Repertoire Write Up

1. This year I found I developed mostly range wise, at the beginning of the year I struggled for a D then just a few weeks ago I hit the D an octave above that. I have really worked hard on bringing my dynamic levels to makes sure I am in the background when I need to be and bring the melodies out.
2. I struggle rhythmically, I often forget to count when I'm playing and only remember when I'm holding longer notes and when i have long breaks. I struggled through some of the Chillers and Thrillers parts in the Darth Vader section trying to get the dotted eighth sixteenths correctly. I also struggled trying to stop my lip from popping up and out of the embouchure, I have struggled for the last three weeks for that and I think I have control of it now.
3. My greatest musical highlight this year was Mariachi Band. It was a lot of fun playing in a smaller group. I enjoyed playing with my friends on a song that was fantastic and performing it days after first getting it was a bit of a thrill too if not a little scary. I also had a lot of fun playing at Zeller's with Aaron and Mr. Stevenon. Again it was a lot of fun to perform in a smaller group with a group of people that I feel very comfortable around.
4. I feel that the band is very strong when it comes to playing musically. Sometimes notes and rhythms are missed but I feel as a whole the band really sounds like music. I felt that this came through especially at National's where I thought we sight read very well and it really came together nicely even though it was our first time playing it. I feel sometimes that band struggles at commitment. Almost monthly people were getting in trouble for not practicing and when told what the band needed to do to get better 95% of the band members would say practice but then only maybe 20% actually would. I felt that this improved with the addition of the practice blogs but still not everyone was practicing on a regular basis. The most annoying part was listening to people complain at festivals about how we should have done better and how we deserved higher than we got when very few of them were prepared to do anything about it. I think over the past four years a mentality set in that some people obviously weren't going to practice so some of the people who would've practiced said why bother if the other people are going to. I always felt this way about the band from the beginning.