Band

I just realized I haven’t given you my rant about band yet. Actually, I just came back from one of the worst practices. So it’ll be worse than it actually is. Band is on Fridays after school at 6:00. I have volleyball from 5:00-6:00, so I have about 0 minutes to quickly grab dinner, eat it and get down to band. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because we never start on time. Tonight we started at 6:30. The first thing we always do is tune. This should only take about 5 minutes to tune each instrument because there are so few of us, then maybe another 3 minutes to do a chorale or something. But no. It took 45 minutes to tune tonight. It’s usually half an hour on normal nights. We tune each instrument, then spend like 15 minutes playing concert B flat in the various different ways that you can play a concert B flat. Section by section, tubas start, then add baritone, trombone, trumpets, saxes, clarinets and flutes. And then we add person by person, so the tubas are usually very lightheaded by the time the teacher is satisfied by the way we sound.

Our band consists of 2 tubas, 1 baritone, 2 trumpets, 1 trombone, 2 tenor saxes, 2 clarinets, 4 flutes and 7 drummers. So we’re pretty small. Tonight, I had someone sitting behind me who was just learning to play the tenor sax. For those who aren’t in band, that basically means it sounded like the devil was sitting behind me. During those 45 minutes we spent tuning, she could not get her instrument to pitch properly, and in the words of Mr Bailey, it was exactly like the sound you expect to hear at the gates of hell. And it was loud and she was directly behind me, so it was torture. Eventually, the director just told her to stop and go outside to practice on her own.

By the time we were ready to actually play a song, it was 7:15. Band goes for 3 hours straight and we don’t get a break unless the teacher’s cell phone rings and considering he’s a Biology teacher, that does not happen often. About as often as Mr Heyes’s cell phone rang in class. Never. I leave at 8:00 because I’m dead by then. Tonight we played Titanic for almost an hour. The teacher kept asking me if I understood what he was saying, and I did. I know my numbers and my musical terminology in Chinese. It was the other musicians I was worried about. I thought I was the foreigner who has a hard time understanding Chinese. I wondered if they knew how to count and if they knew the difference between a quarter note and an eighth note. At the beginning of the song, the tenor sax has a solo type thing which is 2 eighth notes followed by 3 quarter notes and a whole note. Not very hard if you ask me. We spent almost 20 minutes on those 6 notes alone because she could just not get it. NEEDLES IN MY EYES!!

At 8:00, we had 10 bars to go. I figured it wouldn’t take very long because people either had whole notes or a part we already went over about a million times just 10 minutes before, so I figured we should be done in no time. Ten minutes later, I was still sitting there. This time, the trumpets could not figure out how to play the part we played now 20 minutes ago. I think I hate band here. I want to quit, but I also want a t-shirt. Everyone else has a t-shirt. Whatever, I’m just the exchange student. I don’t need a cool t-shirt.

On a brighter note, on Tuesday we watched a movie during Home Economics class. We had a choice between 17 Again, What Happens in Vegas and Yes Man. We were allowed to vote twice. I voted for Yes Man and What Happens in Vegas. 17 Again won. I guess some thing just don’t change even if you’re on the other end of the planet. These Asians. They have this thing for Zack Efron. In Music class, they wanted to watch High School Musical 3. I don’t know what the other choices were, but when we voted, almost everyone had their hand up for HSM3.

This Monday will be the day that marks I’m 1/4 of the way through my exchange. Some of my friends back home figured that one out. They must have a lot of time on their hands. I can’t believe I’m already 1/4 through. Where is the time going? I hear it’s a different story back home with Grade 12 and all. Sorry. Well, at least I’ll be home before I know it. The Australian goes back home December 12. Hard to believe he’s already almost done, doesn’t that mean we’ll be halfway done by then? No, wait, I just checked. I’m not half done until January 23, and by then I’ll still be at my first host family. Strange.