Dance Regionals- Part 1

Last Friday, (a week ago today) I spent my day at a convention center instead of at school. This was because of an event that translates from its natural language of Irish as regionals for Irish dance. The actual word for this is oireachtas (o-ROCK-tus), the literal meaning of which is legislature, or gathering. This is quite right, as the country is divided into several main regions, and each region is very big. It's fun, though!
It was a large day for me. I had to get up at 4:00 a.m. just to do my hair and makeup. This is a long process, yet one that yields quite some results. See below:

Me trying to do precision eye makeup at 4 a.m. while my mom does my hair.

My mom helped me do my hair while I worked on makeup. By the way, all of those curls are NOT- I repeat, NOT- my real hair! It's a curly wig that, like most irish dancers, I pin onto my real hair. The only part of my real hair that you can see is that darker poof at the top and in the front. It takes many bobby pins to pin this onto my head, and oftentimes they disappear into the wig itself. We lost a few pins that morning, but it was all good in the end. Many thanks to my mom for doing this for me. Without that help, I probably would have lost all the pins in my possession and then bad things would have happened. But, after the process of all of this hair-and-makeup, I packed everything up in our car, grabbed some pumpkin-chocolate muffins (small ones) for breakfast, and off we went. I also finished my makeup in the car.
When we got there it was about 7:00 a.m. Not many people were there yet because the larger competitions didn't start until later in the day, but I was perfectly fine with this because once all the dancers at a single Oireachtas get to the venue, they take up much space. This can be owed to the fact that we must lug around our dress bags. They look like this because our dresses have wide skirts.

Anatomy of a dress bag.

So we found a spot to put our stuff in the ballroom that I would be dancing in, and I started to get ready. I still had about an hour and a half, plus one competition before me, so I kind of just warmed up in a corner and put my shoes on and just diddled around a bit. When the competition before me commenced (too formal, sorry!), I put my dress on and kept warming up. I know that this must seem like a lot of warming up to some of you, but it's actually really important for us dancers to stay warm before you dance and in between dances, if that applies to you. 
At somewhere around 9:00 a.m., we got called over side stage to wait for the final few minutes before we danced. We line up in numerical order and then the backstage helpers categorized us by dance. See, there are many- M-A-N-Y- different set dances, as mine was called, and we dance three at a time. So we have to know what dance each person is doing so that the musicians will play the right music at the right speed and so that you'll be able to dance the dance you've been practicing for months. It always works out in the end. I was in the second round of five (there were only 14 people in my competition, compared to 150 in others), so I kept warm while the first round went, and then I was up on the stage. It went by SSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fast. I don't remember much of it, except that I could hardly get any sound out of the stage. Overall my round was good though! I was happy enough with it. 
The rest of the day was pretty much waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. But, as my dance teacher said in her pre-regionals email, "Wait many hours for awards and enjoy the experience." I think that this is very good advice. The anticipation of finding out how you placed is quite enough to sustain you through the long wait time. It was great. Now, before I could know what place I got, I had to recall. The recalls are a way of narrowing down the field of competitors to the top dancers. These dancers are then placed. So I waited for the recall list. 
But considering the time right now I think I will stop. To be continued...

The story stops here for a while...

10 Ways to Geek Out About Band...Over the Holidays!

To start off: like Danielle says, you should start preparing for the next holiday the moment the current one ends. That way, you'll have more time to get into the holiday spirit and celebrate the holiday before it's actually the holiday! If that didn't quite make sense, I'm saying that you'll have more time to get into the holiday spirit if you start preparing RIGHT AFTER the last holiday. Fun!
Anyway, I've compiled a list of things you can do to geek out over the winter holidays- especially Christmas- and make band a part of your celebrating!!! Yay band. (Have I said that enough yet?)
But let's continue to the list.
1. If you like cooking: make Christmas cookies and stuff- in the shape of your instrument. For me, this is fitting because horns- mainly French horns and bugles- have some significance to Christmas! On December 20th, you might find me in my kitchen shaping cookie dough into trumpet shapes. If not, then there's probably a fruitcake baking in the oven. Make fruitcake, too, but always brush your teeth after you eat it. Otherwise you might accidentally blow bits of dried fruit into your instrument's mouthpiece. 8(
2. If you're the crafty type (I am not so crafty as I was when I was younger): make an advent calendar, if you're in to those, and call it, "Christmas in the Band Department." Make a band room scene on a piece of paper and put instruments and stuff around it. These can be the pictures you put under the flaps, or just decorative. I've made multiple advent calendars before, but never one like this. Although, my Arabian Nights one complete with the marketplace was pretty cool:

My digital art.

I know they don't celebrate Christmas in Morocco, but I had the idea to do this advent calendar because one of my favorite horse breeds is the Arabian. But back to the list.
If you'd rather not take the time and effort to create an advent calendar, write a holiday story with the name "Christmas in the Band Department." Or, if you don't want to do THAT, just continue with your normal life and experience Christmas in your band department. 
3. Christmas lights are good things! I bought a box the other day for my own 3-foot Christmas tree that I decorate all by myself every year. Observe:

My photo. See Seabiscuit under there?

When I got home I was so excited to use them on my tree this year that I started singing to the tune of "Jingle Bells". The song that I sang all afternoon while I put up the tree went like this: 
"OH, Christmas lights, Christmas lights, Christmas lights galore! 
Buy them now so you won't be wishing you had more! 
OH, Christmas lights, Christmas lights, Christmas lights galore! 
Buy them now so you won't be wishing you had more!
Verse 2:
I went to the store one day,
To buy some nails and keys, (I went to Home Depot with my dad)
When I saw the Christmas lights,
Wrapped up on the trees..."
Yes. It was loud, obnoxious, and ridiculous. But funny at the same time.
The lesson to be learned from this is that Christmas lights are a good thing, and you can hardly have too many of them. So, when you're decorating your Christmas tree, pile on the lights!
4. Ask for new instruments for Christmas (or Hanukah). 
But only if you really need or want them. And have the money for them. 
5. Decorate your family's Christmas tree (or your own, if you can get one) with ornaments of your instrument. I am going to do this, but first I must make the ornaments. It's a good thing that I like making Christmas ornaments!
6. Invite your band buddies over during the holidays and have a holiday band party, complete with holiday movies, instrument cookies (as described above), and time to play holiday music together. 
7. Prepare for your holiday band concert like there's no tomorrow. Then you'll really be ready!
8. On Christmas morning, play your holiday songs from band and wake up your whole family. But they'll be grateful for the music. You can also turn on all the Christmas lights if you want, to add extra ambiance! ;)
9. Spend Christmas day learning any Christmas songs that you don't already know, and playing them loudly. When you aren't opening presents, that is.
10. Form a quartet or other small ensemble with your band friends. Learn some fun holiday songs and, instead of caroling, go around the neighborhood playing your songs for people. This would also be a good way to raise money for band trips! 
Yep. That's pretty much how I am going to spend my winter holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah to you all! (Even if it's a little early, but who cares.)

Snow

Have I ever mentioned before that I love snow! I do, and I mean a lot. But only in the winter months of November, December, and January! After that, I'm good with it melting.

Wait... did I say only in the winter months??! Well, duh, it snows in the winter! Do excuse me. Here's what it looks like out my bedroom window right now. 

SNOW. Creds to me.

Anyway, I LOVE snow. I also like summer, though, because of marching band and swimming pools. So I presume that my favorite months are summer and winter. The two extremes. 

The problem with the extremes, though, is that they have downsides, too. Here are some:

Summer:

Good:

1. You can swim outside.

2. Marching band!

3. No school, no homework. Just band.

4. Unlimited time to practice music.

5. Birthdays! (Actually, my entire direct family's birthdays are in May, June, July, and August!)

6. The Triple Crown- Kentucky Derby in May, Preakness and Belmont in June.

Bad:

1. Really hot. 

2. Not winter, which means not Christmas and no snow. 

Winter:

Good:

1. SNOW!

2. Christmas

3. Christmas music in band!

4. Not as hot as summer.

Bad:

1. No marching band.

2. Cold. Last year, the lowest temperature I saw on my thermometer was -20º F.

3. My friends obsess about skiing. 

4. School until Christmas break. 

Oh well. Disregarding these things, both extreme seasons are very nice. I love them both. 

Yay, winter and Christmas!
grandlakechamber.com

I guess I naturally gravitate towards a tropical environment for summer...
travel.utimes.ru

There are some good things about spring and summer, too, though. For example, in the fall, you can start looking forward to the holidays in December. And in the spring, you can start looking forward to the end of school and the start of the marching season! Yay. 

Oh! By the way, Breyer has just released their model of American Pharaoh! I asked for him for Christmas. And the good thing about it is, he's not on backorder! He's shipping freely! This makes me happy. He's available for sale here, at Breyer, or on Amazon if you're a fan. And here's a video for all of you fans that want to watch this champion RUN! Creds to this channel for the video.

Happy winter, everyone. :)

New Trumpets and NaNoWriMo

Yesterday was a red day (our school has a/b days, or a block schedule, classified by red and white days), which means band. I like red days just for band. For me, red days also mean French 3, P.E. (yuck- band should count as P.E. as far as I'm concerned), and A.P. Geography.
Yesterday's band class was extra special, though. It was try-out-new-instruments day! On these days, a salesperson from our local premier instrument dealers bring instruments to our band classes for us to try out. I, having never experienced one of these days before, was through the roof with anticipation. You see, I currently play an old trumpet of unknown origin. At the end of last school year, round about late May, my band teacher taught me how to play trumpet after school one day. He pulled my current trumpet out of a closet and said, "Here! Play this!" And so I did. Although, it took me about an hour to get any sound.
But now that I've played trumpet for a solid 5 months and 2 weeks (that's an estimate), I want to look at other, newer horns to eventually either rent or buy. I'm not too serious about it though, just sparking my curiosity, because I need to save money for Hawaii, and no good trumpet comes cheap. So I was excited about having an opportunity to play high-end instruments without having to travel into the city! There were 4 trumpets, and I think I played 3 of them. But the one that REALLY stood out and that I really liked was the Cannonball 725. Observe:

Creds to http://www.cannonballmusic.com

Yes, it's black. Or, that's my favorite finish of this model. It comes in gold, silver, black, and glossy black. (Actually, if you look closely, you can see that's it a very, very dark carbon gray. But however you choose to classify it, it's truly a beautiful thing.)
I love this trumpet so much because it's easy to play, not to mention the fact that it looks cool. It's a pro trumpet though, which is out of my league both in what I should be playing and price. I looked at the price tag when I got my hands on this one to try it out. I think what I said at first was, "WHOA, I could go on the Hawaii trip for that much!!" I wasn't really surprised, but a bit disappointed. It plays really well. If you're also a band person, then you should check out the rest of the Cannonball Instruments. They make saxophones, clarinets, and flutes in addition to trumpets.
Ah, well. Maybe I'll buy it someday.
But, moving on to a happier note, happy NaNoWriMo! That's short for National Novel Writing Month, which is every November. I did it last year as part of a creative writing class and I had so much fun doing it that I'm doing it again this year, even without the class time to write like I had last year. If you've ever wanted to write books and stories, you should try it! Even though my first semi-finished novel from last year was a complete fail, I learned a lot about the writing process, character development, narrative writing, and other good stuff. I assure you that by the end of the month you'll feel much more confident with writing.
Well, since that's all for now... more coming soon on the weekend...

Halloween

Do you like Halloween? If so, congratulations, you're the opposite of me. I don't much care for Halloween myself. The whole trick-or-treating thing becomes overrated at times, but I do like dressing up and seeing my friends' costumes. I especially liked my friend Sam's costume, a big red blob that turned out to be Blinky from Pac-Man. This year, I dressed up as me in my true form- a band nerd- and I managed to get glitter all over my house in the process. Needless to say, I did a lot of vacuuming after I finished my costume, which was a red shirt with "I love band" stenciled on it. Next year, I really hope that I have band on the day we can wear our costumes to school. This is because I have never experienced Halloween in the band department. I'm curious to see what it's like. I'm also looking forward to Christmas and our Christmas concert. Good times. 
I don't have much against Halloween. For some people it's fun and it's a time to go walk around and get free candy. I just sit at home and watch Star Wars. (I actually did this last night with my friend Ceci. She came over to my house and we watched Episodes IV and V, and she brought me old copies of Arabian Horse World magazine instead of candy. Yay!)
Here's my glittery shirt, anyway, as I drew it on my computer. I would actually take a picture of it, but it's currently in a plastic bag on my craft table because my mom didn't want it shedding glitter all over the house. This is perfectly reasonable, as I haven't sealed the glitter yet.

Great, quick Halloween semi-costume. I love it.

I guess this post will be a semi-tutorial on how to make a shirt like this.
*Instructions start here* Obtain a shirt in your size in the color you want. If you can find one in your closet, great. If not, go buy one. Then either make or buy stencils. I obviously couldn't find any that said "I love band" or anything, so I just got stencil blanks instead and cut out the letters and a trumpet from it. So, either cut out your stencils or take them out of the packaging, and then plan out where you want everything to go on the shirt. After you have a fairly good plan for that, stencil it on! I used a glue made specifically for gluing down rhinestones and glitter. Then seal the glitter, if you can find out how. I haven't figured this out yet, but if you search for it on the great Internet, you should be able to find something. *End of instructions*
Then you're done. Dazzle your friends with all the glitter. 
So, yeah. Halloween is fun in terms of dressing up and seeing other people's costumes and whatnot. I've just never been a super-big fan of trick-or-treating, as all you get out of walking around in the cold is a bucket of candy. If you think this is a worthwhile benefit, then, that's fine. I've only been trick-or-treating once and it wasn't the best thing ever. If somebody invites me I might go. But leave me to my own ways, and I'll go home and watch movies. Yeah. So Halloween is fun enough, I just don't want to walk around in the cold after dark just to get candy. If I'm really missing something here, somebody tell me. But that's what I'm getting out of Halloween at the moment. Sorry. 
Digital art by me.

Hawaiian... and other randomness

Hawaiian is really a language that confuses me. It has a lot of vowels. I vividly remember the day that I brought home the information about our band trip to Hawaii and I couldn't pronounce any of the place names! I especially had trouble with Waikiki; I kept trying to say it "wha-key-key," with evenly pronounced "ki" syllables, instead of the correct "why-key-KEY," which accentuates the last "ki" and takes into account the fact that there's an i in the syllable "wai". 

Me when I first tried to pronounce Waikiki

That night when I was explaining our sample itinerary to my parents, I am sure that my mom had to tell me 20+ times what the right way to say it was. Sometimes, when I get in a hurry to say Waikiki, she still has to tell me. 
However, all of this correction is good. It would really be a shame if I turned up in Honolulu next December after many hours of air travel and started saying, "Wha-key-key!" in the airport and on the beach and stuff where a bunch of islanders who know Hawaiian could hear me. So, fortunately, I have been saved from looking like a stupid tourist from the mainland. This is very good. Besides, I feel that it's my OWN responsibility to be respectful to the native islanders of Hawaii who STILL are Americans, and learning to say things the right way is important here. So, yeah. Pronunciation is good! I almost want to learn all of the Hawaiian language so that I can read signs and stuff in Hawaii and pronounce it right! 
But I digress. 

Oh, by the way, I have some very exciting (and unexpected) news! Today on the way to the high school for band, my clarinet-playing friend Danielle announced, much to my surprise, that she will be learning to play the trumpet (my soul instrument! [more on those later]) over our school's Thanksgiving break! I found this both exciting, satisfying, and odd, because Danielle has often said that... 

www.deviantart.com

This is never a phrase that I've liked, but it just goes to show that even the best of us must eat our words at times. It's all right. I'm looking forward to seeing how good of a brass player she'll be (probably a good one, as she's played both sax and clarinet before, despite the fact that both of those are woodwinds). I am sure it will work out wonderfully. 

Also by the way, I really hope that our school board doesn't renovate our high school like they're planning to. They want to move the football field AWAY from the high school. Like, 2 blocks away! Then we would all have to walk from the high school to the field (and past the elementary school), which causes problems. Especially at homecoming, this could never work. This year, we left pep band to get ready for our halftime field show at the beginning of 2nd quarter, and, even with the high school and the band room being only about 200 feet from the football field, we still only just had enough time to get into our uniforms, warm up, and hoof it back to the field for halftime. Now, if the football field was 2 blocks or so away from the band room... yuck. Bad things would happen. There would not be enough time to walk over there to the high school and back, so I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hope that the school board will slow down with their plan and listen to what the students and community wants. Otherwise they might all get fired off the board or something... but whatever they decide should work in the end.

Yeah. I guess this post was kind of random, but my week is full of both ups and downs. 
OH! By-the-way #3: Halloween is Saturday! Yay, even though I'm not too amazed with Halloween.

Ridiculous Costumes

Before I go on from here, I will warn you: I speak not in jest!

Whoops. Slipping back into Shakespeare mode. Sorry. I've been forced to read enough Shakespeare that when I have to say something forcefully I say it like Shakespeare would have done in his infamously stupid plays. (With all due respect to my English teachers past and present, I really dislike English classes and Shakespeare.)

Yes, you know that I do marching band. (If you don't know that, where have you been?) It is fun except for the small hitch called our uniforms. No, they aren't the bane of our existence, (I am actually quite proud to wear mine) but there do make us really hot and sweaty, and every time you take off your shako (marching hat- I hope that's how it's spelled), your previously-silky hair is matted and- quite literally- wet. This is due to the fact that the insides of the hats are made entirely of plastic and vinyl. To the average teenager watching a parade, these [uptown] band outfits look stupid (average person), cumbersome (smarter person), or just to much work to bother with (someone who thinks they're smart). I like them. But, I will say that the style is a bit outdated.

It's marching style. You wouldn't understand.

< Marching coat (shown with the left gauntlet, although in parades, of course, you wear both gauntlets). Not bad, except that the shoulders have about 2 inches of padding in them and the gauntlets add an extra layer of already-thick fabric. Plus, who wears gauntlets anymore?








Below is the shako (MY shako). Not a lot of high school bands use shakos, as it's supposedly a hat for higher-ranking military people or something. I guess that means... we're a high-ranking band? I'm not sure, although I know that our jazz program has been nationally recognized. Anyway, that's what's ridiculous about marching uniforms. Bulky, thick, and really cool but stuffy hats.

Yes, these are cool hats.

BUT... what about dance costumes??? I've never really told you guys much about dance, and that is due to the fact that next year I will be quitting dance to save money for the band trip! And, without all my dance practices and competitions, I will NEVER miss another band event! Unfortunately, I have to miss the very last Pep Band of this year so that I can go to a dance competition tomorrow. I am very sad to miss band but also a bit excited for the competition as I probably won't do another one for years. Anyway, it's unfortunate that I must miss band, but the year's not over yet, so I must persevere with dance for the moment (and to my band friends that are angry at me for having to miss Pep Band, I WOULD MUCH RATHER BE AT BAND THAN AT DANCE BUT I MUST GO TO THIS COMPETITION SO THERE). Moving on... my dance dress is almost as ridiculous as my band uniform, and, like my uniform, it's heavy and made of velvet and satin. That aside, though, (also like my uniform!) it looks nice on stage.

Not your typical dance costume...

Yes, it doesn't look the best in the drawing, but that's as good as I can do on the computer. It looks better in person, and the dots on the left sleeve and skirt are actually rhinestones, so they add sparkle and don't look like weird polka dots rather than... looking like weird polka dots. Yeah. In short, it's also cumbersome and I can't really draw it.

So, what has the most ridiculous costumes? Marching band... or dance? Reminder: I'm not joking!

(Pretty-good-but-not-great-digital artist: me)