I don’t really feel like talking about the Vietnam trip, cause I don’t have anything interesting to say (and my memory isn’t very good), so I’m gonna write about something more recent, band.
So last year, I got put into percussion, which were instruments like drums, xylophones, bells, etc. My plan was to then become the jazz pianist, cause the piano is also a percussion instrument.
But my first year kind of sucked. I didn’t think it was bad at the time, but now that I look back, it’s nice to not be playing a niche part of the band.
They had a piano (though it wasn’t a very good one), so I would always pack up fast and go try it. One day at the end of the period, I was playing a song from La La Land (called A Lovely Night), and Mr. Fox came up to me and was like, “Bien, do you wanna play the piano for jazz band next year?”
I said yes.
The first songs we learned this year was Birks’ Works by Dizzy Gillipse; Chameleon by Herbie Hancock; and Castaways by the Backyardigans (yes, the kids tv show. we didn’t end up playing this for our first concert cause we sucked).
The concert I’m talking 
about is the halloween concert, which is the one we did in our cafeteria. It is also the one where I had to play xylophone for the other band (which has been a common theme throughout the year). Fox always goes up to me like, “Bien, could you learn this part for lancer band?” or sometimes he just hands me the paper without saying much. Anyways, I didn’t do good on the xylophone part. Not cause it was hard, but it was cause I only got 2 or 3 chances to play it before the performance. I don’t know if anyone even noticed. We also got to see the choir sing spooky scary skeletons, but I was focused mostly on the old guy playing the piano. I thought to myself “I’d rather play that than the xylophone”.
Now that I think about it, I don’t want to go to the chorus room to rehearse with them, cause a lot of them are a little brain dead.
Overall, I think the halloween concert went pretty well, and I never want to play the xylophone (or any other instrument like that) again.
The next songs we learned were A Jazzy Merry Christmas by i don’t know who; Mercy, Mercy, Mercy by i don’t know who, which I was the only one who ended up learning it. I guess everyone else just forgot about it? We didn’t play it at the concert. Finally, we learned watermelon man (now that i’m thinking about it, we probably learned it after this concert. oh well), which might be in my top 5 songs we’ve played in band. I remember this song was stuck in my head when I was sick, and I could remember every note of every instrument.
Watermelon man was probably the easiest (other than mercy, mercy, mercy, which took maybe 3 days. A waste of 3 days). All it was the same measure repeating for half the song, and the occasional section where I repeat 2 chords. The same cannot be said for A Jazzy Merry Christmas. It was probably the most annoying song i’ve learned, not because it was hard, but mostly because I had no access to my piano due to the hurricane. So I would try to learn during the class time but everyone was just way too noisy, so I couldn’t learn anything. Also, no part of the song repeats, so it would take a lot longer.
When it was time for the concert, which was in the high school next to us, I was sat down next to the sticky, slightly dirty piano. It’s what you’d expect from a piano in a school auditorium. But it was nice to play from a real piano for once, which I only get to do once a year. You can’t get that same sound from a keyboard. The concert went well enough, especially because this year, mom didn’t run up to the stage and start calling my name in front of everyone. However, I wasn’t able to get videos because the person who picks me up, which is either my grandparents or mom, is ALWAYS late. I’d rather have only Khang come cause he’d be on time, and the others don’t even care about music anyways. Before the concert, I told Mai about it in case she wanted to come, but she didn’t. However, a few weeks ago, I came home from a concert (in which we’ll talk about later) and they were like, “Where did you go?” because I was in my concert uniform. And I told them about the concert and they were like, “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve came.” and I was wondering why they didn’t come to my other concert but cares about this one.
I think the winter concert was the second best performance we’ve done so far (theres still on more coming up).
In February, we had a bunch of rehearsals which I didn’t attend because I didn’t know about them. Probably should’ve attended them for fun, and I actually had a phone so I could just ask to get picked up later.
We were getting ready to perform at the principals breakfast, where all the principals of pinellas county met up in a fancy building that I don’t know what it was for. The day after that we would go to Jazz MPA, which was sort of like a test, and we would get a grade based on how well we did. We were going to perform 2 songs we already learned, being Birks Works and Watermelon Man, and a new song called Sway (only played this song for MPA). I actually cant remember if we learned Watermelon Man before the winter concert or after. I think after is more accurate. I don’t have the music so I wouldn’t be able to remember.
I could easily play the other 2 songs but sway was not something I was comfortable with, mostly because 90% of the days we worked on Watermelon man, 9% was for Birks Works, and 1% was for Sway.
When it was the day of the principals breakfast, we had to get to school at around 5:50 AM, and it looked like it was still night. We got to the band room, ate donuts, and got into the bus. The drive was about 1 hour, so most of the time I just listened to jazz. Apparently listening to jazz makes you a better jazz musician.
When we got off the bus, I had to leave my phone behind and I didn’t get any videos because I didn’t know my pants had pockets. It was still dark out, and it had rained so when the truck with our heavy instruments like the piano and drums came, they were pretty wet. Actually, my piano was in the passenger seat so it was fine. I loaded up my piano into a cart and we started going through the silent and empty lobby. I split off from everyone else so I could use the elevator. We set up the all the instruments and it was really cramped. It was mostly cramped for the percussionists, and the guy playing the euphonium had to sit in the hallway behind us. No part of the audience could even see him.
We did our warmups and were lead into the hallway, down the stairs, and into the vip room. It was pretty big, about the size of 2 or 3 classrooms, and it looked like the coffee shop on the roof of a building in Vietnam that we went to. A glass wall on one side showed us a nice view of the city next to the water, just like the view upstairs. It was early morning now, snd the sun was coming up.
I spent most of my time drinking the free juice and sleeping because I didn’t have my phone with me and I was tired. When it was almost time to go back upstairs to perform, we lined up like 1st graders and waited. Mr. Fox was looking real anxious. He said that he was mostly nervous of our behavior, not how we played.
We sat down and introduced by a random important guy that I don’t know, and we started playing Birks Works which was the best sounding out of all the concerts, and then came Watermelon man. Our first soloist did fine, and I think we sounded fine. However, our second soloist did not do as well. And at the end of their solo, it’s like their saxophone has a voice crack. I don’t know if it’s part of the song or not because they do it every time we play. It would be stupid if that was really in the song. Anyways, we took a group picture, waited in the vip room, and left. I think this one was my favorite one we’ve done.
The day after, we had MPA. We had pizza before we got on the bus (we always eat 1 slice of pizza before a concert) The bus drive was also an hour, and I actually figured out that I had pockets, so I was able to bring my phone. We stepped into the high schools band room and I got to play another real piano. We had barely any time for rehearsing before we had to get on stage and play. And I got to play yet another piano, and this one was the best one i’ve played in jazz band. I think we did really well on all of our songs, and when we got back in the bus, Fox told us we got an S for superior (the best score), and we drove back to the school at around 7:00 PM. That was the best we’ve ever sounded
Jazz MPA (had to hide my phone in my pocket from the judges) Performance: https://youtu.be/_iQOOt2bCJ8?si=eYZy2vZJcNtzuyJK
Rehearsal: https://youtu.be/k04Xzqx4IS0?si=NAj5qTBVf4Vwx4Kc
Rehearsal room: https://imgur.com/EgU8EUf
The courtyard concert was the worst we’ve ever sounded. We learned a new song called summertime, which is my second favorite song, and then we learned the incredibles theme song. As usual, we ate pizza, and then we rehearsed our songs. I didn’t realize how big the beginning band is, which was about 60 people. Anyways our rehearsal didn’t go very well. The same soloist just forgot to play the solo, and we just had a bad tone quality. When it was time for the performance, we played watermelon man first and I had made a huge mistake. Whenever I turn on this new piano, it’s transposed up 12 keys automatically, meaning it plays 12 keys higher than normal. And I forgot to turn it back to normal.
So my part was really high and I had to wait for a moment to turn it back down in the middle of the song.
The rest of the songs we played weren’t horrible, but it wasn’t remarkable. Unfortunately, I then had to play another xylophone part for the lancer band, but it actually went pretty well. I think it was from a movie i’ve watched before, but I don’t remember. At the end of the concert, I got kicked out of the school because I was waiting about 20 minutes too long for mom to pick me up.
Always. Late.
Courtyard Concert Performance (glitched video)
https://youtu.be/-wFYQfBa_jk?si=4shTqNFdaqML8bYN
Courtyard Image: https://imgur.com/jmyTsbT
I talked about it with my friend in beginning band and he thought we sounded fine. He doesn’t know anything about music though.
1 month ago Fox gave me a paper for me to sign and I did. I thought nothing of it. Turns out, I had to go to Lancer MPA. This was the longest thing i’ve ever done in band. I was home at around 9:20 pm. It was just like any other MPA, except that I was on xylophone, only played 1 song so I was just sitting there during the other 2 songs, had to sight-read a few songs, and for a song, the conductor was a student. My feet hurt like I had been at an amusement park all day because I couldn’t sit down. However, we did get straight S’s (i got carried) so I guess it wasn’t all bad. I was bored most of the time though, because we had 40 minutes to rehearse and I was basically sitting there for 40 minutes. We rode home and it was really late. The drive to and from here wasn’t even long, it was just that we took so much time to get finished.
Photo of the stage: https://imgur.com/jGavkik
I talked again to my friend about it in his Beginning band MPA he got an A. Haha, I’m better (though he did say i got carried).
Theres another concert coming up, and we have to play 7 songs. It’s pretty hard to juggle 7 songs for jazz band and 3 songs for my piano teacher.
Anyways, I’ve been thinking about becoming a real jazz pianist. I hardly know a thing about music theory, and I really want to secure a spot in high school as the jazz pianist, so I have to prepare for the audition. Progress is feeling really slow though. I have to learn scales, chords, how to improvise, etc. All the YouTube videos sound like gibberish to me, so I’ll probably have to talk to my teacher about this.
Here’s a list of all the concerts:
https://www.meadowlawnband.com/calendar