimented on my marching style in the third part moving to the diagonal.  My shoulders were terrible, and people told me so, but no one can go through a rehearsal on competition day without being yelled at.  We were told during warm up to think of one thing we were going to focus on, and I chose to focus on shoulders.

I've had a couple of competition day jitters.  I forgot to take my Dinkles out of my uniform bag like we were supposed to.  Also, I freaked out since I thought I forgot my gloves.

Apparently, we're the first band to perform in our division.  I think we'll do okay, like in the middle.  My drum line friend feels uber confident, but the drum line needs to listen to each other.

I feel really bad for a clarinet in my grade.  She hurt her knee or ankle recently, and our directors made her march in practice

Afterwords:
We're done performing, and know we're watching another band.  Overall, the performance was pretty good. I was fighting exhaustion.  My calves hurt.  I didn't make any errors too large, mostly not quite dressing perfectly.  Apparently, something weird happened with the ballad beginning.  Something like we didn't know the counts between the opener and the ballad, and we were losing steam as the show went on.  My marching band mentor, now drum major, said she thought it was good.  One judge, at the big moment, said that it was very good.  Maybe it was the acoustics, but it sounded like we fell apart at some places.

After Awards:
We got second place out of fifth.  Percentage wise, we did better last year.  There were only five bands in our division, and last year there were eleven.  We were kind of upset.

We had a cheering war with the band next to us.  They were the band that beat us.  It was a lot of fun.

When we got to the football game, which was changed to Saturday and frustrated us, we were told by one of our drum majors and out band director that some of the football players were excited that we showed up.  I want to know if they were serious or sarcastic.  Probably sarcastic, although there are probably some football players that actually enjoy having the band there.  It seems like many of the players a cocky.

So that was my really busy Saturday, and now I'm tired.

Pre-Competition Things

Our first competition is tomorrow!  I'm excited, but definitely not ready.  The upperclassmen aren't harping on us as much as they did last year.  I need to nail the end of the opener, solidify the very beginning of the ballad, and rehearse the end of the closer.  Originally, we were told we were playing the ballad beginning, but then we were told the pit was playing, and now we're back to playing it again.  Plus, they changed the counts so it fits with the music.  My shoulders are absolutely terrible.  Most of the time, they're on an angle.  That's because no one's been reminding me, and marching band is so extremely big on multi-tasking.  I can play and march most of the show with so-so style.

It's kind of frustrating.  The team our football team is supposed to play had a schedule change, so the game's tomorrow.  We'll have to rehearse, eat, change, drive, perform, change, wait, get awards, change, drive, change, play, perform, play, and drive home.  It's going to be tiring.  In some ways I'm glad, though.  We'll be back late at night and have to get up relatively early the next morning.  This way, we can go to bed early.

Yay!  I'm so excited for tomorrow!

Four More Rehearsals

We only have four more rehearsals until our first competition.  We lost five hours of practice in the last week due to the weather, so we had to stay an extra hour.  It's was extremely hot.  Almost hotter than band camp.  I was exhausted, and plus I didn't have sunglasses, so I was pretty miserable.

Because of the weather, the football game schedule changed to tonight.  I hate it when the band schedule changes because it screws my schedule over.

My band director was harping on us for style.  Mainly shoulders and marching style.  I realized that my shoulders are at an angle most of the time.

First Football Game

Yay!  The first of a string of practically a million football games.  We won, which was nice.

The rehearsal before the game was four hours, but it wasn't too bad.  It was the happiest I ever was to be at rehearsal.  I had to go through a lot of work to get to it.

The performance was okay.  One flutist who I stand next to for practically two thirds of the show was there for rehearsal but not for the game.  That made it tough.  I really depend on the people next to me.  I just kind of know who I'm near in each set.

I told my mom how the flutist told my band director that she wasn't going to be there for the game.  Now she said that if my band director let that person out, I should sign up to go on a retreat and just tell him I'm not going to be there.

I feel really bad about doing that, since I've already been late twice.  It's kind of stressful balancing marching band, work, school, flute lessons, etc.  My mom wants me to do band all four years, but my dad wants me to quit.  He says that since I'm not thinking about making flute my career, why am I doing band.  Also, I need to figure out what I'm doing with the rest of my life.  He also said that high school is the time to do things that you enjoy, so he's not standing in my way.

Updates

Wow, I haven't posted for a while.  Here are some updates.

1) School has started, and that means football season.  Our first football game is tomorrow, which leads me to my second point.

2) My mom was talking to my boss, the one who makes the schedule, and somehow I was shifted to work tomorrow even though I hadn't written it down on my availability sheet that I could work.  I have band practice tomorrow at practically the same time.  I managed to get out of it.

3) Premiere night came and went.  It stormed during the day, so we did a stand still run through inside.  It was fine.