Category: Band

Here we go … the second, out of four, competitions!!

It’s cloudy, cold and it looks like the kids may get rained on at times. I’m praying, PRAYING, really hard that the rain bypasses us. It rained yesterday and Jazz said that the band director made them practice anyway, probably to prepare them for today, I imagine.

I’m ready, (well not technically, I still haven’t taken a shower yet – I will when I get back from dropping Jazz off at school). I packed two travel packages of tissues (my nose runs like a faucet) and a travel packet of hand wipes (because WOW, the germs at these things). We’ll also take a blanket and a cooler of beverages as well as bundle up and prepare to sit in 30+ degrees of coldness WHEN (I’m optimistic) the kids make finals tonight.

Kevin and I will be leaving around 9ish this morning and will likely grab a Starbucks for the road.

I really look forward to this competition. I have the utmost respect for the Oklahoma bands and I’m really looking forward to seeing their shows this year. Not to mention, Broken Arrow will showcase their show right before finals start tonight, and that’s ALWAYS a treat to watch.

We’ll be home about 2:30 in the morning. I can already feel a yawn coming on just typing that.

I pray every day. My prayers are pretty redundant – I pray for my family, for our jobs, for our safety, for our country (GO ROMNEY!) and I pray for the weather … especially when marching band season rolls around. I pray REALLY hard when it’s marching band season.

We’ve been lucky, so far. (Or not luck, but blessed – God is awesome). We’ve never had bad weather on band competition days. We’ve had overcast, cold days, but it’s never rained hard enough to cancel or postpone, the competition.

WebbStock was no exception. In fact, God not only answered my prayers that day, He surpassed them. The day was gorgeous. G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S.

I drove Jazz to school. He’s such a zombie when he gets back from competitions that I didn’t quite trust him to drive home at midnight. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact, I think he was a little relieved, actually. I dropped him off at the school at 9:00 – the band director wanted the kids to run through the program once or twice before they took off. They also planned on having Subway sandwiches so they wouldn’t have to worry about grabbing something to eat prior to competition.

I went home and finished getting ready. Kevin and I, after nearly four years of doing this, are finally getting smart about these trips. We packed a small cooler with water along with one Monster drink and one Starbucks Frappicino. We pack these caffeinated beverages because we spend precious time after competitions are over trying to locate some place to buy coffee for the long-dead-of-night trip home. I say “precious time” because we’re often trying to beat the kids back so Jazz doesn’t have to wait on us. Yes. He could drive home, but it has sort of become a tradition for us to drive him home and to talk about the highlights (or low lights) of the show.

We got on the road around 11ish. We arrived at the stadium around 12:30 and we settled in to watch the other bands perform before our kids went on around 3ish.

Our biggest competitors, Willard and Blue Springs, were really good. But we knew the band to beat would be Blue Springs. And they didn’t disappoint – their horn section was top notch and they won the best horn section, which I knew they would. We placed second in preliminaries and our drum majors as well as our solo flutist won best overall.

I thought the kids played really well during prelims – they SMOKED the music during finals. They sounded phenomenal – and it helps that I also really enjoy the type of music the band director has selected this year. I think it’s a smart combination of in-your-face sort of make-your-heart-beat music and a slower, beautiful combination following. The band director always picks beautiful music, but some years our music is too slow in too many places and often times, the audience loses track of whether our kids are even playing at all.

Not so this year. The third song is rather slow, but not so soft that you can’t hear what’s going on. I’m really pleased with the music selection this year. I do wish we had more movement though. The title of our show is “Out of the Box” and the color-guard girls push brightly colored presents around the field. Which is fine and makes the show colorful, but it’s a bit disappointing because you sort of expect something to pop out of the box at the end of the show and nothing happens. The kids also end the show with their backs to the audience.

???????

I’m not crazy about that part, either. It appears like they are preparing for another movement or song, so the audience is not sure whether the show is over or not.

We made finals and we ended up placing third. I sort of think we were robbed and deserved second, however, after comparing the scores, I can see why the second place team, Nixa, won over us. Their show was visually fun to watch. Though our music was better and way more complicated, their presentation really did blow us out of the water. We scored higher in music composition and execution, but our low score came from the visual side of the show and I can’t say I’m surprised – at all.

We arrived home around midnight and actually had to wait about 30 minutes for the kids to arrive. Kevin and I fell asleep in the car waiting for them.
Six school buses pulled into the lot at 12:30. If I hadn’t seen the kids at competition I would have been surprised. Actually, I was a little surprised anyway. The band usually takes the nice tour buses to competition but I guess the band director wanted to save some money on a competition that was only a little over an hour away – as opposed to the other competitions that are over three hours away.

Jazz hated it. He said the buses were uncomfortable and had little leg room, but he’s used to taking the big, nice buses and is spoiled.
The kids have been practicing hard these past few weeks. They didn’t have a competition last weekend, so the band director has taken this time pocket to fine-tune the show. Jazz said that he has added some movements to the last song and I hope it includes NOT ending the show with their backs to the audience. Our band director has his finger on what works musically, and he’s very talented when it comes to executing the musical part of the band, but he seems to have trouble with the visual part of the show. He doesn’t have the kids moving nearly as much as the other bands and I honestly think we would do better in finals if he would focus on that aspect a little more.

At any rate, we did well for our first competition – and especially well considering the kids had learned the show just four short weeks prior to the first competition.

We have another competition coming up this weekend at Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. This is a big one. The Oklahoma bands are FIERCE and very, very hard to compete against. They really raise the bar and I honestly think that’s one reason why our kids do so well … the band director is constantly challenging them to be better and better.

My predictions? Top five. Hopefully, top three. We’ll be competing against the 1st and 2nd place bands in WebbStock again, so it’ll be interesting to see how we score against them.

Wish us luck!

UPDATED: ON OUR WAY TO WEBB CITY!!

Kevin and I are going to eat at Schlotzskys for lunch and then head to Webb City. (Dude is not going with us – he would rather go to the larger competitions). I dropped Jazz off at school at 9:00 this morning. He didn’t want to drive because he’s a zombie after these things and he didn’t feel comfortable driving home in the dead of night half asleep.

I’ll second that.

We went to the band parent preview last night and WOW – these kids never cease to amaze me on how FAST they learn these songs. The music is fantastic, I wish the kids would move a bit more, it’s always more entertaining when the entire band have movements and fun things to do. The Color Guard girls are adorable though and put on a pretty good show. The one thing about early shows is that they evolve into more sophisticated shows later in the season as the band director adds more to it. The show today will be a competition-slash-critique camp sort of thing, so it’ll be interesting to hear what the judges say or how that affects the show later.

Anyway. The weather is GORGEOUS and absolutely perfect for a band competition. I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow …

He looks silly, right?

This is our youngest son, Jazz. He’s in uniform … sort of. Actually. His hat is the only part of his uniform; he’s dressed all in black (sort of) for black out night for band practice.

Once a year, the band director calls “black-out night” and the kids dress all in black and wear their hats to practice. The kids really enjoy it and it breaks the monotony.

Practice is going well, but Jazz is pretty sick of it already. Marching band season may be MY favorite season, but it’s not necessarily HIS favorite season. He actually enjoys Jazz band in the spring more, hence the reason I’ve dubbed him “Jazz” on my blog, but the Fall? Belongs to mama.

*snap*

The kids were supposed to play at the first football game a few weeks back, but it poured – and I mean POURED – rain and they didn’t have a chance to march.

They marched at last Friday’s football game and though Kevin and I went, we really didn’t see them very well. The school over planned too many events and the place was PACKED. We ended up finding a parking spot at the front of the school and when we walked around to the back and toward the football stadium, the line was backed up well into the parking lot.

We knew that if we made it in, there was no way we would find a place to sit and we really didn’t want to stand for two solid hours until half time, so we stayed in the car and listened to the radio until half time. We stood outside the gate to the stadium at half time and we peeked around various bodies and tried to listen to the show over the low roar of the crowd.

I’m glad we hadn’t paid to get in because it really was a damp mess. (It misted nearly all night so everyone was pretty soaked by half time). And we didn’t see, or hear, squat. The band director also let the kids leave after the half-time show, so it would have been a waste of money anyway.

Since we knew we were going to go to the game, we took one car. We waited around for Jazz to put his stuff in the band room and once he found us, the first thing he said was, “I’m so pissed.”

I just figured it was due to his performance. He’s so hard on himself when it comes to his playing.

“Did you hit a wrong note?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t know how to exit the field, we’ve only been shown how to do it once or twice, and we sort of scrambled at the end because no one really knew what they were doing. I just sort of yelled, ‘LEFT’ and thank God, people listened to me and we all turned left. It was disaster. And Mr. P. was really annoyed and yelled at me.”

Jazz has never liked getting yelled at. It really bothers him when people are upset with him. Which has been a really good thing for me and Kevin because it has never taken much to make Jazz obey us – even the threat of yelling at him has kept him in line. And he really admires Mr. P – A LOT. And it really upsets him when Mr. P is upset with him.

I didn’t really say much because he was upset and he really didn’t want to hear anything “helpful” from me, so I kept my mouth shut. But I used that experience as a “teaching” moment the next day and we talked about the importance of accepting responsibility for goof-ups and to ask questions if we aren’t sure of something. Especially when you’re in a leadership-type role (which he is this year – he’s leader of the saxophone section, which is 14 kids, thank you very much).

Anyway. The practice-slash-performance didn’t go well and I’m sure the kids have been paying for it the past few days and have been working hard to “correct” their mistakes ever since.

They’ll have practice tonight and a dress rehearsal practice Friday night. I plan on going to the Friday night practice. I’d like to take some pictures of the kids in their uniforms and since the stadium will be empty, except for the hard-core parents like me, I’m looking forward to actually hearing them play this time.

Their first competition is this coming Saturday in Webb City. I use the term “competition” loosely because it’s more of a learning clinic than a competition and the band director is really more interested in hearing the critique of their performance than in how well they perform, though it will be set up like the traditional performance competition with the top 12 bands going on to the finals.

Jazz is not looking forward to it. He doesn’t feel like they’re ready, but then again, he says that every year. I just hope the weather is nice because it’s rained the past two weekends.

Even though I’m going to miss these band competitions something fierce, there’s a small part of me that will be relieved. It’s STRESSFUL watching them and hoping they don’t screw up bad enough to not make finals.

I’m usually tense and on edge the whole time we’re at a competition.

It’s fun, and yet, it’s not.

So, as is tradition with the boys’ high school, we went to the Ice Cream Social the other night to listen to the music the kids practiced during band camp week.

And as usual, I got goosebumps because the songs? Are a little Christmas-y, and uplifting, and happy and … I just really love our band program. The band director consistently picks music that leaves a smile on your face. I can NOT wait to see what sort of marching tricks he has up his sleeve for this year.

Seriously, I don’t know why I get so worked up when the kids play. I don’t know if it’s because I’m secretly (or perhaps not so secretly) envious of their high school experiences, or if I’m overwhelmed by their talent and ability to absorb new things like a sponge, or their youth … or all of the above …

… or if I simply enjoy watching these mini shows, listening to the music or marveling over the different interpretations these bands come up with.

All I know, is that I’m scary into these marching band months. I asked Jazz the other day if my, erhm, enthusiasm (that sounds so much better than “obsession” doesn’t it?) embarrassed him. He just shrugged, gave me a little smile and said, “no.” That made me feel good, but I never want to embarrass my kid in front of his peers.

It’s just not cool.

And I like to pretend I’m cool, at least.

The whole time we sat and watched these talented kids strut their stuff, I couldn’t help thinking, “THIS IS HIS LAST YEAR!” WAAAH! I’m honestly going to miss these competitions. And I’m already gearing my family up for next year. “You’ll go to the band competitions with me in St. Louis next year, right? RIGHT??”

Because I mentioned I’m sort of obsessed with these things, right?

I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before.

At any rate, the kids are practicing their young tushes off. The theme for this year’s show (this LAST YEAR’S SHOW, for my kid at least), is “Out of the Box.” I won’t give it away, but there will be boxes and surprises involved. Actually, that’s all I know at this point as the only thing we were privy to at the parent preview was a little bit of marching and the music. The show evolves each time we watch it and I think that might be the biggest reason I love these marching band shows so much. You can watch the same show over and over again and you always see something different. Not only is the show evolving, but there’s so much going on at one time that it’s nearly impossible to take it all in after the first six times of watching it.

The kids are playing at the first home football game this coming Friday. I plan on recording it, even though I’m really not supposed to. But I think all bets should be off for senior parents because IT’S THE LAST YEAR OF MARCHING BAND!!

And I think it’ll be fun to compare their first show to their polished show when they reach the Bands of America in St. Louis in October. Which I’m really looking forward to, if you can’t hear the excited squeal in my voice as I type this. I even reserved our room at the Drury Inn next door to the Edward Dome back in January.

Because I’m a careful planner.

Okay fine, I’m obsessed.

For now. I’m not-so-patiently patiently waiting for the show to begin.

Like these guys.

Let the fun begin!!