School Countdown: 2 days

Today was the final orchestra concert. To get an idea of how several of them went, heres recordings from three of them:

"Under the Sea"



"Finale" (Beethoven's 5th)



"Raiders of the Lost Ark Theme"



"Pink Panther" (My bassoon demonstration. This was today)

Events on an eventful day

• First orchestra concert where we go to the schools
  
• Went with Mom to say "hi" to one of her friends who worked at the school
  
• ...and gave an impromptu bassoon concert in the Special Needs room.
  
• Attempted to put hair in bun
  
• Failed
  
• Went to rehearsal
  
• And stayed their an hour longer than it said we would be there
  
• Wasn't able to go to Joana's to pick up my character shoes (Sorry, Joana!)
  
• Planned to look over my agenda for tomorrow

As for Aubrey---I was totally, totally, TOTALLY going to write Vagrants today. Insanity is what insanity was, sooo that didn't go over. But I really wanted to, believe me.

"I AM your host!"

I got to play Drama Department MC for the chorus concert tonight. I actually only got to read announcements, but I'd have loved to pull a real Joel Grey, excessive makeup and all:

Power to the purple socks

One of the lovable (read: strange) things about me is that I have a pair of purple-striped knee socks that I wear every Thursday. I don't even care WHAT I'm wearing---those socks will go with it somehow. Everyone seems to love those socks, and so Thursday is typically one of my favorite days of the week.

This week, those socks were dirty. I figured that I could go a day without them. After all, how terrible could it be?

I was sadly surprised. Let's just say the day started out with my reed cup spilling IN MY PURSE and my best reed almost breaking and then went downhill.

Tonight was the band concert, so naturally I was freaked out that the absence of the socks would throw me off. Mom did laundry and threw them in, but with the dress code being black pants, white shirt, I couldn't very well slip purple socks past the band teacher.

So, in hopes that it might work, I threw those socks into my bassoon case and took them with me. Yes, readers, you might call me a geek but I NEEDED those socks. Badly. The solo was that night and I didn't need any more misfortune. (When I had to leave the case in the band room, my mom threw the socks in her purse so as to keep them near).

My reed fell to the floor twice, but thankfully we were in the gym---rubber floor! It bounced several times as I yelped "NOBODY MOVE!" and blew it off. It didn't break or even crack. I had a sense that the socks were beginning to work their magic.

Did they do a good job? I'll let you be the judge there: here's the video of me playing "Sorcerer's Apprentice", my dream piece since 5th grade (as well as the piece that made me want to play bassoon in the first place).



I'd like to say that I'm pretty beastin' there, if I do say so myself.

For the second year, I won the award for "Most Outstanding Musician: Female". I find it interesting that I've gotten it on two different instruments---last year I played oboe, and this year bassoon. Here I am with...pretty much everything:



And here's me with my amazing band director ("I love you Mrs. Redmon!!!"):



I think tonight was a very appropriate final gig for that bassoon; the high school is wanting their instrument back. I'll still have the other bassoon, though, so I'm not quitting---you'll be able to hear about plenty more bassoon drama later. I need a couple days to focus on something else, like piano.

BEEEAST!!!

Penultimate concert evening

The middle school concert is tomorrow, so I'll be able so show off some wicked bassoon (Sorcerer's Apprentice, as I've said more than ample times) and hopefully it'll all go well. I'm kind of hoping that the rehearsal doesn't go AMAZING, because that's what happened with the high school concert: our rehearsal went bad, but the performance was nothing short of epic (for what our 23 members can do, which is quite surprising!)

Of course, there is the other music, but I'm not terribly concerned about it, as I can play it fairly easily. It's not terribly hard music, but with everyone coming together (and with PERCUSSION! I haven't played with percussion in middle school since forever ago) it sounds much better.

Then it's dashing off to Youth Orchestra, which I'm kind of nervous about. It IS just rehearsal, but I've been neglecting my music since I've been going insane on this bassoon solo.

Oh, and I totally love my accompanist and band teacher. They helped my mom and I schedule a get-together with the accompanist to practice without a bunch of people listening in as I learned what the piano part was---I had never heard it until this afternoon. He was rather friendly and helpful, and even let me record him playing it so that I could run through it a few times at home (which I have taken full advantage of).

One concert down

The high school concert is down, and in two days is the middle school concert. Tonight went surprisingly well, despite me not really practicing my music (and only seeing the final piece this afternoon). We played us a mean "Heron Bay" and "Mission: Impossible", and "On a Hymnsong by Philip Bliss" went really well as well.

Oh, and my new nickname is apparently Hannibal Lecter. Inside joke from band with "Annabelle" somehow sounding like "Hannibal". Thus, Hannibal Lecter.

Now I'm working like a mad hatter (HAH HAH HAH) on "Sorcerer's Apprentice", all my orchestra music, and what I'm planning on doing for the end-of-the-year Talent Show. My song of choice (played on piano and hopefully singing as well?)

A night on the town

Typically, it doesn't involve orthodontist appointments, picking up dog food from the vet, getting your order wrong at Panera (but only slightly wrong) and going to Youth Orchestra.

Rehearsal tonight went by oddly quickly, and most of the pieces seem to be pulling together really well. About five minutes before the actual rehearsal began, a few of my friends and I decided to have a mini-rehearsal, where we played random bits of songs we liked and did one of our favorites that we rarely get to go over---the medley for "Pirates of the Caribbean" (To include the songs "Singapore", "Hoist the Colours", and "Drink Up Me Hearties"). It was only the second time of me playing it with a group, but it went a lot better than it did the first time! I do admit to playing "Singapore" in band when there's nothing better to be done.

Tomorrow is the Recruit the 6th Graders concert with the high school. I represent the one-chair bassoon section to convince people to play the bassoon (even though I doubt they will, and either way I'd want to be able to keep the middle school bassoon next year). For my instrument demo, I'm playing a section from the Davy Jones theme. The music we're playing is stuff that I actually had to work a little bit on, which is a welcome change from the Christmas concert, where we had no percussion and thus had...limited choices, one might say.