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Posted

We had our concert tonight. It went well. Except for the fact that the four orchestras (three middle school and one high school) had to play. I hate to say it but they aren't very good. We had Don Hanna guest conduct us. He's a retired but amazing band director. I love when he comes to our school. Anyway, concert is over. Next semester we get Redline Tango. Yay.

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Posted

I have no idea what our band will be playing this year. The only thing he's mentioned that he wants to read with us is Slavanskaya(*sp*). We read it in years past and it's pretty fun. Last year we played:

 

Easter Monday on the White House Lawn by Sousa

Forgot the 2nd piece

La Fiesta Mexicana by Reed

Posted
  Fata1 said:
We had our concert tonight. It went well. Except for the fact that the four orchestras (three middle school and one high school) had to play. I hate to say it but they aren't very good. We had Don Hanna guest conduct us. He's a retired but amazing band director. I love when he comes to our school. Anyway, concert is over. Next semester we get Redline Tango. Yay.

 

 

just have to say cus I'm in orchestra, but playing a string instrument is MUCH MUCH MUCH harder than playing a wind/percussion instrument. If you don't seriously start playing a string instrument at the age of like... 5, then it's almost impossible to get anywhere fast with that instrument. The tuning is SO hard and all the fingerings are based off of theory, not fact. It's very hard to find really good high school orchestras, so most schools that even have an orchestra program to begin with are already very elite in my opinion.

Posted

Yeah, that's understandable. But our school's orchestra isn't just bad because of that. They're bad because they don't try at all. They never used to have sectionals or any type of out of school rehearsal. The only practice they would have is the 45 minutes during they're orchestra period each day. This year, the new director tried to implement a one hour rehearsal each Monday but no one likes it. They think he's asking too much so a lot don't show up. Aside from that, they're are only four or five kids in the entire orchestra who actually practice on their own. It's just not a strong program in general. The new director is also teaching at the middle schools, though. Hopefully he can make a strong program one day.

Posted
  Fata1 said:
Yeah, that's understandable. But our school's orchestra isn't just bad because of that. They're bad because they don't try at all. They never used to have sectionals or any type of out of school rehearsal. The only practice they would have is the 45 minutes during they're orchestra period each day. This year, the new director tried to implement a one hour rehearsal each Monday but no one likes it. They think he's asking too much so a lot don't show up. Aside from that, they're are only four or five kids in the entire orchestra who actually practice on their own. It's just not a strong program in general. The new director is also teaching at the middle schools, though. Hopefully he can make a strong program one day.

 

our high school is like that as well. We sound fine to the point where we could/can/do get straight ones at uil every year, but we could be so much better if more kids tried.

 

our new director is trying to do the same thing with us right now that your director is trying to do at Southwest.

 

 

Back on topic... our next concert will have:

Vesuvius

2nd Suite in F

A Symphonic Metamorphosis

Joy Revisted

 

These next three I'm not sure if they'll be played or not, but I heard that they will be... so idk...:

Lincolnshire Posey

Festival Overture (Shostakovich! YES!!!!)

El Capitan March.

Posted
  b_sax_agent said:
but anyway,

 

our top band is playing

 

American Overture for Band by J.W. Jenkins

 

And Javelin by Torke/Patterson.

Javelin is hard.

 

I've never had as many 16th notes on one page in my life.

 

Hindemith Symphony in Bb is hard, but not as hard as Javelin.

at least for Bari sax.

 

 

we played Symphony in Bb last year. it's really hard at the beginning but once everyone learns their parts its so much fun to play!

Posted
  TRtrumpet said:
Eh. Small schools (that have people that don't care) suck.

 

heck ya

 

 

we were gonna play sleigh ride (the version in cut time and has the key of G in it) i dont remember who arranged it or composed it but we didnt cuz half the band knew it well but the other other didnt bother to try to learn it... dedication right there..

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

We started looking at UIL pieces more in depth today. I'm not sure if we're still looking at Redline Tango but I hope we are. We also looked at Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral. I loved it. If everything goes the way I would want it to, we'd be playing Redline, Elsa's Procession, and a good march.

Posted

OK, our band finally (finally!) has our UIL program in place...more or less...

 

We will DEFINITELY be doing Lincolnshire Posy (Grainger0

We will 98.3% LIKELY be doing Awayday (Gorp)

 

Our director is still undecided on a march: it's now a toss up between Rolling Thuder (comp. unknown to me), and Easter Monday on the White House Lawn (Sousa)

 

And Fata...if you guys end up doing Redline, I will be wishing I was at Southwest instead of Paschal...sorta.

Posted
  ftwdrummer said:
We will DEFINITELY be doing Lincolnshire Posy (Grainger0

We will 98.3% LIKELY be doing Awayday (Gorp)

 

 

I'm super excited about Lincolnshire. And I'm pretty positive that we're doing Awayday, considering that every day we are told how good our program of Lincolnshire and Awayday will sound.

Posted

Hey, we'll be doing Lincolnshire as well! I know that our director was also thinking about doing Ticheli's Symphony #2... but I think that would be taking on quite a large amount of music for UIL...

Posted

wow... never played ANYTHING Ticheli? That sounds almost impossible to believe.

 

I know the 5A region band for region 24 played his "Wild Nights!" for their first song. It was interesting... but it sounded just like "Postcard" so I kinda lost interest half way through.

Posted

nope. never p[layed Ticheli at all.

 

I almost got to play Wild Nights, because one of the bari saxes didn't show up, and when I got there, he arrived two seconds after I did.

 

Ticheli evaded me again.... :(

Posted

We're still looking at music. I'm about 80% sure that we're playing Redline Tango. Today, we were listening to some of the stuff Mr. Dunn would like to look at playing. We listened to Pines of Rome, something by Ticheli, and a couple of marches. The weird thing is, I know more about what we're playing next year than I do about this year. He told us that next year, for honor band, we're definitely going to be playing Symphonic Metamorphosis by Hindemith. I'm excited.

Posted
  Fata1 said:
He told us that next year, for honor band, we're definitely going to be playing Symphonic Metamorphosis by Hindemith. I'm excited.

 

 

Good luck. We're doing that right now for Midwest. It's not easy. =[

Posted

surprisingly ( or not) Symphonic Metamorphosis is one of the easier Hindemith works...It fairly linear, easy to keep up with, and is fairly straight foreward.

 

One of my orchestra friends is playing his Symphony in Eb, which is a medium difficulty for hindemith writing.

 

 

However, all Hindemith music is hard, so it doesn't make a big difference :D

Posted
  borchnork said:
I think you'll enjoy the french horn part A LOT in the 4th mvmt. it's one of my favorite horn parts in history. =]

No kidding. Patrick, the senior next to me, was mad when he heard we were playing it next year. He wanted horn parts.

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