Post by Xero on Aug 8, 2008 16:45:49 GMT -5
Justin and I have been talking about this the last few days. I know Josh was trying to help a lot trying to get the brass to be amazing this year, but I've only heard bad things about Josh leading sectionals: he's like Mr. Mote, always giving pep talks and not getting any work done. So yesterday, we stayed after school and walked down to Chick Fil A and Kroger and we were talking about things we could do to get our brass section to be DCI material (not exactly how we worded it, but whatever). Anyway, here's the list of things we came up with.
Summer Music Camps (UGA, KSU, etc.)
visuals (this doesn't really have anything to do with making us good, but it makes the show cooler, and I have a ton of ideas)
Brass Fest
Tuba Christmas
Monday/Friday Optional After-School Lessons/Practice Sessions
Explanations:
Summer Music Camps: I went to music camps at UGA and KSU this summer, and both were really great experiences. UGA always has fun music, and you get to listen to amazing musicians playing solos and in small ensembles every night. The UGA camp is an overnight camp, so you get up around 7, eat breakfast, have a musicianship class (music history, jazz history, music theory, etc. for juniors and seniors, and general musicianship for freshmen and sophomores), then you go to morning rehearsal, then sectionals, then lunch, afternoon rehearsal, free time, dinner, evening rehearsal, then evening activities (Monday-faculty recital, Tuesday-staff recital, Wednesday-dance/social, Thursday-chamber ensembles (brass choir, quintets, quartets, trios, percussion ensemble, etc.). Then the concert is on Friday. And because you stay in the dorms overnight, you make a lot of friends with (obviously) your roommate, the people on your hall, and basically the entire band you're in.
KSU was a good experience too. There a lot of people from around here who are really good musicians (I was last chair trumpet out of six). And, like Mr. Howard, the trumpet teacher, said, we get better faster when we're around good musicians. They motivate us to improve and be better than them. I enjoyed that. Not as much as UGA, but I think it was just because I was last chair.... then I saw the first trumpet part. No way I could have played it. But it was still fun. And you get to experience different types of music. Like at UGA, they have daily recitals, and there are a lot of different ensembles you can be in. There's jazz band, wind ensemble, and orchestra, and that's all brass can be in all of them. They split your schedule so you can be in all three if you play instruments that are normally in those ensembles (trumpet, trombone, and tuba... yes, tuba was actually in jazz band). I highly recommend this camp. The trumpets had master classes with Tom Hooten, principle trumpet of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and his wife, Jen. And we had a trumpet ensemble, which was awesome! The music was great Gabrieli-like stuff. (They might make it full brass next year instead of separate sections, but it depends on the size of each section).
Brass Fest: lol www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBP5O9Z50kk This wasn't actually at Brass Fest last year, but he was the guest soloist there. And he played this exact song in the same way (with the same crazy visuals). And the best part was, as long as someone got the lower parts, you got to pick your own parts for the music (first trumpet, second, third, fourth, first trombone, second, etc... for your instrument, of course).
Tuba Christmas: As you might have already noticed, a lot of these things cost large amounts of money. So Justin and I thought that Mr. Mote might be willing to dip into the band funds to help pay for half of one or two of the events for whoever wants to go. So that's all I really know about Tuba Christmas. Justin, you'll have to explain the significance of this.... and there are only two other low brass on the forums (unless you count Matt and Adamczyk), so it probably shouldn't be too hard to explain it.
Optional Practices: Geof's idea of having optional lessons or practice sessions on Monday afternoons was a really good idea. I'm still working on seeing if I can actually do it. But I know for sure that I will be able to stay on Fridays. And today, Justin and I were at school a few minutes late, so we did a few breathing and buzzing exercises and played a little while we waited for our rides. We both ended up light-headed after the breathing exercises, so, apparently, it worked really well. We're working on putting together a list of exercises to do at these practices. The practices aren't mandatory, but anyone who wants to come can. Hopefully, we'll manage to get most of the trumpets there. I think Matt and Dryn would probably like to do it. Marleigh probably would, and Geof and Victoria would do it almost for sure. (I'm not saying anything for you, Anthony, because I know you like to go home and sleep before the games, and you can speak for yourself anyway.) and, like I said, ANYONE who wants to come can come. I already posted something about this on the Marching Band thread, so you can check there, but my idea was to start with anyone in brass who wants to come, then adding percussion when we reach a decent level, and possibly adding woodwinds later on, even though this is mainly a brass thing to help with chops, etc. We were thinking we'd just do buzzing and breathing, with a little bit of playing, for about an hour.
Of course, all these ideas have to be cleared with Mr. Mote, so if anyone wants to join our cause, it would probably help persuade Mote to let us do these things if we had more people there with us when we asked him about it. We're planning on asking Mote about all of this stuff Monday morning, so let me know if you're in and if you can come in the morning to support Justin and me.
And if anyone has any ideas to make Etowah Brass DCI material, feel free to post your ideas here. I'll add an updated list every few days/weeks.
I'll also be sending out these things to the trumpets in the next newsletter. The next newsletter will probably be sent out later today or some time tomorrow, so I'll just write that the actual occurrence of these things is TBA. (The newsletter will be sent out before Sunday because I want to make sure everyone knows to where a white T-shirt, shorts, and black socks.)
And.... that's about it. Justin, if you have anything to add, go ahead, and let the comments ensue (lolol ensue - to follow: vocab from Mr. Hinson that I already knew).
Summer Music Camps (UGA, KSU, etc.)
visuals (this doesn't really have anything to do with making us good, but it makes the show cooler, and I have a ton of ideas)
Brass Fest
Tuba Christmas
Monday/Friday Optional After-School Lessons/Practice Sessions
Explanations:
Summer Music Camps: I went to music camps at UGA and KSU this summer, and both were really great experiences. UGA always has fun music, and you get to listen to amazing musicians playing solos and in small ensembles every night. The UGA camp is an overnight camp, so you get up around 7, eat breakfast, have a musicianship class (music history, jazz history, music theory, etc. for juniors and seniors, and general musicianship for freshmen and sophomores), then you go to morning rehearsal, then sectionals, then lunch, afternoon rehearsal, free time, dinner, evening rehearsal, then evening activities (Monday-faculty recital, Tuesday-staff recital, Wednesday-dance/social, Thursday-chamber ensembles (brass choir, quintets, quartets, trios, percussion ensemble, etc.). Then the concert is on Friday. And because you stay in the dorms overnight, you make a lot of friends with (obviously) your roommate, the people on your hall, and basically the entire band you're in.
KSU was a good experience too. There a lot of people from around here who are really good musicians (I was last chair trumpet out of six). And, like Mr. Howard, the trumpet teacher, said, we get better faster when we're around good musicians. They motivate us to improve and be better than them. I enjoyed that. Not as much as UGA, but I think it was just because I was last chair.... then I saw the first trumpet part. No way I could have played it. But it was still fun. And you get to experience different types of music. Like at UGA, they have daily recitals, and there are a lot of different ensembles you can be in. There's jazz band, wind ensemble, and orchestra, and that's all brass can be in all of them. They split your schedule so you can be in all three if you play instruments that are normally in those ensembles (trumpet, trombone, and tuba... yes, tuba was actually in jazz band). I highly recommend this camp. The trumpets had master classes with Tom Hooten, principle trumpet of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and his wife, Jen. And we had a trumpet ensemble, which was awesome! The music was great Gabrieli-like stuff. (They might make it full brass next year instead of separate sections, but it depends on the size of each section).
Brass Fest: lol www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBP5O9Z50kk This wasn't actually at Brass Fest last year, but he was the guest soloist there. And he played this exact song in the same way (with the same crazy visuals). And the best part was, as long as someone got the lower parts, you got to pick your own parts for the music (first trumpet, second, third, fourth, first trombone, second, etc... for your instrument, of course).
Tuba Christmas: As you might have already noticed, a lot of these things cost large amounts of money. So Justin and I thought that Mr. Mote might be willing to dip into the band funds to help pay for half of one or two of the events for whoever wants to go. So that's all I really know about Tuba Christmas. Justin, you'll have to explain the significance of this.... and there are only two other low brass on the forums (unless you count Matt and Adamczyk), so it probably shouldn't be too hard to explain it.
Optional Practices: Geof's idea of having optional lessons or practice sessions on Monday afternoons was a really good idea. I'm still working on seeing if I can actually do it. But I know for sure that I will be able to stay on Fridays. And today, Justin and I were at school a few minutes late, so we did a few breathing and buzzing exercises and played a little while we waited for our rides. We both ended up light-headed after the breathing exercises, so, apparently, it worked really well. We're working on putting together a list of exercises to do at these practices. The practices aren't mandatory, but anyone who wants to come can. Hopefully, we'll manage to get most of the trumpets there. I think Matt and Dryn would probably like to do it. Marleigh probably would, and Geof and Victoria would do it almost for sure. (I'm not saying anything for you, Anthony, because I know you like to go home and sleep before the games, and you can speak for yourself anyway.) and, like I said, ANYONE who wants to come can come. I already posted something about this on the Marching Band thread, so you can check there, but my idea was to start with anyone in brass who wants to come, then adding percussion when we reach a decent level, and possibly adding woodwinds later on, even though this is mainly a brass thing to help with chops, etc. We were thinking we'd just do buzzing and breathing, with a little bit of playing, for about an hour.
Of course, all these ideas have to be cleared with Mr. Mote, so if anyone wants to join our cause, it would probably help persuade Mote to let us do these things if we had more people there with us when we asked him about it. We're planning on asking Mote about all of this stuff Monday morning, so let me know if you're in and if you can come in the morning to support Justin and me.
And if anyone has any ideas to make Etowah Brass DCI material, feel free to post your ideas here. I'll add an updated list every few days/weeks.
I'll also be sending out these things to the trumpets in the next newsletter. The next newsletter will probably be sent out later today or some time tomorrow, so I'll just write that the actual occurrence of these things is TBA. (The newsletter will be sent out before Sunday because I want to make sure everyone knows to where a white T-shirt, shorts, and black socks.)
And.... that's about it. Justin, if you have anything to add, go ahead, and let the comments ensue (lolol ensue - to follow: vocab from Mr. Hinson that I already knew).
