xredsummersunx

: When you sing along to the pit warm-ups : When you go through the day humming band music : When you start figuring out the counts for your favorite songs on the radio : When you give up 14 hours of your summer to go paint the bandhall/constuct the entire percussion room full of cabinets : When you hear metronomes in your sleep : When you go to a parade and are sitting there waiting (TX independence day...was anyone else there) and the tubas start playing "Hey! Baby!" and suddenly all the rest of the brass join in.

Hahahahaha....oh man, that is SO true. I learned that the hard way. And whoever said they can always sleep after the competition...it's the same for me. I think it's cuz you're nervous...and that nervousness gives you weird energy. But then after the comp. you're like "Oh wait...I've been awake for 14 hours, in a heavy band uniform, running around in the hot sun and not getting much rest." and then you can finally just...sleep. On the way back from my first Houston regional I fell asleep and the chaperone later told me that people stepped all over me. I never noticed.

Hahahaha...that's pretty awesome. I'd never have the patience for it! And yeah...for the most part...what happens on band trips does stay there. Except when you take pictures of it. In which case you have evidence that can be used to embarrass people for years to come.

So...come on. We ALL have to go through them. We love them. We hate them. Talk to me about your fun bus rides (or maybe not so fun...) How the heck do you get good sleep? What do you do when the trumpet player behind you won't stop blasting Sublime? What do you do when you have to watch Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers yet again? What was your longest trip? Do you have any general, unspoken "rules"? I've taken two obscenely long trips: one in 7th grade to Charleston, South Carolina, and one in 10th grade to Phoenix, Arizona. Both were about 22 hours. My goodness. On the S.C. one, I sat 3 to a seat with my two best friends almost the whole time. We even slept like that. It was insane. You should have seen the way the bus looked...stuff everywhere. I'm surprised no one got lost.

Yeah we have PALs...but it's reeeally biased in the selection. It's basically, who's friends with the students who make the selections.

Eh...nothing wrong with it, it just usually doesn't seem to happen at my school. The best relationships seem to be from different sections, like Woodwind/Brass or WW/Percussion or Brass/Percussion...you know what I mean. That way you're not ALWAYS together, but you're together enough and you have enough differences to be interesting.

James Bowie at Austin = the suckiest football team. Ever. I don't get it; everyone's so into the football team who can't win to save their lives...yet we go to finals in BoA every year and get nothing. It's awesome how it works like that. I just remember my freshman year we played Leander...it was a shut-out, 49-0...and to me it was like "hey! welcome to Bowie! this is what you're stuck with for the next 4 years!"

I am DEFINITELY jealous of the people who have block scheduling. VERY. I wanted it so bad (more time for more classes!) Anyways, the schedule goes: 1. Wind Ensemble (sucks, the director has us playing till the bell rings, then I have to sprint to put up my horn and get to the very opposite end of my school) 2. AP US History 3. AP German IV 4. Concert Choir 5. Lunch 6. AP English III 7. Pre-AP Precal 8. AP Chemistry Basically, I love history, english, and choir. Precal = EVIL. I HATE math. Chemistry is ok. My teacher pretty much bribed me to take it. Anyone else doing AP Chem?

Yeah uh I think it's the same for every band everywhere. We have: "Last time!" "One more once" "PERFORM!" "BRING IT!" "Breathe!" "STRAIGHT LEGS!" and "STOP TALKING!" (space for emphasis) and this isn't marching band, but in jazz band my director loved saying to us (trumpets) "TUNE THE DANG D!" ...good times.

I've never fallen in performance but...the VERY first day of freshman band camp, we were learning attention position... it had only been like 15 mins into it and we had our horns at set, and I felt like it was unbearably heavy and my legs were really stiff. Right as the director was saying not to lock your knees was when I passed out. I've never locked my knees since!

Woah, heck yes. Everyone above who expressed interest in learning horn, DO IT. (I play horn...who knows why I'm on a trumpet thread.) I'm gunna say horn is VERY different (much harder) than trumpet. (I learned trumpet/played it for jazz band in 8th grade) BUT...the sound is beautiful and it's a lot of fun.