I'll go as in depth with this as I can for now. I've just arrived in from our band competition, it's 12:45, and despite being all excited, I'm rather tired.

Anyways, today we loaded up and travelled 2 1/2 hours to our southwest to Franklin-Simpson High. It was a hot day, miserably so almost.

Got into uniform, blah blah. I met someone really nice from Ohio County Marching Band, so if you're our there, eh, you were nice! Yeah! Alright.

We went to our warm-up area for our alloted warm-up time. You could feel the intensity in our concert arc, as we went through the usual. Concert F scale - 8 counts a note, followed by our warm-up slurs. We then played through our first song, "Finale" and broke off into sections for tuning. We came back into our concert arc, played through the show. Condensed into a small circle, sang through it.. The band prayed...I always step-out for that, mind you..

During our play-throughs, we generally mark time. I missed our football game last night to go to my brother's wedding, so I felt sort of "out of it" so to speak. I ended up getting off-step, which never happens. Thankfully, it was just in the mark-time. I was so nervous though. More nervous than I suppose I've ever been before a competition. I just don't get nervous.

Well, we're walking to the field, at attention. You can feel the intensity and focus pouring out of everyone. We were all so focused! It was incredible! One band, one goal, you know? So we take the field. March on, Lindsey (our FC) does her salute. "Russell County, you may now take the field in competition." Lindsey starts us off..2 measures of 3...

Everything sounded so awesome in "Finale" I didn't know what to do. On into Petrouchka, everythings goes as it's supposed to. Measure 23, the big, intense part..GREAT..Best we'd ever played it, I was thinking, "Oh my God, is that us?!"

Round Dance - not a single person I could see off-step, spacing is perfect. We get down into the big section, 3 measures just as forte as we can get...The tone is great. Mind you, I'm picking out an individual baritone sound, but that's okay.

The Rite of Spring...Everything is awesome. I can feel my shoulders, how well they're squared to the sideline...I'm thinkin', "'Bout time I did this right!" We get to the big hit. A clarinet and a trumpet both play during the 3 counts if silence.

Everything else is great.

We're exiting the field. Parents from not only our band, but other bands are standing up, cheering, you hear, "Go Russell County!" We exit, we get our water on the sideline. We're being lead over to our picture area. The opposite bleachers are filled with other bands. They stand up as we past, they're all cheering.

I couldn't believe it. I was looking up at them, I pointed to myself, I said, "Us?" and everyone up there's like, "Yeah!" Cheering for us. It was incredible.

Anyways...

Rhonda's Mistakes: Off-step for 2 counts in Petrouchka in the second move. Didn't play hits in Rite for fear of getting off-step. Got a bad, bad, terrible interval in Round Dance.

Here comes the Awards Ceremony.

Russell County wins:
1st Place Class 3A
Best Percussion Class 3A
Best Percussion Overall
Distinguished Score (anything about the 80% out of 100)
Reserved Grand Champion.

We lost by .1 to Elizabethtown.

E-town: 84
Russell County: 83.9

Next weekend: Madison Central. Grand champions will be Russell County, and no one else.

Good to finally see all these weeks of hardwork, hot weather, and sweat and being all pissed off pay off!
[This message was edited Sat Sep 7 23:03:07 PDT 2002 by BattierBeMyDaddy]

Battier!

Even though I know you were disappointed in taking second place, that's still immensely impressive. Hell, I'm proud, and I'm positive you'll kill next weekend.

Hip, hip, hooray!

God damn judges. You were obviously robbed.

lovemachine said:

Heh heh! I think they fucked us over for those twits playing on the 3 count silence. Man, that's just a stupid mistake from lack of concentration. Something that should never happen. Ever, for any reason.

But, anyhow, this reminds me of why i'm in band. As frustrated as I get, as hot and sweaty and tired...It's for the competition. And the feeling you get when you know you helped contribute to a bigger cause.

Then, you know you can go ou tthe next week and fix it, and do even better. It's a great experience.

What was the score of the game?

BattierBeMyDaddy said:

That's why I like sports. Even my weekly Saturday pick-up basketball game makes me feel like this.

lovemachine said:

My HS marching band had a chant for situations like that:


Nuts and bolts!
Nuts and bolts!
We... got... screwed!

Whew!, At least you didn't trip over your own feet!

Oh. Wait a minute...



Hmmm, I hope I didn't jinx you.

2the9s said:

No.

Just a lack of concentration in the move is all. It's alright, happens to us all at one time

matt said:

Strange sense of humor on these band geeks

Everyone knows that choir kids were definately cooler.

lovemachine said:

The choir kids here are all Jesus-freaks with no sense of humor.

BattierBeMyDaddy said:

Sounds like my kind of crowd

Well done Rhonda!!!

bkw said:

Thank you, dear.

BattierBeMyDaddy said:

Would you two, and Mr Artiga, get a room.

2the9s said:

Only if you're coming with us.

2the9s said:

You can just leave Mr Artiga in your room when you're finnished with him.

bkw said:

He's in my room right now. Don't ask how he got there. I borrowed from your medicine cabinet, Brett.

lovemachine said:

"High school heros equal real-life zeros."

Words of wisdom.

matt said:

Wow, that's not a very nice thing to say from a moderator who edits other people's posts with "no personal attacks, please."

Aaron said:

Ahhh...come on Aaron that's pretty funny and I don't think you can call it a personal attack. Well unless you were at one time a high school hero and now you are a real-life zero.