This past weekend I was at the Reading Buccaneers. It's the third camp I've been to and every time I go I fall more in love with the music, the staff, and the organization as a whole. It's such an amazing organization and a great experience. But I have to admit...I am POOPED. Exhausted and sore...it was a rough weekend.
Saturday practice starts at 9:00AM and goes until 6:00PM, slightly longer than the average band camp day and SO much more intense! We started in brass ensemble with stretching, breathing exercises, singing, buzzing, and then playing through our warm up repertoire. Then it was on to sub sectionals, so all the mellophones were in one classroom (we rehearse at a high school) and we broke down show music. Saturday we also had evaluations. Kind of like auditions, but MUCH less formal. For my evaluation, I went into this room with one of the staff members, we talked for a couple of minutes about my musical background, I shared that I've only been playing for six months and he asked me more about that...good conversation. Then I played GABC for him...then played that again. Then CDEF...then again. And then I played through Exercise #1 from our Bucs book and I was done. I then went on to my marching evaluation: marched forward, marched backward, did a front slide, did a back slide. Easy peasy stuff. My visual part went great and my music evaluation was just average...didn't do my best but I didn't suck.
Then lunch time! Yum. :) Afterwards was visual block. This was where the day really sucked for me. We started back up technique this camp and the way they back up at Bucs is SO COMPLTELY OPPOSITE of everything I've ever been taught. It was incredibly frustrating for me. Typically, when I march backing up, your first step you leave most of your weight on the front foot and then you follow through with the natural pendulum motion of your other leg...keeping your weight mostly forward and you're up on your platforms. OH NO. That's called the 'old' way at Bucs. Instead, we're supposed to march with all of our weight on our BACK foot, with our heels BARELY off the ground and our front ankle needs to be completely extended. It's bizarre. Like...I just could not get the feel of it Saturday. So I was getting really frustrated with the technique and myself and then on TOP of that I got called out for being too high on my platforms. Well DER that's what I was taught and now all of a sudden in two minutes I have to change everything. BLEGH. It was rough. Though what's funny is on Sunday I got complimented for having the best back up technique...so confusing.
The rest of the day was spent in brass ensemble, which is SO MUCH FUN. It's all the brass standing in a huge arch in the cafeteria and we just work through the show music. It's fantastic hearing the other parts and other sections, and then we put it all together and you can't help but feeling like a complete badass. ;D
Sunday we had practice 9:00AM to 4:15PM. Same day essentially, just broken down differently. We started with visual block in the gym and we were there for two hours, then went to sectionals for an hour, then lunch, then more sectional time, then brass ensemble, then FULL ENSEMBLE. Full ensemble is the shiz. The entire hornline wrapped around the perimeter of the auditorium behind the pit, with the battery on-stage. YEAH BUDDY. Oh my word...oh my word oh my word OH. MY. WORD. It's heaven. A very loud in your face ready to conquer the world heaven. Ahhh...I love drum corps so much. :)
The stressful thing about this weekend (other than the stupid back up technique...grrrr!) was Paul (the brass caption head) talking to the mellophones about the reality of getting a spot to march. They're allowed to march 12 mellophones. There are 21 mellophones going for those spots. And 10 of them are vets. YIKES. But...I know a little birdy who's a five year vet and gets all the inside info and she told me I got a spot and even beat out some of the vets...WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
I'm just a little excited... :)
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