GenericWit

^^^^ is a gamer

The kids from the skittles commercials. Do you feel sorry for woodwinds bc they can't join DCI?

What Michael didn't mention was my theory. So, I'll repeat it for all of you. They're both wrong. It's stockholm syndrome. While the elves were originally imprisoned by the pedophile santa (who took them because of their resemblance to the little children he stalks once a year when his parole officer celebrates Christmas), but then they began to grow loyal to their captor.

Thanks. It doesn't hurt as badly as it did then though... I still have that problem, but... marching with the brace hurt so badly. I used to go home and cry (and then prepare myself to go back for nighttiime marching since it was band camp aka 3-a-days). But whoaaaa... What you have to admire is just getting up and going back onto the field. It's a drummer thing. Some of them talk like they don't care, but I think percussionists are naturally hardcore band lovers.

Oh, I fully agree with you. One thing that our other section leader friend over here was point out, though, was that sometimes you've got to be not liked to be a leader. The ones that are most liked generally aren't the best. I mean, if you're a leader who talks about non-business related things to your section all the tiem on the field, yeah you'll be liked, but no you won't be setting a good example. However, if you enforce no talking on the field, you might not be liked as much, but it will set a good example for underclassmen and lead to having a successful band rehearsal. Since this is a problems thread, I guess I'll share a problem I had with my co-leader a few weeks/months ago that's almost completely solved now. I'm in a section that has... 7 freshmen tubas and 3 freshmen euphoniums, and my official title is tuba/euphonium section leader. However, this senior tuba section leader had a tendency to tell the freshmen tubas that they didn't have to listen to me because I wasn't their section leader. Firstly, there's a reason I was put as their section leader too. Second off, all the low brass section leaders except for me will be gone next year. Thirdly, no section leader in our band has more power of their section than others. We're all trying to achieve the same thing here. It went on for weeks... when we got new drill, he'd literally rip the coordinate sheets for the tubas out of my hands, for example. I tried talking to him about it, but it didn't work. I talked to the directors about it. It's almost fixed now. He calls the tubas and euphoniums "ours" collectively, but some freshmen still think that technically he's their only section leader. That's why it's almost completely changed... But yeah.. the point of the story is... if something major happens, skip the chain of command and talking to drum majors and whatnot... go straigh to the directors.

She* But anyway... the person above me has almost all the letters of chicken in their name.

*cough cough* Someone else: "... What was that?" I said... *cough cough* Someone else: "... What?" I said... Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis... mvmt 2

Nachos. deff. It doesn't matter whether you're in pit, a shadow, the trumpet soloist, or the guy that sits there adjusting the volume of the mics and the synth. You're going to be just as cocky about your show as everyone else in the band. True or false?

Hmm well... the sousa cases are round so... can you be a contortionist for a while? Haha. I hope we more than make it as a wild card, though.

The majority of our leadership is seniors. Like... drum majors: 2/3 flutes: 1/2 clarinets: 1/2 saxes: 2/2 trumpets: 2/2 trombones:2/2 tuba/euph: 1/2 (with me being the junior) But... some of those people were junior leaders last year... As a junior section leader, I don't get listened to or looked up to anywhere near as much as the senior ones just because they are seniors, and some of them do... occasionally... let that get to their head. It's just... you've gotta be top notch to be a junior section leader. I think it's harder for a junior TO be one bc of seniority. And about the sitting out thing... well... I think it's ironic that the girlfriend of someone who is 100% anti-sitting out is someone who sits out every practice without fail. I, too, think it should be... no practice no game. I get if you get sick and you sit out. I've been there before, but if you sit out for whole practices or chronically many times a week then you need to be replaced unless you're, like, in a cast or somethin'.

That's pretty hardcore too. I bet it fixes problems quick.

Umm... hip pivots on concrete... in my puma running shoes... wow... My knee was messed up really badly. I had to wear a brace for a few weeks, take some anti-inflamatories and get some fluid drained as well as take pain meds. Yeah, I march with it.

Yeah we do some of that. We don't move on until fundamentals look good either. I remember those days during summer band where you'd spend 3 hours straight doing fundamentals... we don't get "water" breaks either since we all have camelbaks. Marching is pretty hxc.

No, I'm not. David Kohlman's dad owns it, I remember, because we were talking about it when the tuba/euph section went to ihop during the beginning of marching season. Edit: And yeah... I guess that answers the other question which is... yeah... the freshman David, not "Zeus."

I, personally, fell in love with Whitacre the second I heard October. It's easily one of my favorite pieces ever. I mean, obviously, there are more complicated pieces out there (anything by Mahler is amazingly difficult, amazingly perfect, and amazingly... well... amazing), but there's something about October that gets to me. Whitacre's style does that to me. He's one of those composers where you just CAN'T listen to his music in the background. You have to be focused on it. Reminds me of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky in that way. *giggles* I can't help that. Have you SEEN his myspace pictures?

David's dad, right?

No worries.

Alphabetical order? Very nice way to skip out on giving order. Haha. I'd like to see Connally at state though. Oh I know. I'm excited but nervous. I'd love to fastforward time to see what happens. I do know one thing though... I'll be somewhat content at least if we do our best performance. If we have a great performance and know that we did all we could, but the judges didn't think we were the best... then okay, but to know that you could've done better... that would kill me for weeks. So, I want to see every band there have their best performance that way no one has any regrets or doubts as to who deserves to go to state.

You know... that's not a bad idea, but doesn't it take away from rehearsal if in the middle you drop out for a second to do them? Or do you do them at the end of rehearsal? I think if we make state, the low brass should do something like that. Any thoughts, Dave?

Right! I forgot about the band football game! Isn't Zeus also the trombone god? Does that have any connection? I mean, you're good and all David but geesshhhh. Way to be cocky. lol. Kidding.

LOL... Hahahahaha. I remember today during practice Linley told "the infirmary" to get in, and Roldan looks at them and says "WHAT'S WRONG WITH Y'ALL?" and I blurted out "They're flutes. That's what's wrong." and people around me start laughing. Good times. Not as good as "1 2 1 2 Scott is **** 1 2 3 ready pop." but still... And ummm... I don't know if we're technically allowed to make people do pushups/run/whatever. I've never come into a situation where I've had to. Maybe by Michael's standards but not by mine. P.S. While the flute section leaders threaten running... I told a freshmen in my section that consistently misses a line that every time he missed it, a kitten died. We've kept a dead kitten count. It's dramatically decreased.

I remember during section leader/drum major training, when they first made us run, my reaction was ".... wtf?" to be quite frank. But we started doing it then, continued through freshmen camp, and into full band camp. We did it all band camp, and I think it really got people ready to march at 172. I mean, we'd never gone that fast before and the fact that we're able to this year shows something. We didn't have to do pushups, but we did do crazy body strengthening stretches. Most of us broke a sweat before we even got to fundamentals. I say... thank God for being a section leader this year because... I was definitely happy to be teaching the low brass fundamental block instead of participating in it. I secretly think that that's a reason why section leaders work so hard and take all of the frustration and bad stuff and slavelabor that comes with it... because we get to do less fundamentals... lol.

I loved when Lewisville did it. Then again, I loved Lewisville's whole show. It's just a show that's fun to watch. I couldn't even focus on it critically to see marching fundamentals or really notice if the music was great or not. The show was just soooo interesting.

I was totally there. That was awesome. We got candy afterwards too. Usually, we take like no brass players... this time we took me, David (trombone) and Nitzschke (tuba) so it was pretty sweet. I didn't even get asked anything because the chick that introduced me used to work with me so she knew enough about me to say w/e she wanted. Haha. Did... did we even ask them anything? I don't think we did. Oopsie. But yeah our typical thing is like that too... Hey band! Hey what? This is ______. cheer He/she plays the ______. cheer He/she's the __________ section leader/drum major (if applicable which it usually is). cheer I've gotten to go twice, and I hope I get a third time next year. EDIT: Didn't.... didn't we introduce David as Zeus?

Don't know what to say about comparing band stuff with corp stuff... I mean, one has woodwinds and one doesn't. Obviously the one without wins (muahaha). Umm but really between BOA and UIL, I think it depends on if you're more traditional or modern. I think my band wouldn't do nearly as well at a BOA competition as we do at UIL because we don't do props or the soulja boy in the middle of our movements... we focus heavily on fundamentals. I think BOA is better if you're looking for something fun to watch. I think UIL is better if you're looking to improve yourself. That's my personal opinion. Of course... DCI is like... professional marching so like I said, it's in a whole other league. It's like super BOA/UIL combined sans woodwinds.