Just another reflection in the back pocket

I am super stoked for this year's band class. With the new system of Wind Ensemble and Concert Band being separate bands, I am interested in how smoothly everything will run. As a band, one of my goals is to prove all of the Concert Band naysayers wrong. Many have considered us to be the "bad band," when the reality of the matter is that we are just a significantly younger and less experienced band. This doesn't mean that the music that we play will sound worse than Wind Ensemble because our music is picked to match our playing style as well as talent level. My next personal goal for this year is to make as many people as possible love coming to band as much as I do everyday. I was very disappointed at the end of my freshman year when so many talented kids quit just because they thought that band wasn't any fun and wasn't worth anything. Though I know it is nearly an impossible task to insure that every student in band this year will continue next year, I want to see at least ninety percent of them returning. Personally, one thing that I would like to work on this year is my balance and dynamics when I play. I don't think its any surprise to me or any sitting around me that I have a tendency to play just a bit louder than what is written. The other facet of my playing that I would like to improve upon is my ability to figure out complex rhythms. After I hear a rhythm or how something should sound I usually can duplicate that back with my own instrument but I would like to increase my ability to decipher a complicated rhythm and be able to play it the first time (just maybe not at concert tempo). Overall, by June I would have like to have seen every student develop some other reason for enjoying band, whether it be the music we play, the fun environment, or the fact that it is a relaxing period to prepare you for the last two blocks of the day. Also, I look forward to playing well at every Concert and playing our pieces better than Wind Ensemble plays theirs.

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This year's band was the absolute beez kneez. All I can say is that we did a damn good job of proving all the naysayers wrong, thats for sure. Concert band stepped up to the challenge of being considered the worse band and everybody in the band made vast improvements on their individual instruments and learned how to play much better together, as a group. Another one of my goals that I can not say I'm completely sure was accomplished, but from what I saw it was, was to have everyone love coming to band everyday. Other than Mike Mui who told me everyday since about October how much he wanted to get out of this school, it seemed that there was something in this class that drew each individual in and made band class a great experience. With that, my other goal of wanting the majority of the kids in band to stay in band next year was also accomplished. I can only think of a few kids whom I've spoken to that have told me that they are not continuing band. On an individual level, I can't really say that my goal of playing with more dynamic contrast was accomplished, but I feel my expression improved as I learned to use vibrato this year. None of the rythms were too challenging to me this year so I guess that means that I improved my ability to understand complex rythms like the ones in Cajun.