Yesterday was a very long day: it was my first ever marching band festival! It took place at Wheaton North High School, in Wheaton, Illinois. Yesterday was a day to perform our marching band's halftime show (Cuban Fire) and receive critical comment and feedback from a panel of judges. The results weren't exactly what we had expected, but it was a fun day, and a learning experience overall!
So, we didn't have to be at my high school until two o'clock, so I spent the morning doing a workout tape, eating cereal and having a dance party in my room. This is what I do on the weekends; don't judge me.
I picked up my friend Bethany and we (my sister, her, and I) drove to the school with a huge good luck from my mom as we were dropped off in the parking lot.
When we walked in, you could tell the whole band was both really excited and super nervous. We had learned new sets (individual coordinates on the football field to make the cool patterns you see) on the practice field the pervious day and they were a little shaky and not many of us had memorized the music to those new sets and we had forgotten the last quarter of sets to the second movement of the piece. Although we fixed them that Friday, we weren't very confident we would remember the fixes and half the band would play when we weren't supposed to or move when we weren't supposed to.
So if we remembered, the show might be a hit. If not, it was a recipe for disaster. Take your pick!
We changed into uniform, boarded the buses, and left for Wheaton North! On the way there, I sat with my flute girls and somehow, on accident, our friend Maggie shoved herself into my friends Karen and Nancy's seats and pushed Karen to the ground! So Karen was stuck in the space between the bus seats, on the floor, and couldn't move. She screamed her head off for the rest of the trip over there. There are several videos and photos she will (apparently) use in court against us. Our section leader seemed amused.
We pulled into the parking lot of the high school and I saw various things: about twenty other marching bands, all of varying sizes, uniforms, and instrumentation, pit percussion rehearsing in the fields next to the school, about thirty other buses parked in the parking lot, instrument trucks bearing logos from different townships, and a medium sized stadium with TURF!
We unloaded our buses and headed to the field for the "opening ceremonies" of the festival, then walked back to our area to change into uniform and warm up. We walked to one of the nearby practice fields in a neighborhood and just warmed up in our sections and we played through the halftime show as a band. I could feel the tension, excitement, and nervousness in the air. There was so much riding on us from the directors and we really wanted to win, but we knew that it was a tradition here that our band never did. We hoped we could change that.
As we walked back to the school, there was a ton of enthusiastic praise coming from other high schools who weren't going on just yet, or had already performed. Everyone was so nice to us!
We walked onto the field as Naperville Central High School was performing their show, "Beethoven Crüe" (a tribute mashup to Beethoven and Motley Crüe). For a visual purpose, they used folding chairs in their show, I thought it was creative, but didn't really understand the usage of the chairs.
They finished and we headed to the back sideline, where we marched on and took the field for competition. I was so ready, but at the same time so scared! But, the drum majors started conducting, our lead snare, Drake, did the tap-off to the first movement and we just started to play.
The first movement was GREAT!
The second movement was good up until those sets I was talking about before. Some of us didn't hit them correctly and didn't make the formations we needed to, but we all ended in the correct charts to start the third movement.
The third movement was a disaster zone. We weren't counting right when we had to change tempos, we missed a horn move, and our sound wasn't confident. We had just learned most of those sets the previous day, so we knew it probably wasn't a good idea to do the third part, but our directors just really wanted us to do it. It was an incomplete movement too (meaning we hadn't finished all of the charts we needed to learn to complete the show?, but I am sure by our next festival we will have it down pat.
We marched off the field, got some closing comments from our director and the drum majors, and went back to the carts to the change into uniform. Somehow, my parents and our neighbors (whose daughter is a senior in color guard) found us and wanted to take a picture with me and my sister, which I found very nice.
I found my friends and we went to the concession stands for an hour long wait to get food. We were STARVING!! After the wait, we ate with our band on a hill next to the stadium and watched the other bands compete. There were some that used props, cool costumes, or told a story, but the musical aspect of their performance wasn't as strong as their visual aspect. Comments were made throughout by my friends and I.
At around nine-thrity, the awards ceremony started! We were silent and crossing our fingers while the other bands around us were disrespectful and and loud. I honestly wanted to go over there and tell them to shut up in the sassiest way possible because the awards meant a lot to my band and we really wanted to win, even though we knew we wouldn't.
And you know what? Those bands won, while we got nothing. It was a little disappointing at first, but as we headed back home, we realized it was a learning experience for all of us and deep down, we were happy we had came!
Cheers, and wish us luck at our final festival at University of Illinois on October 13th!
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