Meeting My Goals

This year in band I hope to become a better musician in general. I hope to challenge myself with more difficult music and learn new and more sophisticated techniques to improve my overall skill in my instrument. I also hope to prove that I am a good enough an musician to move up in my stand number. I need to practice more with my instrument to achieve these goals. I want to make the rehearsals of useful ans efficient as possible. To do this I will try to take my instrument and practice it as regularly as possible. I would like to improve my ability to hear the intonation of my instrument and tune it without the aid of an electric tuner. I would also like to learn improve upon my counting ability, which would help improve my site-reading skill and overall playing ability. Something else I would like to improve on is my tonguing speed. If I were to improve upon my tonguing speed then it would be applicable to every part of my musical life and make playing my instrument much easier. I would like to work closer with my section. I would like to learn the techniques that the first chair players use and have learned throughout their numerous years of experience. If in June I can play any of the pieces we are performing in our final concert i will feel as though my year in band was a success. My band year will also be a success if I can play a well as the fist chair players by the end if the year. If I can accomplish these tasks I will feel that my year in band was a learning experience and was important to my development in music.

Looking back onto my first term achievements I feel as though I have achieved many of my own goals. I had said that I wanted to challenge myself with more challenging music, and I have definitely accomplished that goal by being a part of jazz band. Jazz band has offered me many challenging pieces that have pushed my abilities to the limits. I also said that I wanted to move up a stand number I have also moved up a stand number in jazz band and moved up to the wind ensemble, which is kind of like moving up a chair number. I had said I wanted to make my rehearsal as useful as possible by practicing regularly, but that has not been the case because even though I have been practicing other members of the band have not. This makes my practice all for not because I don't need to practice during rehearsal, but the other members of the band do. I had said that I wanted to work on my intonation without the aid of a tuner, and I have greatly improved myself on this and can now tell when someone is sharp or flat. Another thing I wanted to improve on was my tonguing speed, and though it hasn't increased greatly I have been able to increase it a fair amount making playing a little bit easier. I said that I wanted to learn from the first chairs, but that never happened, partly because I never asked for help and partly because they never offered help. I also had said that if I could play any of the pieces for our final concert my band year would be a success. I don't know if I was referring to jazz band or to concert band, but either way I would say my band year was a success. Lastly I said I hope to be able to play as well as the first chair players. I am not sure if I accomplished this goal or not because I have not been given the chance to play as challenging music as they have and I don't know what to think of the jazz factor. All in all I feel that i have met almost all of the goals that I set a t the beginning of the year for band.