Jeff’s Blog

On October 11th, about two weeks ago, we had regionals for marching band. We qualified for quarterfinals, which was no surprise.

Last Friday, though, we were quite a bit more excited about making it to semifinals. Then, yesterday at 5:45 in the morning, we left for the competition. We were the first band to perform. It was early and somewhat cold, but we still managed to get 7th place, qualifying us for finals! For the first time in our school’s history, we made it into finals.

During the day, we were anxiously waiting for the announcement, periodically buying food. We ate taco salad for lunch and got warm in the bus waiting for the finals competition. When it was time to go warm up, we got into uniform and were freezing for the next hour. My fingers were aching horribly, even with the fingerless gloves somewhat covering them. I personally improved in the second performance, but the band lost a point overall. However, we moved up a place, so once again, we made school history with 6th place in state finals!

Just now, our school had a Fall Music Festival. Basically, it was showing off to parents what the music department has been doing so far this year. Marching band opened with their whole show, just standing and playing. It was very impressive. Next, some singing groups performed, and after a brief intermission, Jazz 2 was on. They were decent, certainly worthy of performing. Then came Jazz 3.

We were better than we had ever been before in rehearsal, and personally, I made no mistakes. I hit all the syncopations right, always knew exactly where I was in the song. I was by no means perfect, but I was at a satisfactory level for myself. After we played Trumpets Out Front, a basic blues form song, we played Firing Line, our funk chart. They were both awesome. After the performance, our band director announced the names of the drummers, the bassists (and forgot one), and then said, “This is the first time we’ve ever had a freshman in Jazz 3,”, and introduced me to the audience. People were actually clapping for me as an individual for once, which was amazing.