Saturday, November 06, 2004
Oh, the Monkey Wrapped His Tail Around the Flag Pole
We have our fall concert tomorrow, and one of the marches we're playing is the "National Emblem," by E.E. Bagley. I don't know a way to relate the tune of this march to you other than to say that it's the march Quagmire (from Family Guy) sings in his head when Peter, Joe, and Cleveland are able to read his thoughts with Joe's police van. Anyway, did you know the National Emblem has lyrics? "Oh, the monkey wrapped his tail around the flag pole." That's all there is, and I have no idea where it comes from. I think I'm going to have to come up with the rest of the words myself...
Anyway, as I said, the Cal Poly bands have our fall concert - "Bandfest" - tomorrow night. I had extra rehearsal today from 4:30 to 9:30, with an hour for lunch stuffed somewhere in there. The concert is in celebration of Veterans' Day, so we're playing mostly patriotic stuff. Both Mom and Dad are coming up to see it, so I'm excited to see both of them. And the concert should be pretty good, too. The wind orchestra and the wind ensemble actually do play very well; it was impressive hearing them in our new performing arts center. So I'm excited about tomorrow. I have to change from my tux (with the wind orchestra) to my band uniform (for Mustang Band) halfway through the show. Oh, and I have this semi-solo-type-thing. We're playing a piece called "Lonely Beach" that calls for eight offstage trumpets to play bugle-type calls in the audience, and I'm one of them. Hooray. We're also playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (of course), and - in my professional opinion - we play it much better than the Europe bands played it last summer. The well-known pieces like that are much more fun when you're good at them.
So tomorrow should turn out to be a busy day. I'm meeting one of the girls from my music theory group at noon tomorrow to compose our piece. That should actually be kind of fun, plus it will be nice to finally have that project somewhat out of the way. But, as it's quite late, I must be off to bed.
Cheers,
Josh
mood: relaxed - Kevin at an architecture sleepover so I've got the room to myself for the first time ever
music: none - silent bliss
location: empty dorm
Anyway, as I said, the Cal Poly bands have our fall concert - "Bandfest" - tomorrow night. I had extra rehearsal today from 4:30 to 9:30, with an hour for lunch stuffed somewhere in there. The concert is in celebration of Veterans' Day, so we're playing mostly patriotic stuff. Both Mom and Dad are coming up to see it, so I'm excited to see both of them. And the concert should be pretty good, too. The wind orchestra and the wind ensemble actually do play very well; it was impressive hearing them in our new performing arts center. So I'm excited about tomorrow. I have to change from my tux (with the wind orchestra) to my band uniform (for Mustang Band) halfway through the show. Oh, and I have this semi-solo-type-thing. We're playing a piece called "Lonely Beach" that calls for eight offstage trumpets to play bugle-type calls in the audience, and I'm one of them. Hooray. We're also playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" (of course), and - in my professional opinion - we play it much better than the Europe bands played it last summer. The well-known pieces like that are much more fun when you're good at them.
So tomorrow should turn out to be a busy day. I'm meeting one of the girls from my music theory group at noon tomorrow to compose our piece. That should actually be kind of fun, plus it will be nice to finally have that project somewhat out of the way. But, as it's quite late, I must be off to bed.
Cheers,
Josh
mood: relaxed - Kevin at an architecture sleepover so I've got the room to myself for the first time ever
music: none - silent bliss
location: empty dorm
