Day 33

Date: June 17, 2011

Time: 1:12am (CST)

Playing on iTunes: "Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8" by Hiromi Uehara

Location: Martin, Tennessee Day 3

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM!! Sam turned 22 years old today. He's one of the marimba players in the pit. He is now officially too old for drum corps. In drum corps, you cannot start a season if you are 22 years old. I'm not exactly sure the reason behind it but you are not allowed to be 22 and start a season, so Sam just made the cut off. But again, Happy Birthday Sam!! As you can see he is nicely decorated with a camo polo shirt and camo vest. As well, he is wearing a camo hat with the famous birthday glasses.

Every morning when we need to unload the truck, one essential thing is that we have to line up all the keyboard instruments. This is important because there are different accessories to put onto each instrument, including cymbals, wine-glass holders, and other excess percussion instruments. Keeping everything organized and in a line is one common theme for the pit. We always look good and keep everything efficient. Below you can see the vibraphones have their keyboards lined up and ready to move to our practice area.

Yesterday we had a little mishap with one of the racks. I was not there when it happened so I'm not sure how it happened but as you can see below, one of the wheels on the rack is not there...it broke off. So we have had to resort to holding that one side up while moving. Luckily the admin staff had a wheel overnighted to us so when we get to Texas tomorrow we will have a new wheel for our first show on Saturday.

This morning the keyboard line (all the vibraphones, marimbas, and xylophone) had a sectional to perfect one of the pit features in the show (left). A very time consuming but essential process to the summer is what we call "cleaning a lick". Lick meaning a fast passage that is usually rhythmically hard and melodically (notes) hard. Since there are 7-9 people playing these licks at all times, we need to make sure that we're all playing together. It's not very easy having all 9 of us playing perfectly together, but it's something we need to do to sound like one big pit. And the process to do that is by having sectionals. Some sectionals can last up to 3 hours just to work on 4 bars of music (approx. 3 seconds of music). It is a very tedious process, but when it is complete and fixed, we sound great. Well worth the work.












We were supposed to have ensemble tonight but Hop called it because of weather. There was a huge storm coming and he did not want us to be performing when it started raining and have to be loading the truck with the lightening and such. So we just packed up as quickly as possible and got out of there. Although we did not get to do a 3rd ensemble in Martin, we did get a head start to Texas. To me, this is essential to the corps members. Although we may not be getting to play together, we will hopefully (from what they tell us) be getting some floor time. That will keep us well rested and ready for Friday and then onto Saturday for our first show. So you win some, you lose some. Hopefully everyone will get some sleep on the 500+ mile ride we have out to Texas...

Here was dinner tonight. Absolutely amazing, some ribs, baked potatoes with the fix ins, corn, and of course...birthday cake!

Here we come Texas look out! 100+ degree weather...we can handle it!

Thought of the Day: "Always look for the good in people. Never judge from their appearance."