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Our band concert tonight was surprisingly good, for anyone that cares.
Tomlin gave us a hilarious pre-concert speech involving his childhood, a pink suit, a pink beret, and YES, a SAXOPHONE, believe it or not!
Wind Ensemble went first. The audience lights were not dimmed because they "didn't know how to". This is yet another reason why we should not be playing in that facility.
We commenced with Vigor, which was pretty good. That song always confuses me because the notes are arranged in such a way as to seriously confuse dyslexic people, and I'm almost dyslexic with my contacts on. We got up, bowed, hooha'd, and sat down.
Then Ally moved to the other side of the band for her other clarinet, and Tomlin offered 10 bucks for my water bottle. We then began "Resting in the Peace of His Hands." This song apparently moved my grandmother. Not physically. Actually, that would be quite interesting. But I digress. We weren't incredibly in tone on the crazy clarinet notes, but it was better than today's rehearsal (in which I was a billion degrees out of tune for every note). This was Tomlin's favorite song, and it sounded pretty good (surprisingly!).
We stood up again to accept applause, and with a swift motion I switched chairs with Caitlin to play the 1st Clarinet part on Winter Dances. I did a quick tuning check with Ryan on a concert Bb, and then we were off with the quick, incessant staccatos of "November." I executed a certain 2-measure-spanning 16th-note run quite skillfully (for the first time!). I was happy.
Tomlin, surprised that no one clapped after the movement (they aren't supposed to, but people sometimes do anyway), quickly cued "December." The first few measures were terribly out of tune, but that was soon vanquished in the sway of a wand as the 2nd/3rd clarinets and saxophone created a beautiful melody/background mood. The last note, an above-the-staff B played at pianissimo, was almost gruesome but Tomlin cut if off pretty quickly.
Again, no one clapped (hurray!). Pages were turned and "January" was on our stands---the fast, minor-keyed tribute to the wind in Tomlin's face in the winter as he walks from the parking lot to the school. Personally, I was very nervous about my performance because NOT ONLY was this my favorite song of our concert lineup, but today I played it EXTREMELY out of tune with Ryan to a degree where I had to stop playing.
So we began. When Ryan and I had the melody with notes that our usually out of tune, I just trusted myself and played strongly. It worked. The trombones played the iffy section well, and I smiled. Later on, the band successfully clapped in the clapping measure, which always makes me happy. When the melody was given to the horns later in the piece, they performed it awesomely. Can you say adrenaline rush? Dynamics were exaggerated at a good level. I was very happy! After this, people clapped...and whistled. Actually, people whistled after every song.
Ballad for Benny. I felt as if I was sight reading most of this song because we barely rehearsed it at all. Besides hearing some funkyness in the first clarinets, the song was well done.
Tomlin stepped off the podium to talk to the audience. First, he announced the folks who made it into ASJ. That made me happy. When Ryan stood up, someone whistled. You know, the cat-call whistle. That killed me. Catcher in the Rye, anyone?
Anyway, he announced Mirella for All Eastern Band (wow!), and then announced that he was going to invite all of our parents one week to COME TO ONE OF OUR REHEARSALS! That is so cool. Crazy, but cool. Tomlin ended with saying "You know what, nevermind, I've talked too much" and returned to podium stance.
Fantasia for Christmas was next. I was worried because we all tend to rush and end the song on different beats. But we made it. And it sounded pretty good.
So then we were done.
We put our stuff away, and waited outside, listening to the flute and percussion ensembles. The percussion song sounded like a wind-up toy, which I could not help but imitate. Tomlin called me a party animal. That killed me.
We sat and listened to the Symphonic band. Their first song was alright, but their second song was surpringly well played. With the exception of tune/tone problems (particularly in the clarinet section), they sounded nice. It was an incredibly long song, but it was very interesting to listen to (and dance to...but anyway...).
Now I'm here with eight billion english question to answer.
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