trumpetman1288

Si, hablo espanol y ingles.

Good luck with Carnival of Venice indeed. I don't have the patience to sit down and learn it because I really like sightreading.... The Arban book is REALLY good if you have the patience for it. I tried going through it once and I just lost interest. It's just so repetitive to me and my book today is nothing more than a dust collector. If I decide to be a music major (currently ranked number 5 for my top 5 career choices), however, I am sure it will wind up becoming my best friend.

Same here man...that's why I stuck mainly with concert season for me, and I still have TONS of stories. But I'll share one of the ones we do during marching season. Calling to Attention: At my school, we are rather traditional, and we stick with the traditional "give the band every command before a performance" thing. So the drum majors give a horns up command, attention, and so forth when we enter the field. Well, the command for "attention" is the drum major says "band ten hut" and we say "go big red." The drum major says the command on quarter notes, and for us, "go big" is a pair of eighth notes, and the "red" is the next down beat. SOOOOOO....we like to have fun with the "go big red" part of the command. We substitute anything we can that sounds like it... I like men I like bread give me *censored, but it rhymes with "bread" * And so on and so forth. We have come up with a number of dirty ones, but I don't think it's such a good idea to say EVERY single one of them.

We all have them: things that go on during rehearsal that the directors "don't know about." During concert season, trumpets harass horn players. During stand tunes, people ad lib certain parts in songs. Stories like this and crazier exist in nearly every band, so I am curious...what strange, humorous tales does YOUR band carry? Mute Stories: -We got bored because the clarinets could not play a certain part in the music, so our director kept working that part over and over again. Being the trumpet players we are, we decided it would be a fun, less boring means of entertainment to stack mutes on top of each other while he was fixing the clarinets. We got to three, and just as we were about to take a picture, someone accidently kicked it over and all our mutes came crashing down. Our director, already losing patience, told us to be "idiots on our own time." - Much shorter...I had this quick mute change in this song called Divertimento (great song!). Well, while I was getting my mute, I picked it up too quickly from my leg and I flung it at the back of a sax player's head. Quick mouthpiece story: -Again while waiting for woodwinds to get their music fixed, we decided to steal someone's mouthpiece and pass it down. It eventually got back before our director asked for the full band. The guy whose mouthpiece got passed said it tasted funny. We later heard it was put in someone's pants...but we never let the guy know that

Woops, sorry about that, I worded that incorrectly. I think Star should come back.

Hey, it's better than the "Mothers against Maddox" petition that was designed to remove the online satirist, Maddox, from the web. I think Star should stay...at least for "Blast!"...that stuff is fun to watch

Heavens no! That wouldn't be safe. We put about 60-70 people on a bus and THEN we cram equipment in. We Mexican folk are smarter than they give us credit for

My school is getting close to 2,300 students. If you scream "la migra" down the halls, however, that number quickly drops to about 800.

Since about 95% of my band is Mexican or hispanic (myself included), we just stick with our customary travel measures and see how much people/equipment we can stuff in one bus. We are down to 3 buses for a 200+ member band, props, drumline equipment, front ensemble, and auxilary stuff. If we need more room, we just make the freshmen ride on the top of the bus.

Try playing once you get your braces off It's even more fun. That's cool, being able to be under Donald Knaub's direction. I guess that would be like having Maynard Ferguson as a teacher...minus all the split notes.

I play slightly off center as well, but I do have rather large chops. My director tells me I should have been a baritone player and that I would probably have shined more with it, but that's another story. It all depends on what you really want out of yourself as a trumpet player really. At a college level, they may make you fix your embochure and play in the center, but for high school, if you are slightly off, it's no biggy. I have a buddy that plays way over to the side...probably right in the middle of center and the corner of his lips. He is one of the best trumpet players I have heard with an awesome sound, great articulation and everything, but it's weird to look at. If you want to center your embochure though, that is going to take a long while, at the shortest a month to get it centered and to have you play the way you normally do. It also takes a lot of patience to do so, but if you are determined, it can be fixed. Just play infront of a mirror whenever you practice and make sure you have it where you want it to be. At first it might not be so fun because you cannot play as well as you normally do, but try lip slurs, long tones, and all the other fun stuff, and I think in about a week or two, it will start to show some progress. Hope this helps!

Good point...I did forget about breaks. Our drumline and colorguard goes from 8-12 and then again from 1-4. There usually isn't more than one break in that time though. The only other "break" in that time is usually for explanations. As for full band, when we start that, we are usually having 5-6 hour days with only about 1 break if we are outside. Oh, and thanks for letting me know about the drill thing...shoulding it be which ever happens last though? You know...in the interest of fairness and all. At my school, if we follow the August 1st thing, then we get 3 weeks before school starts, and I know traditionally you cannot start anything extracurricular, cocurricular, or whatever it is until the last two weeks of summer. But I will take your word for it though since I am the one in question after all. Thanks though, you eased my worries about going out of town :-D

What exactly is leadership camp and registration camp? And marching for 12 hour days? That is insanity! Well...then again, we start next week for half the band...depending on what section you are in...and we had freshman marching camp the second week of May. A lot of the freshmen for next year actually look promising, so that's a good sign for us. Oh yeah, and for us, I had posted what we do, but on full band, it starts the 24th and goes until 18th of August. M-F is 8-11, and M, T, and Th has 6-8 added. But yeah...here I am again...posting about schedules. Does anyone know when schools can start setting drill? I am going out of town on August 1st-4th, and I've heard that you can set drill on the 1st. Is that so for this year? I was thinking it will be a little later this year because the stuff for football is a week later than it was last year.

Man....we only have 3 oboes in our high school...much less have 6 for a third band. We barely got big enough to have a fully suited third band this past year.

We start mini camps (sectionals, section camps, whatever you would like to call them) on the 10th, and we start official band camp on the 24th. I get to whip my section into beastly men and women two weeks before band camp starts just so everyone can fear the trumpet section! OK, OK...maybe a little too psychotic. But yeah...I want everyone to do well, and since there are 35 trumpets, I will need the two weeks to at least make us good. Not OMG awesome, but good. The directors can make us awesome

Nah...I agree whole-heartedly that Reagan plays well. I've seen them in person on more than one occasion. I remember going to state my sophomore year and being blow away by their playing and remembering their show over everyone else's simply because of their music. I do, however, believe that Reagan sways more in the BOA direction than the UIL direction. But, as this forum suggests...it's only predictions. Maybe Reagan will do a UIL show for a change, but I doubt it because it's not what the program has established itself to be. But in all actuality, my hats go off to Reagan for doing so well in such a short amount of time. A lot of the students over there do play well, I feel as if they do have one of the strongest programs not only in the state, but in the country, especially for not even being 10 years old. I know a school down here that has been around just as long as Reagan has, and they have yet to receive a first division in any thing band related. Aside that, unless Reagan changes a few things, they will leave state marching contest with disappointment as I am sure they might have two years ago, especially after having won the super regional the weekend before.

I know this comes almost a month later, but in response to the previous posting, area G is REALLY lacking in competition, hence the reason no one really considers area G. Now, I do have the right to say so since I am from area G. I do, however, see competition picking up in that area within the next 5-10 years because of this: 1.) Two bands (Edinburg North and Sharyland) finally beat Harlingen in a contest in the 2005 marching season. When Harlingen emerged victorious in a contest, a band was not trailing their score by very much as was the case in the past. Harlingen has been the dominant band in area G for the past 10 years or so I would say, and I am sure that the band was not happy with this upcoming year, and the program will improve again as a result to keep this from happening again. 2.) Sharyland recently moved up to 5A two years ago and got their first taste at state marching contest when this happened. This horrid experience (Sharyland finished last that year) set a stepping stone for the program and led them to a very successful 2005 year. Sharyland continues to improve because their addition of a new director responsible for their "visual performance" has pushed the marching program in a good way. I see a good year for them for the 2006 marching season. 3.) The two main contenders that even have the SLIGHTEST chance at making finals would be Sharyland and Harlingen. The two programs will continue to try and top the other and this will eventually lead to a better level of competition between the two bands. Considering that Harlingen finished 15th in 2004 means that if they can step it a little more, they will soon make state finals. If Sharyland steps it up as well, then they can top Harlingen off. Harlingen has already proved that they can play well by receiving the help and clinicing of Mark Higginbotham (sp?) for music. Sharyland impressed him with their BOA Super Regional music performance and he offered to do their arrangements for the 2006 season, but they turned him down...personal reasons I've heard. It's just a matter of time before area G gets some recognition in the 5A level of competition. Roma and Brownsville Lopez have begun to make a name for themselves in area G for 4A. Lopez is moving up to 5A this year, and I am pretty sure that they will be a finalist around the time that area comes around, but I can't say if they will qualify for state or not. We all know how much more intense 5A can be than 4A simply because of numbers, as Sharyland experienced. As far as FOR SURE state finalists go, I would definitely say that LD Bell, Churchill, Duncanville, Cedar Park, and Reagan are in the mix. LD Bell just overall boasts a great program, and they have a lot of experienced marchers after their 2005 season. Churchill has a great program as well, and I feel that they deserved to win state in 2004 because they did march the cleanest show with the fewest errors that year, but they are definitely in the mix. Duncanville is always in the mix. They are a great "UIL" band and will probably finish in the top 3 again. I honestly do not care much for their shows, but despite that, they do really well. Cedar Park will rebound from their fumble last year and prove that they are true contender. I don't care for their shows as well, but they do play EXTREMELY well and I think it is wrong for people to count them out. Look at LD Bell's success despite all the fumbles in their 2005 season if you do not believe me. Reagan is an AMAZING band....for BOA. They are what I like to call a "show band" because they truly do put on a good show; unfortunately for them, that is not what UIL looks for. Unless they can make a change in their show type, they will never win state, but I do expect them to make state finals despite this. Their marching technique, music, and drill cleanliness improved astronomically from their state year to last year. They do however, have an unusually large number of people out of step in the various performances I have seen of them. If they can fix those things, there is no reason why Reagan wouldn't become a top 5 finalist at state. And those are my area G predictions as well as state finals...and I'm out...sorry about the long-ness of this post.