Day 64

Date: July 17, 2011

Time: 11:40pm (CST)

Playing on iTunes: "Angels in the Architecture" by Frank Ticheli

Location: Rockford, IL

Recent Trip: 340 miles

So we are around the half way point through our tour. We have stopped in 26 places, and gone over 7,000 miles . The map you see below starts in Allentown and stops in Minneapolis. Looking at this just blows my mind at how far we have gone in so little time. Everything is going by so fast, I have to make sure appreciate it as it is happening.

Welcome to beautiful Illinois! This is our first endeavor after the long rehearsal stay in Minnesota. Getting back on the bus, for me, was a little challenging in that I had to make sure everything was all set and not forgetting everything. Also, getting settled into my seat was a little stressful because I have a certain place for everything and needed to some time to make sure it was all in the right spot. I know I'm a little weird but when traveling on the road, I gotta make sure everything is wear it needs to be. Cannot lose anything!

In the morning block we had to reorganized the truck a bit since we were just in a housing site for five days, everything can get throw around a bit and get messy. Below you see Rebecca organizing our "house-keeping bin" with all of our spray paint, cleaners, dust remover, etc.

We also got new cymbal bags since ours were
breaking apart at the bottom.

This was what we looked at as we rehearsed. It was great because
we were playing to a field of "ears", so we know they were listening.
Haha that was a corn joke.

Tonight was our first G8 show since Round Rock, TX. It was great to see all of the top 8 corps from last year there. The audience was enormous; sold out as you can see below! This has been a place for DCI since the 70's. A very memorable place for a show. We performed last and it was great to have it be dark out compared to yesterdays show since it is slightly cooler with no sun. The corps overall didn't seem to have a great show, and I myself didn't have a fantastic show. It was a "good enough" show. So as you can imagine, no one was overly excited about the performance. But on a good note, we did get a better score than the night before which means we are getting better everyday, our moto.

Tour of Champions - Rockford, IL 

1) Cavaliers - 87.9 

2) Cadets - 86.75

3) Blue Devils - 86.45

4) Carolina Crown - 86.0

5) Phantom Regiment - 84.85

6) Bluecoats - 82.55

7) Santa Clara Vanguard - 81.95

8) Blue Stars - 78.75

CPit 2011 Spotlight

Today I'm going to do a special spotlight on one of my good friends from UMass. This is Maggie Sorbi from South Hadley, MA. This is her first year doing drum corps and she is ecstatic about touring the U.S. Maggie's favorite stop so far was Seattle, because she was able to experience new things and see the beauty that it had to offer. She loved the Space Needle and the first Starbuck's. When's she's not munching on brownies her favorite food on tour is bacon. Currently she is a 20-year old senior animal science major at UMass Amherst. She participates in the pit in the UMass Marching Band and will be sectional leader next fall along with Taylor, and myself. She is most looking forward to perform in Allentown, PA and Lawrence, MA since they are shows close to home. Look for her in the pit playing the xylosynth, she has a lot of cool sounding parts!!

Maggie's xylosynth has been having some trouble with notes to working and not responding. Today she had to fix it by taking replacement bars and switching them out with the old ones. What happens is you take the xylosynth, flip it upside down, and take off the back cover (below).

Then you take the new key as you see below and you replace it with the old key from before. The keys are hard plastic with a trigger in them which sends the signal to the board to produce whichever sound you want. The foam bottom you see below is a cushion for the impact of the mallet.

Thought of the Day: "It's the little things in life that really change how you feel."