The World According To Madeleine

Today we had chair auditions in jazz band. Regular band auditions were a while ago, and I got first chair!!!! (in regualar band) Ms. C. told me and I couldn’t stop shaking! At first no one believed me (I was skeptical at first too), they thought I was just trying to make Taylor mad. Even Taylor didn’t believe it at first. So nauturally in jazz band he really wants to beat me. We both did really good, exept I forgot to do dynamics and Taylor swears he made a couple mistakes, but I didn’t hear any, and one other person did really good too but Ms. C. hasn’t even looked at the tapes yet. Bummer. I would find out tommarow but a trumpet player was absent today. Stay posted.

Well, on Friday we finished our first week of school, which, of course, was incredibly boring. On Tuesday we went to the small gym, found out our first hour teacher, which I already knew. So then we went into the big gym and sat in front of the teacher’s name. Then we got the “We’re glad your back, it’s going to be an exiting year this year” speech. Next we went to our first hour, got our schedules and agendas, then went to our first core class, found out what group we’d be in, then went around to all the teachers and read a page of the handbook. After lunch we went back to our first hour, got our lockers (I think that’s what we did) and then continued reading the handbook. After that we read The Sneeches, and were supposed to think about how that related to us. Then we went outside and did a lame “get to know one another” game. The we did arobruiniks or what ever the heck he called it. They were dance moves he said would help us not make a fool of ourselves at dances and “boost our popularity”. I sure could feel my popularity boosting while I was doing those dance moves. Then we went home. Wednesday was just as boring, all day we just read syllabuses, or syllabi, or whatever it is. Then after school I had cross country and then a riding lesson. Thursday was pretty boring too, we got a song in jazz band, and started playing in regular band. We did a couple things, but mostly nothing. Friday was boring too, we took a quiz in math and in science we did this weird string thing, and then I went to cross country practice, which didn’t involve much running. I’m so glad it’s the weekend.

I’ll have pictures later of my trip to Arizona.

I have a band concert on Saturday. My band is playing Thus Spoke the Raven (based on the poem The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe) and A medly of Beauty and the Beast songs. I like the songs we’re playing, but our band is really bad and there are a lot of high notes. Luckily, we have a couple of good people in each section, and the first, second, and third chair trumpets are really good (me included), and I’m in the better jazz band. My jazz band is playing Singing in the Rain, The Girl From Ipanema, I Got Plenty Of Nuttin’, and Jungle Boogie. Beforewe start Jungle Boogie, awards are going to be handed out. I’m probably not going to get any because one of the awards the people in the band voted for, and that’s probably going to be for one of the percussionists, the other one is the director’s award, and that’s probably going to our oboe-ist (in jazz band probaly the bari-sax player). Anyways, Taylor, Will, and I are going to play our trio, so that’s pretty awesome. I just hope I can reach those low notes.

I’m a band geek and I’m proud of it!

Yesterday Mom, Dad, Coleman and I drove down to Sturgis for my Solo and Ensemble preformance. I got there, I warmed up, I was so ready to play my solo piece. I went outside to watch my friend Chris preform, then someone told me that everyone from Gull Lake got a one so far. The pressure! But Chris did pretty well and got a one. I was next. I made a couple of mistakes, but I still got a one! I thought that getting a one meant you played your piece perfectly. I guess I shouldn’t complain. After I got done I had to tell Ms. Cha how I did, she was very proud of me. Then we ate at a cafe thing, it was really good. After that we went to a bookstore and Dad got tons of books. Then it was time to go back and play my trio. I got there and Taylor asked me if I had the original copy of our music, of course I said no, because I didn’t have it, I gave it to Taylor, but Taylor thought he gave it to me, this led to a frantic search for Ms. Cha to see if she knew who had it. We found her and it was sort of funny because Taylor and I were sure that the other one had lost it, well, Ms. Cha was like, calm down, take a deep breath, Will has it. Then we were nervous because Will wasn’t there and in 10 minutes we were going to play (and Will has the melody). Will got there and we were fine, Will did have it, and after I found out I started laughing really hard. We played really well and got a one, too. Everyone from Gull Lake got a one but one person.