Day 59

Date: June 13, 2011
Time: 12:04pm (CST)
Playing on iTunes: "Aja" by Steely Dan


Location: Minneapolis, MN
Recent Trip: 380 miles

(spoke in Minnesotan accent) Welcome to Minnesota, don't cha know?! It was a big change from Omaha weather even though it's not that far away. Very nice out and not too hot. We pulled into Chanhassen High School around 5a and got three-hours of floor time. In the morning, the pit did PT for the first time since we have five rehearsal days here and no need to worry about a show day. So the pit had time to do some physical training. Man was it crazy! We hadn't done it since spring training and the corps definitely upgraded from what they did. We were working out for a good straight hour!! It felt great afterwards though. Not sure I'd be able to do it everyday though!


After PT, we headed over to the truck to start unloading and getting set up for the day. When we got over and unloaded a few things, a family came over and was interested in what was going on. Some of us got to talking with the family and a little kid named Griffin wanted to play some of the instruments. We had him come over and play the gong (bottom right). He was having the time of his life!! I was so happy to see a little kid become so happy about music. We also had him play a whirly (which is what I use at the beginning of the show). Funny enough, a whirly is actually a young child's music toy, Griffin had some trouble getting it to make sound but he was having the time of his life. Made me so happy to see the smile on that child's face! =)

As far as the corps goes, we made a lot of adjustments to the show. Not huge adjustments but small ones.  The pit keeps getting asked by judges to add more "shaping" to our pit feature half way through the percussion production. "Shaping" for all you non-music folk is equivalent to how you speak. If you speak soft then get louder, your impression is that you have more energy when speaking. Essentially, the volume of which you're working with something. The shaping changes we made to the 45-second long percussion feature makes the end have more energy to it which helps out the pit very much when getting scored and when getting applause.


There are many changes coming up ahead of us. Not huge changes, but changes that will perfect our show and make it the best one the Cadets have ever had! I'm ready for it!

Thought of the Day: "Make their day. Make it your goal to make someone's day, whether that means introduce yourself to someone, call a family member, or even let them play a gong...make someone's day. It will make them happy and make you happy." - Fish Philosophy