Goodbye!

I leave for Taize tomorrow morning, so I just wanted to take this opportunity to let everyone know I won’t be posting (actually, I have a few things on the AutoPoster but I’m not sure I did it right) for the next 10 days or so, although I promise to post lots and lots of pictures when I come back! Seeing photos of other people’s trips can get rather boring though, can’t it? I have been thinking of different sorts of trips lately:

• Mission trips, where you go to help others and usually become very very dirty in the process
• Pilgrimages, such as to Taize, where you look for God in yourself
• Vacations, which are usually fun fun fun, but not always
• Trips. I think everyone knows what I mean when I say, “trips”.

We often go on trips to the Midwest, where there is a lot of empty land. We’ve seen the great sights of America, such as Mount Rushmore, which consists of the heads of dead people carved in stone; EVERY DARN ONE  of the Laura Ingalls Wilder historical monuments, including the dugout on the Banks of Plum Creek, which interestingly enough has quite a bit of marijuana growing near it; or the Geographical Center of the 48 Contiguous States, which is in the middle of nowhere Kansas and is extremely windy. It does have a cute chapel though. Also, the Land of Oz theme/adventure park, which if I remember correctly is in Garden City Kansas, and is made up of a) a yellow brick road, b) a swingset, c) an old train, for some reason, and d) a mysterious red barn with pictures of the flying monkeys that is never open.

Other people may go on trips to the Scottish highlands, where they can meet braepeople and watch men in skirts singing songs containing words like “brankie”, while eating haggis; or they may go to the Milford Highlands, where they can stay at the Scottish Inn, and, during select weekends such as Milford Music Festival weekend, experience the charming quaintness of Milford by getting stuck in traffic made up of 1400 people from New Jersey, shop, and listen to music, much of it provided by people not yet out of high school. (I just had to find a way to work the Milford Highlands in there cause I find it highly ironic.)

Anyway. Goodbye for now, I love you all, pray for me, see you in August!

Au Revoir!

Orchestra…

was not too bad, actually!

It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t absolutely horrible either, and it was better than last year’s. Especially the recognition. Dad and Ben took many pictures, of course, and you can really tell who took which ones. All of Dad’s are of…big suprise here…the orchestra! Whereas with Ben, some are of the orchestra, and there are also about twenty of the empty stage, the lighting and sound room, the program, Dad’s chin, etc.

This is the string orchestra. I’m on the end on the far far left, dressed like a waiter.

Actually, everybody is required to dress like waiters…in fact, when the drama club put on “Hello Dolly”, they used the orchestra cummerbunds for the waiter accessories.

 My mother told me that my tie was off. She also redid the senior speech.

And the seating.

And the dress code.

And everybody’s posture.

And so on.

This photo is of just me, and Michael, and the girl on Michael’s other side, and if you squint you can just see a bit of Anthony’s head. I’m sitting really really straight…come to think of it,I’ve been told that I play like a robot and I need to be more expressive. “Hug the note!” was the exact phrase.  And people have told me I look like I’m in pain when I play.

So what I really look like is a waiter in severe pain, playing Beethoven’s fifth.

 

 

And Two And ONE…

High school orchestra: three words that strike fear in the hearts of anyone with ears.

And it’s our concert tomorrow night! I’m chair number 5, not bad but better than I expected considering how well I played in the audition, and I sit pretty much exactly where I sit in the band concert, so if I screw up, everyone notices. The only good thing about this chair is: a) it’s the top of my grade, and b) I don’t have to turn any pages.

 

We will be butchering playing many famous recognizable pieces, including Beethoven’s Fifth. This is actually the piece I’m worst at, I believe. In the words of my friend, “It’s going to sound like a cat got stuck in a piano!”.

Our opener is Russian Easter Overture, by Rimsky-Korsakov, I think, but my folder’s at the school so I can’t check. It has about four solos, all of which I’m trying out for in the hopes that I’ll get one. There are 8 people who also want them, so I figure I have a fifty percent chance of succeeding.  This song is very repetitive, and it’s also fourteen pages long.

The next song on the program is (guess what!) Disney Classics! I think that pretty much speaks for itself.

Then we have three more strings-only songs, in one of which I have a sort-of solo moment (he’s having the first six people come in one at a time, and then chairs seven-twenty join them.)

Our symphony opener is Russian Sailor’s Dance, which is extremely famous and featured in many beginner books as a way of teaching staccato. Other notable songs include Beethoven’s Fifth (“and two and one”), Pirates of the Caribbean (“It’s the same damn melody over and over for four pages!”), and Mussorgsky’s Promenade and the Great Gate of Kiev (“Kiev. Isn’t that chicken?”). (Quotes thoughtfully provided by various random orchestra friends)

Our closer will be Lord of the Dance, which is fun.

 

Hopefully, it will not go too badly.

A Preview

Tomorrow night is our high school band concert. Here are some sneak peeks just for you:

• Expect us to be mediocre. DO NOT come with high expectations, because you will be disappointed. There will be some songs that are very good. There will be some songs that are very bad. There will be several songs that are mediocre.
• It is anticipated that the percussionists will drop something. This is normal. Do not be alarmed: it is a Band Tradition. I have never been in a band concert that did not feature a percussion incident. Usually it’s only a dropped cymbal or a stick that slips out of someone’s hand, but for really special performances the drum set also comes apart.
• There will be a ridiculous amount of French horn solos. Roughly five, most notably the one that consists of one note. By the time you realize it’s a solo, it’s over. I am a freshman, which means that I will be playing second horn, which means that I have one solo, which equals four notes, in “Resplendent Glory”. It will be truly resplendent. I may or may not also be playing along with the “solo” in our closer, the “Disney Medley from Hell“.
• There will also be other solos played by various instruments, all of which are much more interesting.
• By the way, our closer is, as stated above, the Disney Medley. I hate it. I don’t really like our opener either, come to think of it!
• Three pieces will be conducted by our Student Conductor. They are the “Canterbury Chorale”, which is SLOW and finicky, “March Bou Shu”, which is a pretty fun song, and “On Wings of Eagles”, which I like but I only got last week so I’m not that good at it.
• My very favorite piece is sort of in the middle. It’s called “Seafarers”, as recorded by HMRM (name that acronym!). It’s a medley (yes, another medley!) of sea chantey type songs, such as “what do you do with a drunken sailor” and “blow the man down”. Also, “Shenandoah”.
• Donations will be accepted for the “band scholarship”. Whatever that is.
• Senior Recognition has been reduced this year! Underclassmen are very happy about this, because it means half an hour less we have to sit under really hot lights wearing unattractive cummerbunds.  Instead of speeches they’re running a slide show.They did this at the chorus concert and it was half an hour shorter than last year. I’m not sure how the band is doing it, but the orchestra seniors will each have their own slide, complete with their college plans, in addition to the “fun” pictures.
• I’m sure that there are at least two other pieces I haven’t mentioned yet, but I can’t remember them.
• So, there’s your concert preview, in black and white, and you can decide whether or not you want to come.
• There is no senior band tradition, as far as I know.

Coming later this week: ORCHESTRA PREVIEW!