9:27 pm
Honor Band
Well, I made it through my first honor band experience. It was the most amazing thing ever...
On Fri, I left after 5th period (since I don't have a 6th) and I went home to get ready. I got to Chaffey High School at 12:00 and I checked in. I was the first from San Dimas to arrive and there already a lot of people there. After a few mins, Daniel, Stuti, Melissa, Rebecca, Mandy, Amanda, and Michelle arrived. We waited for a while before our director, Mr. DeLao started calling up sections. The tuba's were first to set up there section because there were supposed to be around 37 tubas. I was astounded to say the least.
Ok, so there were two conductors, Mr. Mazur, the organizer and the Mr. DeLaO, the permanent guest conductor. He's cool cause he comes and helps us during band camp with our marching so I know him well....
So...after what seemed like forever, we finally got set up and began to reherse. I think it was like 2:00 when we finally were able to play. There we where 350 people on a the stage of the auditorium. It was beautiful. Raised celings with a balcony and niches in the walls. It reminded me of the Phantom of the Opera...We practiced about half 2 of our 9 songs and then at five, we ate dinner. Around 6:00 we went back to play, we didn't finish until 10:00 at night. I was exhautsed but I had had so much fun I didn't really mind.
Saturday was the best day ever. I was back at the auditorium at 8:00 am and we rehersed till 12:00. I practiced and fine tuned our songs. IT was then that I had the amazing experience of hearing the sound of 10 bassoons. It is the most amazing sound in the world and one I will never forget. We were praticing a song called "Sigfried's Funeral Music" which is the conclusion to a 24 hour opera called "Die Gotterdammerung". At this point the main character, Brunhilda, has killed her entire family including her nephew/husband/something or other...She has been singing for 23 hours before she throws herself into a pit of fire, and now the funeral procession is taking place. (For those of you who are lost remember the "kill the wabbit" cartoon? It's from there.) Anyways, at the beginning, it is a timpani solo and then the bassoons come in alone with the clarinets.
Mr. Mazor stopped us and made the bassoons play a long tone. Oh my God, the tone and ancient sound was amazing. It made me want to play the bassoon myself. That song was one of our more powerful ones, requiring a vast change in dynamics.
...Anyways, we kept going through our pieces, and finally we rehersed one called "Rolling Thunder" It features trombones and baritones with bassoons. That song goes so fast that the sections have to double tongue. But their technique was so amazing, they were able to keep up with the directors fast tempo. It was awesome! And they were all in tune *gasps*...yea....
Our longest song was one called "Praise Jerusalem" It is a beautiful song and amazingly difficult. We had a lot of rests but when ever we did play, it a lot of 16th and triplet rythyms and my greatest weakness, meter changes. 2/4, 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, 9/8, 6/4 and 5/4. I got lost a countless number of times, until I mentally smacked myself and figured out that if I could find the first beat of every measure I would be ok...I hoped...
We had a song called "Pas Redouble". It's supposed to go at 142, but we ended up taking it at 168. Mr. DeLaO thought we were nuts...
We cleaned up a lot on Saturday though some of our tunes where a little weak we sounded pretty good...
On Sunday, we read through and recorded our songs. Mr. Mazer said that we had two oppurtunities to record each song (except for about 2 which were easy) in the morning and at the performance. Some of them were ok while others sounded bad. At the performance, mostly all of our songs were ok, except for the funeral music cause the timpani missed his entrance. We made it through Pas Redouble at 168 even after Mr. DeLaO asked us "are you sure?"
Everything was a sucess and we got a standing ovation in the end.
Our conductors were amazing. Mr. Mazur insisted on giving Mr. DeLaO a hard time with his witty comments, half insults and jokes. The tricks were good. Every time Mr. D changed his glass we would duck our heads under the stands to make him think he had put on the wrong glasses. Everytime he said "Rolling Thunder", we would stomp our feet in a wave from one side of the room to the other. Every time he said "alscae' (or something like that" we would go "shhh". And finally, whenever he yelled out "Mazur!" we would go "The Man"...between the tricks and Mr. Mazur's perverted and often times nasty jokes, we were relived of stress and had a good time.
As far as the sections go, they were all awesome. As for me, I had the unfortunate priveldge of sitting near alto players who couldn't keep their mouths shut or understand the meaning of a cut-off...I heard from Stuti that she was sitting next to two very good flute players so that was cool. Melissa and Rebecca got stuck with the drummers who were all boys save for one. I heard one of them was gay, but I wasn't there so....yea...
And I made friends. The guy who was sitting next to me was ok, a sophomore from Burrows HS. Then there was a guy, I think named Charlie, who is a sophomore in college. We started to talk during lunch about our saxphones and the music we were playing, and ended up talking about jazz and bands. He was cool.
Then there was Mike. I started talking to him in the line for dinner and we just started from there. Turns out, he is Pauline's cousin...hmm...Also, he composes beats for rap music and techo style stuff. He even let me listen to one of his demos and it sounded awesome. Reminded me a little bit of Moby. I even gave him some suggestions which he really liked. We talked and I told him a little bit about myself and he really gave me a boost of confidence. On Sunday, before I left, I talked with him for awhile and said that we would see eachother again next year. He was really nice. We exchanged emails and I hope to keep in contact with him. Also...right before I left we shook hands and hugged...
And finally our songs:
Conducted by permanent guest conductor Alex DeLaO
Country Gardens - Percy Grainger
Rolling Thunder - Henry Fillmore (edited by Frederick Fennell)
Esprit de Corps - Robert Jager
Pas Redouble - Camille Saint-saens (transcribed by Arthur Frackenpohl) (he thought we were nuts for wanting to take this at 168, but we did it anyways.)
Conducted by director Tom Mazur
March from "Symphonic metamorphosis
On Themes by Carl Maria von Webber" - Paul Hindemith (transcribed for concert band by keith wilson)
If Thou Be Near - Johann Sebastian Bach (freely transcribed by Alfred Reed)
Siegfried's Funeral Music from "Gotterdammerung" - Richard Wagner (arranged for band by Pal Whear)
Praise Jerusalem! - Alfred Reed
On the Mall - Edwin Franko Goldman (edited by Edward S. Lisk)
...good times...
