No promises!: Saturday DAY

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Saturday DAY

My day didn't start out that well...my van wouldn't start. At all this time. I got up to the 20th try and figured I might be doing more harm than good, so I gave up. I took Jen's car to school...a fact that will lead to much irritation and hilarity later. Keep reading.

We had a rehearsal that morning on the field. It was really more like noon, not so much morning. The kids ran through the show, and then we had them run the show "bopping" all the notes...for those of you unfamiliar with bopping, here's a little explanation: you take any piece of music, and play all the long notes short...your short notes are still short, and the articulation doesn't change. It makes weak spots stand out starkly, and exposes places where the kids are not playing together correctly. So in the opener, the woodwinds usually go, "DA daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa," with the last note lasting about 4 beats. Bopping it, it goes, "Da da". Much more abrupt...

It's also funny as SHIT when you're slightly giddy from being up late the night before, and about 1/3 of the kids had never really "bopped" before. Oh man...it was like getting the giggles in church...you know, when you're trying REALLY hard not to laugh, but that somehow only makes everything that much funnier? So yeah...that was good for a belly laugh.

So they all get ready and pile into the buses. I drove Jen's car so I could scoot out of there and get home to the party faster. Well, I walked out of the band room and couldn't find my van...where did I park? What the hell?! Oh, wait...Jen's car. OK, look for a champagne colored Malibu...how hard can that be, right? HA!! There were two in the parking lot. I did manage to figure out which one I needed, and got on my way.

We get to warm-up, and things are going pretty well. I took one of my bass clarinet players and a sax player to the fix-it table to get their horns patched up...turns out the bass clarinet needed a boatload of work but they got it up and running again. If she didn't play the damn thing so well I wouldn't have bothered to get it done at the last minute like that...but she is good. There are times I can hear the two bass clarinets over the 6 tubas...bwa ha! And just for the record...they're both girls. :)

We leave warm-up and go through the water line...as the kids are waiting to get their water, I walk past and gently remind them to say thank you. Apparently, they all said thank you. The Tate band moms manning the water table told us how polite and nice and sweet all the kids were, and how every one of them thanked them for the water. Heh. On to the field!

We were the first performance after a break of some sort. Once we got the go-ahead, the kids walk out, and the tubas (leading the wind players) very nearly followed the drummers around to the front of the field. We fixed that, and the instructors headed for the front of the field. We ended up sitting in the stands themselves as there wasn't much room on the track. Their performance was probably one of the best I've seen and heard from them all year. The music was good, the marching was good, and there were no obvious mistakes from where I sat. I found out otherwise afterward, though, but that's ok, too.

I was patting my leg along with the beat (I was helping) and honestly didn't think any of the kids could see me - I mean, I performed a lot of halftime shows and don't recall ever actually focusing on any one person in the stands. However...one of my sax players thanked me later for keeping the beat as she couldn't see the drum major. Heh.

They finish off the show and march off the field, with someone in front that didn't know where to go. I point them in the right direction, and we get to the truck. Everyone (including myself) has lost that "oh god I'm gonna throw up" feeling and there's much nervous talk as we wait for the parents to arrive with the columns and open up the trucks. That's when I found out that at least 2 of the woodwinds (both of them Juniors!) ended up on the wrong yard lines at various points throughout the show. They both very coolly marched at the next move to the correct place, so they hoped nobody noticed. Yikes, right? I had a lot of kids say that was the best show they'd ever marched, and that was awesome and such. They felt very good about it.

We go from the truck to the buses, where they gather money, jackets, etc. and then are dismissed into the stands until the award ceremony. I grabbed Stephanie and head to the car - I want someone else to know where the damn thing is so I won't be stuck there till everyone leaves later. We get back to the stadium and stand in an ENORMOUS line to get something to eat. We watched a few performances while we ate, and relaxed a little bit...then began the arduous task of getting the section leaders to the bus and back in uniform. I was ready to THROTTLE them by the time we got there - bunch of drunken monkeys!! They got in uniform (and the guard captain? changed clothes completely in the dark and was dressed and ready before half the band kids...bunch of slackers!) and headed back to the stadium for the award ceremony.

I headed into the stands, and we watched Tate perform. Robert W Smith wrote their show, by the way. It's very typical of a RWS piece, until about halfway through. They all run around in a scatter drill, and suddenly you see two "football teams" playing. Then someone runs in a touchdown, and some poor clarinet player in the end zone does the "touchdown" signal, and all hell breaks loose. The crowd ate it up with a spoon. Then they bust into the fight song. Again, the crowd loved it. So RWS wrote in their fight song to their show. ...sigh...

ANYWAY, the award ceremony. I don't remember the scores and let me tell you how irritated I am to not be able to find them online!!! Anyway again...some other schools got their results, and most everyone was getting various combinations of superiors and excellents. By the time it was our turn, Choctaw was the only school to have gotten straight superiors. None of the guards to that point had gotten a superior (besides Choctaw). I was a wee bit nervous. They got all superiors, though, and then we sat back to enjoy the rest of the results. Pace High got all superiors but one (ahem), and Ft. Walton Beach did, too (I think - like I said, I can't remember exactly). Ha!!

Then we leave...and once again, cannot find the car. We ended up going a different way to the parking lot and I was completely backwards. There were at least 4 Champagne Malibus in the parking lot, not to mention the 2 dozen other cars that looked suspiciously like Champagne Malibus in the dark. On to the party!

posted by Jen @ 2:01 PM

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