This week, a lot went on that was related to my old high school and the MTSU Percussion studio. My old high school band went to the Bands of America Grand National Championships this Friday in Indianapolis; their performance time was 7:45 PM. Instead of last year, when we went on late at 10:45 Thursday night. They ended up doing well, they didn't make semi-finals though, however Father Ryan High School did make Semi-Finals, and they placed in Second for Class AA, first place Class AA being Merrian Catholic High School, known for having the most championships. However, this year's winners was the Broken Arrow High School Marching Band, from Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Here is a link to a montage made by BOA, Ravenwood is on the last eight seconds of it.
Indianapolis hosted another major event along with BOA. It was host to the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (P.A.S.I.C). A majority of the Percussion Studio at MTSU went to the convention that lasted for three or four days (thursday through Sunday.). Experiencing masterclasses, competing among other things happened in this time span. A quartet as well as a soloist competed in the Collegiate competition at P.A.S.I.C. I don't know how they did, but they did great performances at the recitals and masterclasses here. I didn't go to P.A.S.I.C this year, however, there was a football game going on that the band was going to.
Despite most of the percussion being gone to P.A.S.I.C, the only noticeable difference in the drumline was the quad-line, there were only two of us at the Friday Band of Blue practice. Nine of the 11 snares and 13 of the 14 cymbals were also at the practice, only the multis and the Bass drums had full sections. Since we had Wednesday off, we did our practice on Friday. We worked on the Veteran's Salute show for all of the practice time. After that, those of us who were going to Monroe, Louisiana met up at the front of the stadium to meet about what is going to happen. Less than half of the band was selected to go on this trip, and that was about 150+ out of 380+. After practice, the battery that was going, the six snares, three multis, all seven basses (need all seven for the music), seven cymbals, and one (me) quad-player (the other one had to go to an exam), put our drums in the cases so that at 11:00 p.m. that night we will be able to load the buses; and we did just that. After we got loaded, we began the 10-11 hour bus ride down to Monroe, Louisiana. I slept all the way until we stopped for breakfast. It was a rest area sort of town, so me and some other people walked down to Kroger and picked up some food. The buses then went down to the stadium where the game was going to take place. We got dressed, lined up, and we marched to the cadence towards the stadium. It was definitely something to play the solos in the cadence by myself, as well as the stands tunes and the "MTSU is hot" cheer. The first half, the ULM Warhawks scored 30+ points on us. At half-time, their band went on and played for the student section. We also played our show, but we played it from the stands. The game ended with ULM 42, MTSU-14. We then marched back to the buses with the cadence. As we marched back, we went to the lot where the busses were at, and the front of the line began walk in a circle. It went on for a while, until the circle got too condensed. We then changed and left ULM to go to the hotel. We were to drop off our stuff at the room and go back on the bus to have some Cajun food. It wasn't a long ride to the Cajun restaurant. It was reserved for us that night and they had a buffet laid out for us. Not even half of our band filled up the entire restaurant. The food was really good, starting with the fried fish, followed by the shrimp and chicken tenders. with the sides of fries and Hash-Browns. We then left for the hotel after dinner. The next morning we had Sonic for breakfast on our way back to Murfreesboro. After a few hours, we made a lunch stop in Memphis for about an hour at a mall, it was similar to the mall here in Murfreesboro. We only stayed for about 45 minutes and went straight back to MTSU. On the way we watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 along with other movies. The only other movies of the series I'd see was the Chamber of Secrets and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I didn't read the recent book, however I did read the second book. Other movies we watched on the trip was the Hangover, Anchorman, Tangled, and the Big Lebowsky. Once we got back to MTSU, it was 7:45 at night, I put everything up and made my way to the dorm. It was a fun trip, also my first time going to Louisiana. Now we have another home game where we will be doing the Veteran's Salute show next Saturday.
No comments:
Post a Comment