Northmont Serves Up Nostalgia

Yesterday began around 7:30AM for me and ended a little after midnight. Yep, you guessed it I was with a marching band. It was my first actual performance with the Centerville Jazz Band and even though it was just an exhibition it flooded my mind.

I first was amazed at the dedication of the students. At 8:30AM they were ready to go even though they had performed at a football game the night before. They were more awake than some of the techs that's for sure. It was great for me to see the way they rehearse on a performance day. Since this venue was only 35 miles away they got in a full day of cleaning before we loaded 5 buses for Northmont. They didn't play much, as expected, but they have such an attention to detail. For example, the practiced in their shakos to get a feel for the sightlines that would be blocked. It all makes so much sense, everything has its place...a purpose. They slowly, but surely head towards their goal at BOA Finals. There's so much to copy from their playbook. I'm very thankful for the opportunity.

I thought a lot about what my future holds, do I want every weekend to be like this for the rest of my career? After meeting with my newest mentor and getting my first experiences as college faculty I wondered if that will be the path I chose. I guess I have a lot more thinking to do and I'm really ok with that for the first time in my life, I'm letting things happen because I really don't know the next step no matter how many times I've said "I want to teach a big HS program" or "I want to be the Assistant/Director of Bands at a University".

I came home during the dinner break to change and sneak a few quiet minutes. The staff just dresses up a pair of jeans. The director said he just doesn't take himself too seriously, that's why the tie will get broken out at the end of the season. It was weird to be sitting on a bus in jeans and button down shirt. Still with my bag of course.

I couldn't help, but think of the Marching Titans as the bus hummed along the interstate. Students were listening to Ipods, texting, and laughing as we drove. While it wasn't my group and I didn't have a bag of med forms, it felt comfortable. It was like I was home. The groups have many things in common, despite the obvious differences in size and financial support. The passion and drive, the sense of belonging, not to mention some cool uniforms, and of course lack of sousaphones(shudder).

I could pick out personalities that reminded me of my first band. There seems to be an equivelent to each of the students in those first EPGHS bands here at Centerville. They might not correspond by instrument(however the sax section leader is a tenor playing girl who plays very well), but the spirit is the same. I could go on, but that's not really the point.

For better or worse, I'm glad I turned down a few other offers to be the director at EPG. I met some great people, learned a lot about teaching, and found my future wife. I was told by one of my teachers that even though it wasn't the ideal job, I would always remember my first band. The group that really let me teach for the first time. I didn't believe it when he told me, but today I'm certain I would have no problem listing every student in the band 07-09 and something about them. I know I'd smile (almost) the whole time too. Those kids made just as much of an impression on me, if not a deeper one on me, than I did on them.

Away We Go!

Well the move to Ohio didn't exactly leave a lot of time to settle in here. We arrived on Saturday, unloaded and now exactly a week later so much has happened. Here's the short version. I think eventually I will write a post about what I thought of doing an away band camp, since I had never experienced one of those before.(I'm also new to being a tech on a large staff. I'm used to being the director or in the band!)

Monday we did a day of camp at the high school and I went to Wright State to sign my GTA contract. It was great to speak with Mr. Jobert again. He's one of the music education profs at Wright. He let me in on a lot of information about what I will be doing there and it was nice to have that contact with him. He also is the one who takes care of the WSU Music Facebook page. I think great things will happen at that school.

Tuesday I left Jes, my future wife, in a very unfinished apartment so that I could go to camp with the Centerville Jazz Band(look them up if you don't know this marching band). It made for some long days. It's tough being the new guy on a staff that really knows how to work and play together, but I met some amazing kids and I'm looking forward to spending a couple seasons with them.

Jes worked like crazy to make our place a home and when I came home on Friday night. It looked more like something of HGTV than a little white box. I'll probably post up some pics on our wedding blog. I'm feeling very fortunate that she was brave enough to come on this adventure with me. I know she left a lot to do that for me and I really appreciate that.

Now I'm recharging for the weekend, doing some more apartment shopping, and catching up online. I can't believe I hadn't been on my laptop all week. Then again when you're teching for the band 12 hours a day and then playing volleyball with the staff at night, there's little time for computing. I also need to get a chance to jump back on http://www.musicpln.org/ I hate that I've been neglecting that!

I hope this will be a great place to talk this year as I expand my horizons. It's going to be a wild time. Graduate school, working with a phenomenal group of kids, living in a new state, and getting married! Hold on to your hats, this blog might actually get exciting!

From Pekin

Well, even though it's early on we had a good showing at Pekin this year. It was a nice little festival. El Paso-Gridley ended up taking the music, visual, and winds captions as well as first place. It's nice to recognized for all the hard work we do. I'm pretty proud of those kids.

Anyway, I promised pictures so here they are.

The Drill...

is finished! Now comes the fun of teaching it. Writing it is the hard part. I hope that I've taught everyone who to read the drill so we will be more efficient this year. I can't believe they hadn't used drill (dot) books before.

Well I'm within a few hours of the end of Drumline and colorguard camp. It's exciting to me that last year we didn't do this three day extra camp and it went over really well this year. I think our goal for the year be to be the cleanest band in IL. We're small, but we are dedicated. I guess for my second year I really couldn't ask for more.

One of my drum majors is a great photographer so I'll leave this post with some pictures of what went on this week.

Some of the colorguard working out their moves.

Anna and Denis working hard during their second day as members of the MT.

Quite possibly my favorite drumline picture ever. Our basses practicing exercises.

Robin(the DL section leader) showing that it's not all work!

Instructor, Daniel E. gettting down to fix stick heights and rebound for our snares.

The Marching Titans

The Marching Titans have officially ended their competitive season. I’m sure those of you within
earshot of the school are glad that there won’t be anymore 7:00AM or 9:00PM rehearsals.
The "MT" attended three competitions this year in addition to our community and school performance obligations.

When all was said and done they rehearsed for over 300 hours this year. That does not count sectionals and the individual practice that these hard working student musicians put in from August 5th until October 21st!

They brought home five trophies including High Honors Overall at all three competitions, Drum Majors, and Percussion. All the hardware is being displayed in the trophy case in the Link. Since most competitions are based on school size (our div. is usually 300-600 enrollment) sometimes they were competing against bands that were over twice their size. Sometimes they wereeven beating schools in the divisions above us!

They represented all of El Paso-Gridley with class at every event they attended. Even though I'm sad to see the book closed on our POTC Trilogy show. I am really looking forward to next season and what I'll be able to accomplish now that I have a year of real life experience.

2007 Season Snapshots

Just thought I'd share some pictures from the 2007 Marching Titans Season. What a ride is was, Left Obliques and all.