Happiness is the Key to life...

Hey music fans! Oh my gosh I haven't written in FOREVER and it is my fault along with bands...haha! Anyway I have so much to tell you all!

Band season started awhile back for my band and I. Our first competition was in Chicago IL, and wow! We were performing with five B.O.A bands / Bands of America Champions! It was nuts!! And God weren't they amazing! Anyway that competition consisted of prelims and finals. We made 3rd place in our division and also made it to finals. Ten bands only moved on to finals (28 in total), after all of those performances we won 7th place overall, and you know what...I am totally loving that score! Because the Bands of America bands placed in the first five (what a coincidence) which left only one other spot ahead of us! Pretty dang good I must say!

Okay so after Chicago we hosted our own competition, the Wildcat Classic. Great work was shown there and well a very painful sunburn later on for me! Anyway Bellevue East one first, so congrats to them. Moving on, we then traveled to Bellevue East's competition and performed. We won 1st in prelims as well as finals, and took home all captions! Wonderful job to our band plus the others! I personally attended the prelims performance. After that well I had an attack. Pretty much what happened was, was that I had received (unwillingly) a severe pain throughout my upper stomach and back. Ugly crying was shown as well as my not so pretty painful face. And to keep in good health Mr. Keith sent me home on his orders so I did not compete that for finals. Just cheered for them from a distance!

Well after the "threats" to not have me on the field and all because of my pain I finally got results back of what was causing it, and well I have Gallstones. Uncommon to Teens and young adults, but yeah I'm a "special one" apparently. Lol! However I can continue the marching season so long as I don't have an attack on the field...so pray for me not to!

Okay okay okay, getting on with this EXTREMELY long post. I just returned from our most recent competition in Sioux Falls South Dakota's Festival of Bands. We attended the competition last year and received 4th place as well as Best Drum Majors. This year was a completely different story! For our prelims performance we blew away the crowd and judges! When it came time for awards we were placed first in our division, and ahead of the band who normally wins everything. And so we made finals and performed once again, blowing away the crowd even more with how much emotion we had packed into our show! That and we just wanted to keep moving cause it was FREZING (40 degree's plus snow!)!!! Anyway after our performance we watched Marshall (the band that wasn't to happy with us) and our host bands (the hosts performed in exhibition). All were really good but I was to nervous about where we would place! So then comes the listing of placements. They got all the way up to fourth place then stopped to announce caption awards. We won three out of the five given. Best Color Guard, Best Horn Line, & Best Drum Majors. Anyway they continued and well Marshall won fourth place (this is the band that normally wins EVERYTHING!), so they kept going and announced our band as First Place!!! First Place!!!!! We were estatic and Mr. Keith plus Mr. Bogatz were in tears! It wasn't even state and they were in tears! It was great and all of us were so proud! God, it was a great show. Now you here comes where you guys get to watch attentively to our show. I want to know what you guys think and what you all believe the message spreads!

(that was a long paragraph!) Anyway it is late and well time for me to get some "shut-eye" because I have early morning rehearsal tomorrow! Love you all and enjoy the show! (you'll love it when we die!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s3Sxy9DN30&feature=youtu.be


KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS,
~ Band Geek ♫♪♫

Already on the field?

Dang! I am really bad at trying to keep up with this blog! I'M SORRY!!! Oh well, I think you guys will like what I have to share. For the past two months my band has been working on our show, which by the way is pretty damn good! This is the "old" version of our show, it doesn't include the AMAZING drum break...but that's because we technically didn't have the percussion part till about 3 weeks ago! Anyway this is most of the show music.
http://www.fitzpatrickmusic.net/imagine.php (( just press play ))

But since last Monday we've officially made it through the opener of our show and started putting music to it as well! Mike, one of the great guys that comes and helps out our band video taped us on our first music & marching rehearsal. We stop earlier however and don't finish the complete opener. HOWEVER, he filmed us yesterday when we did complete the full opener...he just has to upload the footage! But without further adieu, this is part of my marching show for 2013.

The Millard West Wildcat Marching Band is proud to present....

"Imagine If..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArInRroMq_0&feature=youtu.be

P.S :: You guys REALLY need to comment on this and send in your own video's of your Marching Band! I'm desperate to see all of your guys' incredible shows!

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS,
~ Band Geek ♫♪♫

Field Show. (( VIDEO DISCONTINUED ))

( Sorry everyone Christian actually made the video private and now is unable to view. )

Okay guys thanks to my bands First Snare Drummer Christian Yost, we now have the field version of our show! And actually it's really cool to see what goes on in the middle/beginning/end of a marching show.

Now may I present the MWHS Wildcat Marching Band 2012 show Blue,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PGF44yXzA4
{{ Euhhh show - Christian Yost }}


Alright now that you've seen our field show...from the field I expect to see yours as well!

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS!!!
~ Band Geek ♫♪♫

New Band?

Hmm new band indeed good sir! And I am not at all happy about it. My band as you previously saw in other posts is a traditional band, one that holds music and it's musicians above any recordings and set designs. And I don't mean to be rude if your band does that, however I think that Marching band is meant for the students and the music they play...not the previously recorded quotes and odd backgrounds.

But this year we are changing it up a bit. We are going from traditional to BOA (more theatrical). We were able to listen to our music arrangement and it sounds awesome! I love it, however we've got the recorded quotes playing and we will be having back drops and I just don't know how much I will actually like it.

However, just for you I'll be giving an inside look. The show itself is called "Imagine if..." it's based off of the school shootings including Columbine, Millard South, and Sandy Hook. Yes it is a really depressing subject to be creating a Marching Band show off of, but it's touching in it's own manner. To make it "heartfelt" as Mr. Keith and Mr. Bogatz keep describing it our songs include those from John Lennon, Coldplay, a song from Batman Begins, and Inception. So like I said, I am excited for the musical arrangement of the show just not entirely the show itself.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h5JTdafu1c just without the singing... xD)

And as always...
KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS!!!
~Band Geek

P.S: So even though I can't sing to save my life I want to give this bit for my school's show choir. They made it Fame (in Chicago) and drove the 9 hour drive to get there. However some of my best friends are in this car ride, and got really bored and decided to make a home video. Their goal is to make this video VIRAL and get on the talk-show ELLEN. So help them out by 'Liking' their video and leaving an awesome comment!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vkBSUpOcuM

Carry On!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X_2IdybTV0

Wow... January 28 was my last post to you guys! I feel so lazy now, so go ahead spam the comments yelling at me for not being on top of my business. At the very least it lets me know that somebody is reading my blog.

Oh well, now to give you the "low-down" on what I've been up to. I just finished my Orchestra Concert last week! A lot of fun, but still extremely long. Maybe before the next concert we should try getting Mrs. Ritchie to keep the song list at a maximum three song requirement per group. Ha! But we had an amazing solo violinist named Nadia who performed the Violin Concerto perfectly! By the end of the 12 minute song people were in tears and she got a well deserved standing ovation. So good for you Nadia!

Band wise, we finished scale tests and are preparing for our concert in two weeks. We have some very moving songs that we're performing. "I am" is a song that a music director wrote for one of his students. The student had a warm heart from what the director said, and always came with a smile across her face. However after she passed from a car accident he wrote this song, trying to depict the actual accident with "Words of Music". In my honest opinion he did a miraculous job in doing so. But that is only one of four songs we're performing! Then comes the Wind Ensemble and Freshmen Band. So it will be a great time.

Now I have to get ready for boot camp (stupid workout session I do with my family) so as always...

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS!
~ Band Geek


P.S - So even though I can't sing to save my life I want to give this bit for my school's show choir. They made it Fame (in Chicago) and drove the 9 hour drive to get there. However some of my best friends are in this car ride, and got really bored and decided to make a home video. Their goal is to make this video VIRAL and get on the talk-show ELLEN. So help them out by 'Liking' their video and leaving an awesome comment!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vkBSUpOcuM

Wait a minute....

So now that I think about it, I don't actually believe I posted this video up on here yet...kind of depressing right! Ugh oh well, anyway this video contains somewhat the rest of my trip pictures and the well the marching year in review for me. Have fun watching!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXyPNCs3YI

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS
~Band Geek

Marching a sport?

Whats new guys? Well for me it's the debate of making Marching Band a P.E class in my school district. We've tried this before, and they've declined saying we weren't doing enough to make it a P.E class...so we proved them wrong this time. During my marching season this year, we ran laps around the track before we started rehearsal for EVERY rehearsal. Also we marched long periods of time, and worked for many hours, days, weeks, and months. The normal P.E class here is an hour and a half long, so if you add that together in the total for the week it adds up to about 450 minuets. As for the band, it's again an hour and a half class period....but thats not counting the rest of our rehearsals.
-Class (1 1/2 hrs) *5 days  -Rehearsal (2 1/2 hrs) *4 days  -Sectionals (30 min.) *5 days.
In total it rounds up to around 1,200 mineuts of marching, excersizing, and playing music. TAKE THAT SCHOOL BOARD!

Now tell me if you think your school should turn Marching into a sport!?!

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS!!!
~Band Geek

I'm on top of the world!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnZpPCAO8Lo
I'm on top of the world, and so are you. Know this was a part of our Season's Marching DVD that we all got. It's our band's song, cause it inspire's you...doesn't it? Anyway I hope it becomes your new favorite song as well.

Anything knew with ya'll? Well for me, I've got pit try-outs this coming Monday and Tuesday. I'm trying out for not only my band instrument (which I've mentioned before), but I'm also trying out on my orchestral string instrument. Only thing that I'm worried about is that I have to know all of my Major scales (double octave), a Full Range Chromatic, and the musical piece all by memory. So wish me luck on these day's! And if you have a pit-orchestra at your school, I fully recommend that you try-out! It may not be harder than mine, and maybe it's like 1,000 times harder...but it's still worth trying out. It's a great expierence and a great thing too put on your resume for college. Anyway I have to go...it's late here, so good night band geeks!

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS!!!
~Band Geek

Operation Band Prank

Okay so have you ever truly gotten reconigtion for all the hard work you put into creating a show, and performing at every sports event? Not many bands do...and some of them go the extra mile to tell their school that the opression needs to end and that Music needs to be welcomed just as much as sports. But than there are those pranks that us band kids do just for the fun of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdlB_-2pBTo&list=LL3xoNhRxQbuAByiMyu1lIXg
{Operation Band Prank (Final Coutdown)- DramaAtBrennan}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLewcayShJ8
{Strath Haven Senior Band Prank 2004- ak112358} Skip to 1:28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcBWuZ-BAOw
{Bringing the Marching Band to My Girlfriend's House- FlowdogRecords}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNfqjg7MsKo
{Elevator marching band prank on the set of House- clickbb1}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41gbQ8WMIww
{Personal Marching Band- JustForLaughsTV}

I know, some of these arn't the best sounding. But hey, it's a prank they arn't supposed to sound beautiful, they're supposed to be funny!

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS!!!!
~Band Geek

Disney Scores.

Have you ever truly listened to a Disney Movie Score? If not, well you're truly missing out. Disney hired the best of the best to create his scores and nothing can compare. Take the "Bear Necessities" from the "Jungle Book". It's got the best Jazz music in it, just close your eyes and imagine the old band setting. Plus it isn't just jazz, Walt used of course a normal orchestra to create background music for the movies, but again...really amazing music. Now take some time out of your not so busy day and just look up some Original Disney scores, you wont be disapointed.

KEEP ON PLAYING Music Lovers!!!
~Band Geek

Winter Break is over.

Well hello, have we met? Of course we have! Just not in forever, that is of course my fault! Anyway, Today was my last day of Winter break, and it is so depressing to see it go...I DON'T WAN'T TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!! Well, okay let me rephrase....I don't mind going back for first block (that's band and orchestra for me), the rest of the day however I do not wan't to be there for! But, oh well....we're minors, we have to follow what the ELDERLY (he he) say.

So how was your guy's Winter breaks? How was the holiday season for ya'll? For me, it wen't really well! I got my Band Photographs from not only this year, but also last year. Since they never sent them to us last year...ha ha! And before my family opened presents on Christmas, my little brother and myself performed three songs by surprise for our parents. He played his violin to the song of "Oh Christmas Tree", I played on my violin (yes I am a violinist as well....) "Deck the halls", then he took out his bell set and I took out my trumpet and we played "We wish you a merry Christmas" together. Oddly it brought my mother to tears. But you know what, it was cute and it was sort of a present to them.

But, I should probably go, cause school starts at 8:00am tomorrow, and I am exhausted from boot camp today (intensive workout program that I'm being forced to do, to get me in shape for marching season....wonderful).

KEEP ON PLAYING MUSIC LOVERS!!!
~Band Geek

P.S: This has a lot of my photos from my trip go check it out...and here are just a few pictures I found on FB. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXyPNCs3YI