Trombone Blues

Alright, so I feel like being involved in marching band is complicated socially. People in the band tend to gravitate towards the people in their sections and the sectional activities are planned to foster section bonding. I never bonded with the people in my section. For some reason, my personality didn't fit in with them and now it's too late. Especially now, I spend every possible moment away from my section because I can't really stand the people anymore. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that I don't fit in and I feel that I'm forced to. I guess it's harder because I'm not very social when it comes to acting out of my comfort range. Now, I foresee similar problems next year if I'm not on the leadership team, and I foresee problems if I am a leader associated with the trombone section. First of all, the people don't really think or act like me. I would be a section leader to get stuff done, and the trombones haven't had a leader like that for the last two years at least. I just see my senior year as a time when I can just do whatever I want and make matching band as amazing as possible. I know this freedom and excitement doesn't exist, but I can hope. I'm definitely looking forward to marching band, and who knows, maybe I'll connect with some people next year in the trombones.

Human Geography

It's strange to think of life any different than what we are living at this moment. The expectations and experiences aren't new. I feel like my perspective on life is very narrow and in my Human Geography class I now know my perspective is narrow. We're not used to children dying regularly, we're not used to not having food, and we're definitely not used to diseases devastating our population. Geographers take populations and generalize about them. Learning about geographic concepts makes people seem like a foreign animal with predictable behaviors. The personal aspect is absent during geographic inquiry. When you begin to think personally about population characteristics, you will realize that the world is different and evil.

Central Africa is where humans originated and migrated from. In Africa, we prospered as a race of creatures and began to expand and advance to use our complex brains. Southwest Asians began cultivation and that spread to Europe where people advanced into full scale communities with imperialistic ambitions. They spread around the world with their advanced weapons and sicknesses that all originated from cultivation in Southwest Asia which originated from people in Central Africa. So why is Africa so far behind? I don't know! Maybe it's their inability to grow food in their environment, but that's not even true. Maybe it's their inability to sustain themselves enough to advance medically. Maybe European colonists ruined all their soil with cash crops. I can't say the answer because I don't know the answer. I do know that children die in Africa regularly and people are ridden with diseases like AIDS and Malaria. Generalizing Central Africa through statistics takes away the true meaning to the individual people. Why do things work out the way they do? Why does a baby born in Africa die while I grow up with amazing opportunities to become well educated? There's something big that's about to be discovered and connected in my head, but the thoughts I have are too many and too complex. There's more to people than a social scientist can discover.

Spitting Image

This song hits a place in my heart and it always feels great whenever it plays. When I'm running it gives me a feeling of euphoria that makes me smile and run faster, despite the pain. The true happiness that comes with finding a song like this is something that's almost like magic.

Perceptions of Disappointment

     It's the contrast between people's perceptions of disappointment that truly shows the diversity of values within people.  Today was a day of disappointment for me, but for many other people these disappointments would never even be considered as such.  Getting a B on two chemistry assessments disappoints me.  Having my accomplishment turned into something just a little less special than it is is a disappointment.  Why would a B cause me to feel a feeling of self discontent while other people would rejoice with that grade.  I believe that this is from achievement.  Achievement, however, comes from effort.  So this leads me to believe that disappointment comes from effort.
     I put effort into things I want to succeed in.  I put effort into school and expect good grades.  I put time into my trombone and I expect to be in prestigious ensembles.  When I get a good grade, I know I put the effort to get there and I know that I prepared adequately.  Sometimes this means not studying, but in the past I put in effort to figure out how I learn, so I know when I don't need to.  It's this effort that gives me a competitive edge in school. It's the effort and the achievement that comes with this effort that gives an expectation. The more effort someone puts into their achievement, the greater that achievement is. And someone who is very accomplished from their efforts develops a self expectation to continue to reach the same standard. Someone who puts in a lot of effort and achieves a lot will experience failure that affects them a lot. In my case, I'm used to understanding science and I put in the effort to understand. This effort usually leads me to high A's on tests and such, so this B was below my standard. Because of my effort and achievement, I see this disappointment differently than someone who doesn't care about understanding science who would be elated to get a C.
I feel like I'm very selfish with my achievements. I always feel a need to push ahead of everyone, and this goal is too ambitious because I'm not an ambitious person. I have simple goals to maintain A's and one B for grades and my goals for trombone are open ended. I hate knowing that there is always someone better than me. When I got my horrific test grade back, I wanted to see what other people got. When I saw that they got better scores, I felt like I failed to be the image that people put upon me as "smart" and this same image I put upon myself. I know that experiencing this feeling will boost me to try harder on my next test or quiz. I feel a need to keep an A in chemistry and I hope that I can still enjoy my achievement regardless of the small dent that appeared in my pride.

Wait, Another Audition?

     It seems that involvement in music is just a cycle of excessive preparation for auditions.  This is especially true at Neuqua.  Over the last few months, I've had auditions for CYSO (one entrance audition and a seating audition, an IMEA pre audition and tomorrow I have the actual IMEA audition.  The cycle will continue to a jazz audition, solo and ensemble, and next year's band placement auditions.  It's a constant stressor for some people, but I feel that it's these deadlines and goals that push me to be a better player.
     Auditions are never a representation of perfect playing, which is why it's hard to accept audition results when they are released.  The gratification of seeing your name on a sheet of paper hanging on the wall is great, but the disappointment can be heavy.  I've been on a success streak lately.  I made the CYSO, I earned an impressive seating in CYSO, and I made it to the IMEA audition.  This has probably clouded my emotional capability to feel failure which I may feel after this audition.  The IMEA scales are always a problem for me because the focus necessary for a flawless performance is hard to obtain, especially in a stressful situation.
     I've been working hard on this difficult music, and I hope it pays off.  I know that I have two more opportunities to make it into the district festival, and maybe even the All State festival!  It's also not the end of the world because I don't have ambitions for a future in music.  All I can do is hope I'm feeling at my best tomorrow.  

Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp

     This passed twelve days, I was attending a widely known camp called Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.  I went there to play my trombone and I was placed in the highest ensemble for trombone, the Symphony Orchestra.  Unfortunately, I skipped right over the apparently more fun Wind Ensemble which is the most advanced concert band.  Instead, I was placed in the trombone section of an orchestra where the parts involved little challenge and lots of rests.  Also, the wind section of the Symphony Orchestra also had to play with the Concert Orchestra which is a level lower than the Symphony Orchestra.  Members of the orchestra wind section also had to participate in an ensemble, and because of this we only got a morning break every other day unlike everyone else who got one every day.  Luckily, my experiences in the orchestras lead to an increase of experience with orchestral playing and I hope that my next orchestral experience with CYSO is better than the one I had at Blue Lake, but at least I have an idea of what to expect.

 It's raining and pouring, and unfortunately my rain poncho was still in my suitcase.  To make matters worse, I went out and played soccer for half an hour while it was pouring.  

 My proactive mom packed a clothesline in her care package, so we used it to hang our wet clothes in the cabin!  Unfortunately it had to be taken down because it's a "fire hazard".

 This is Tyler who was dancing at Blue Lake.  From him I learned that dancers complain ... a lot.

 This is Marshall, otherwise known as Vanilla Bear.  He makes a lot of faces.

 The song from "Space Odyssey".  It was our encore, and it was quite impressive!

Resting.

Resting.

Still resting.

More resting!

There are many ways for trombonists to relieve boredom while resting for eternity, and this is one of them.  Unfortunately the rehearsal supervisors started taking them away from people so I had to quickly put mine away.  I think it looks impressive considering it was my first one!

Sleeping is a good way of passing the time.

It's the trom-buddha!  

Floppy Unicorn.

It is an orchestra, not a band.  I wish it was a band.

Those two measures were my favorite part in the entire concert!

"Sinfonia Piccola" was my favorite piece we played.  It was composed by a fifteen year old who died a year after its completion and he never heard it performed.  It's sad because it was such a brilliant composition.

There weren't any trombone parts so we were given the cello parts.  Not even Trom-Buddha could play this!

This is Skyler.  We met in team sports where we were always trying to beat the monstrous German kids at soccer.  Sadly, we never won.

It's the concert master!

Here is the brass section for the orchestras.  "Brass, you always play to loud!" ~Mr. Endres

This is Matt, my cabin counselor.  I couldn't have asked for a better counselor while I was at camp.

"Please pass the red drank"

This is Maddy, who was one of my first friends at Blue Lake.

Skelton is saying goodbye to its favorite member, Tyler.

R.I.P. Charlie the mouse.  I'm glad you're underground because you were appalling to look at.

Josh was the one with the electric wheel chair that was always being rode by someone.  This shows the pure intensity of this chair!

Meet Chandler.

Meet Isiah who also shared a common goal of beating the German kids.  Isiah got way more into it than I did, and he was mad when we never won.  I think the Germans would've kicked our butts at any sport, but that's because they're German!

The trombones of Highlights Unit!

Goodbye Highlights!  I will not miss your dirty bathrooms and cabins.

It's Friday, the rooster (or chicken as some people called him)!

     Campers at Blue Lake experience a hectic schedule with constant activity and little rest.  The only recreation time is less than an hour, especially if your cabin is on the other side of camp and you have to carry a heavy trombone in a Stradivarius case around.  The cabins were hot, the showers always had lines, and the sand was everywhere!  The best thing, however, was the people.  I met some wonderful people at Blue Lake, and they are an entirely separate group of people than what I have here in Naperville.  We are all separated by hours of driving, but we all have Blue Lake as a common experience.  This experience was one that I will never be able to recreate even if I go back.  I won't say that I miss Blue Lake, but I will miss being able to see the people all in one place.  I will also say that I do not miss wearing those dirty polo shirts.