Basketball, Band, and the S.W.A.T. Team

I just got back from a CRAZY couple days in LA last night! As a member of Oregon State's Travel Band, I  augmented its scholarship group at the annual Pac-10 Basketball Tournament, at least until either the Men or Women lost. The trip featured way-too-early mornings, time on TV, and a police S.W.A.T. team and helicopter.

The trip started on Tuesday at Legendary Gill Coliseum where we loaded our buses. Before our buses arrived, I saw the Men's team depart. It was a bit weird seeing Craig Robinson in loose basketball sweats after only ever seeing him dressed nicely on the court. It was interesting watching the players up close and out of the spotlight.

We arrived in LA late that night, and after figuring out who was unlucky enough to sleep on the floor in our 2-bed, 4-man rooms, we got to sleep a little after midnight. The next morning, I, along with several other volunteers, reported in the lobby at 4:30 a.m. and went down to the Staples Center where KTLA was doing a live broadcast. Before we played, another mellophone player took out a can of orange spray-on hair dye, so we enjoyed orange hair for the day. We played the Fight Song in and out of commercials, got free breakfast, and got paid, so I thought it was well worth it!

Later that day was the first Women's game in USC's Galen Center where they played Arizona State. It was not expected to be close as we were the #10 seed and ASU was the #3 seed, though on the court, it was at least somewhat interesting-- they were down by a lot, but then for the last few minutes surged back to within five points, but no closer-- but we started to get really annoyed by ASU's band! Besides having a bass guitar with an annoying tinny sound (come on, really?) that made their tubas sound non-existant, they were bearable, though I was really glad when the refs told both bands to not play during the game because it got old hearing their stupid bass riff after every basket and foul (Our playing was just the drums after fouls). They also got really obnoxious too during their jeering because the did such a terrible job at heckling! While Stanford will always be the most annoying band in the conference, ASU is now my pick for either the #8 or #9 most annoying band in the Pac-10. As with any tournament, each band had its turn to play on alternating time-outs, though to be fair, during unscripted "free for alls," we did interrupt their band a couple times, though not before they started playing some boring 70s song during our Fight Song-- that is a crime you do NOT do!

After the loss, we had some free time before doing a short rally outside and heading into the Staples Center (home of the Lakers and Clippers of the NBA) to play for the Men's team against Stanford, who in addition to being annoying like ASU, are also terrible musicians since they are essentially, and self-admittedly, just a party group that happens to have instruments to go along with their beer. If you are unfamiliar with this "band," just know that they have a life-time ban at Notre Dame, recently ended a decade-long ban from the state of Oregon, and have a life-time ban from one of the major airlines.

Before the game, we started trading off with the Stanford Band with some music, and when the OSU Women's team filed in to the stands, we turned to play our Fight Song to them, and they waved back since they could tell we were doing it for them (as opposed to the fans seated in that general area). During the game, we also had a bit of fun. We got on the screen several times, and I was told I was on TV numerous times as well. Sitting in front of us was Orlando Jones, an actor from the movie Drum Line, and at one point we had some fun by chanting his famous line "One band, one sound" from the movie, to which he turned around, and with a grin, gave us a wave. I also was told that Gary Payton was in the audience, though I did not see him.

During the game, OSU played fairly well, and despite the most stressful 30 seconds I have ever witnessed in a basketball game, we hung on to win 69-67.

After the game was when the real craziness happened. When we got to the hotel, we were asked if anyone had a room above the 25th floor (the hotel has four towers with 32 floors each). Thankfully, none of us did. We did not really know what was going on except from rumors of a gunman. Inside the lobby, we saw police standing around, and one was even holding a shotgun! Later some of us even saw the S.W.A.T. team get into the elevator and what looked like a couple snipers, and I saw a couple of policemen with some riot gear and a cart with a shotgun attached. Inside my room I heard a helicopter, and when I realized the sound was not passing, I guessed it belonged to the LAPD as well, which turned out to be true when I went outside and saw it hovering near my room! I read the story the next morning on a KTLA report as well as what people had learned in the lobby. Apparently, a crazy man refused to leave after the hotel told him that his credit card did not process. When the LAPD came to talk to him at 7:30 p.m., he told them he had been smoking marijuana and doing narcotics, and that he had a gun, and by 4 a.m., they had put tear gas through the room's air vent before arresting him. All of this happend just a few floors above me! The funny part was that when talking about how this was one staff member's last trip with us, ironically, a comment was made that something big would happen that brought out the S.W.A.T. team.

The next day, members of the Travel Band went home while the rest stayed for next game, a loss to Arizona. It was dissappointing to go home early, though we got the last laugh because those that stayed had a really early flight the next morning instead of an afternoon flight like we had, and their per diem was not much more.

After a crazy few days, I am glad to be home, even if I no longer can enjoy the weather in Southern California... but there is always next year!

MENCNW Concert

This weekend was the MENC (Northwest Division) Biennial Conference. MENC is the National Association for Music Education, though don't ask me how that ends up standing for MENC because I have no clue dispite spending a small amount of time considering the matter. This year, it was in Bellevue, Washington, and among the vast multitude of events was included a combined concert by local Army bands. The Oregon National Guard (234th) headed it up, with augmentation by the Washington National Guard (133rd), and my band, the 204th Army Reserve Band, and we had a guest conductor from DePaul University.

Except for some lodging the night before for a couple people (me!) pretty far away, the 204th's experience started early Thursday morning when we gathered into a couple vans and personal vehicles and drove up to Camp Murray in Tacoma for a rehearsal. Once there, we decided on parts. In the horn section, we had five players, and we settled on one per part with first being shared between myself and a horn player from Oregon. In the 204th, we had been given our parts in advance, although we had no idea what parts we were playing nor did we rehearse as we were only augmenting (in our case, rehearsing would be pointless just as testing an engine that is missing half the pieces would not work either), though it was evident that the "core group" had not either when the director made a comment to the effect of "it sounds like you are sight-reading," which was actually the case. The day went on with several hours of rehearsal, and we did get the pieces quite presentable. I even got a fun, albeit short, solo in the closing piece, although while the end result was decent, there were a few moments which many of us were nervous about.

The next morning, we arrived early to the convention center where we were surprised to discover some miscommunication had given us the wrong time; our warm-up time was cut short as we did not arrive early enough to really take advantage of it, but we persevered and even had a "singing-only" rehearsal before the performance.

The performance itself was somewhat bittersweet. The first piece was very exposed of and some further rehearsal time might have saved it from some mistakes, though the overall performance got better as the concert went on. It was not the best of concerts, and although I wish the audience might have been aware of the circumstances, it was a pretty good job for only having one rehearsal.

After the concert, I was amazed at how many of my Army colleagues knew people that they passed by in the halls of the convention. Most them are music educators, so of course it is reasonable that they would see colleagues and former classmates at the biggest event of their profession, but I admit that I did feel left out and wished I would see someone I knew. At the very end of my day at the convention, while waiting for our van, I saw a member of the OSU Marching Band staff (who I also know from participating in community theater), so I got my wish and felt like one of "the guys," actually knowing someone at the convention.

Overall, the MENC Convention was a fun experience, and dispite a few hiccups, my experience and invovlement went well.

Fiddling with my Computers

This weekend while in Vancouver for the Army Reserves, I was working on my personal computer. I had already spent several hours on my own formulating a spreadsheet in Excel and getting our unit up-to-date for the first time in over a decade, when tragedy struck. Don't worry, nothing happend to my file... but when I popped in a CD to make a backup at the request of our Unit Administrator, it start making this horrible clicking sound. Immediately I figured it was my computer's fault--after all, the panel on the end of my CD-ROM is broken and only connected in one of the two spots it should be--but I also thought it might be the disc's format.

I was wrong.

It was confirmed today when I tried to put my Fiddler on the Roof Soundtrack into iTunes. My computer still reads CDs just fine; it just is no longer capable of transferring data on to the harddrive. Some quick thinking got the CD ripped onto my PC's Window's Media Center, and from there, onto a thumbdrive, though not before a temporary longing for a Mac because the whole process would have been user-friendly and not like pulling teeth, like any media is for Windows. Don't worry, I recognized the error in my ways and stopped longing for the Mac within seconds, though I was still annoyed with Windows, as improved as Windows 7 might be. Anyways, a long story short, I used the thumbdrive to get it to the laptop and on to iTunes in a very long way around what is supposed to be a simple task. At least my iPod is updated now--I had lost the cord and misplaced my iPod, so needless to say, it had been a while. It is nice, though. Now I can listen to songs from somewhat of a tragic musical which can remind me of a sad plot involving a ruined wedding party, choosing between home and love, choosing between family and a lover, and losing a home altogether. Fitting title, considering my dad used to always play the world's smallest violin in a sweet song of sorrow when I didn't get my way. Pretty upbeat, huh? I think so. 

Alaska!

I am sitting in the Fairbanks airport, about to return from the great state of Alaska! For our two-week annual training, my Army Reserves unit ventured to Fort Wainwright to backfill for the 9th Army Band as its members went on block leave. For two weeks we spent our time rehearsing our various groups, doing Army training, and performing at several local venues, including a park, a live broadcast on NPR, and the state fair (twice). The NPR performance can be found here, however the link may only last a few days before it expires. No guarentee on the quality of the performance as I have yet to listen to it, and it was, shall we say... slightly eventful!

During the two weeks, we were extremely busy with our rehearsals, but to balance out our hard work, we had one completely free day. For my day off, I went with a few other band members to Denali National Park and enjoyed the scenic views along my hike, which was well worth the two hour drive. I even saw a moose! No pictures of that though.... yet. A lot of pictures will come later when I can get the files from people with cameras superior to mine.

Being the geek that I am, this kind of reminds me of the border to Mordor.

Maybe upriver to where Arwen crossed with Frodo?

Rohan!

Also, the weather in Alaska was surprisingly milder than I expected, with the exception of actually being too hot for the first couple of days. The length of each night expanded quite a bit even from one day to the next (I heard seven minutes each night), and the days were quite bright, especially in the first week. The two weeks ended with an afternoon of “mandatory fun” which pretty much consisted of food in a park. I did play some horseshoes and a card game (Egyptian Slap Monkey), but the really exciting part of the day was when a dragonfly landed on me to eat its captured yellowjacket. Thank goodness it did not sting me as it was being eaten alive. Pictures will come later after people send them to me.

iWant my iPod and iTunes to just iWork

I am starting to go crazy.

I love my iPod (though were I rich, I would have a new one without scratches on the screen), and I love my iTunes. The problem is that my iTunes stopped working, leaving me with an iPod that I can't update. At first I thought it was not the end of the world; I have some retrieval software which takes music from the iPod and imports it into iTunes. I used it when my computer crashed a year or so ago, and thus prevented the great tragedy of losing ALL of my songs which I have in digital copies only.

This time, my computer didn't crash. I just went to open iTunes, and it didn't open. I unistalled it, and then I tried to redownload it, hoping that was the problem. It didn't work. It also didn't work on my external harddrive. I haven't yet given up hope though-- I can still try to do it on the external harddrive through Deanna's clunker of a laptop, but who knows when that will happen. Let's face it-- it takes forever to boot up, and I am lazy and would rather spend hours trying to find a way to work around something that sounds like such an unattractive option. That is just my personality; I like to work hard to prevent having to do work of a lesser scale.

We'll see what happens, but in the meantime, my new music is limited to my car stereo, and if I ever use my iPod, it continues to be the same old selection without hope of ever updating.

B-E-A-V-E-R-S-! Bigger and Better OSUMB!

Our baseball team may be crumbling, but at least come football season, our band will (again) be better than Oregon's! The Oregon State University Marching Band (OSUMB), as of this week, had 219 members signed up, and the Spring Term is only half over! The current projections for Fall put us between 250 and 270. To put that into perspective, we had 215 last year to have the highest count since the 1980s, and 240 is the cutoff for those who will be allowed to travel to bowl games and recieve a stipend. Over the last few years, we have seen the traditional letter spellout during halftime grow from "B-E-A-V-S" to "B-E-A-V-E-R-S-!"-- and now we can look forward to more condensed letters which are even easier to make out from the stands.

Also in comparison, the U of O Marching Band (OMB) had around 205 last year, and according to one of their trumpet players, is being forced by the Athletics department to scale down to 140 because they are taking too many seats. That rumor has not been confirmed, but I heard it from the player, and a friend of his in the program agreed with him.

Also, for the record, the OSUMB walluped the OMB in last year's Battle of the Bands. Maybe this year we can add UW's band to our win tally as well.

Recording, Day Two

Day Two of the recording was much better than Day One. As I mentioned before, playing by ourselves is a lot less stressful.

We started the morning with a Korean Folksong medley. It didn't go the best because of some instrument malfunctions on the oboe, but we made do, and did a couple of takes with a trumpet using a straight mute instead of the oboe as a contingency. After the medley was done, we moved on to Inchon, a piece commemorating the Korean war and the services of the composer's father in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Yes, I said "wars" instead of "conflicts." I don't care about the politically correct definition of things, especially since the definition is "a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air."

After Inchon we had lunch before coming back to record a Korean song about longing for a mountain in North Korea... kind of like if the USA was split in half, and one half had a song about wishing they could see Niagra Falls just one more time. By that time, the oboe was in a better condition, so we redid the medley a few more times with the oboe. By that time we had a long break while some people did solo sections and/or a small amount of dubbing due to either mistakes or lack of personel, and I started a game of Phase 10. (We had already played Apples to Apples earlier in the day.) Midway through the game, though, I got called back into the recording room because while my short solo had been fine in the recording, the section it leads into needed to be redone, and as there was no break between mine and the solo after, I was still needed. It went fine, though I am glad it is over as it was the type of solo that looks like it wouldn't be that hard, but is one of the more challenging parts I've ever played. It is deceptively hard because of the intervals needed, the rhythm (or lack of it with the implied tempo change), and exposure at a point in which the player has no spot to breathe. Needless to say, while I am glad I had the part, I don't long to play it again-- three times is enough. (Music in May-- High School honor band, Army concert, and now an Army CD).

Tomorrow we get back into the thick of things, but the hardest part for me is now over as I get to enjoy the rest of the week of recording.

Out of the Morning Calm

This week at work we are finishing the recording of our CD: "Out of the Morning Calm." This is the second CD project I've done here at the 2nd Infantry Division Band, and I think it is (for the most part) the better of the two. I feel more prepared for the pieces, and I think the band is too. Also, this year our guest groups were better. Last year we had the Uijeongbu Junior Symphony Orchestra... a nice gesture in the name of community relations. Unfortunately, while the introduction to "America the Beautiful" was beautiful, the violins seemingly decided to all go a quarter step flat all at once when the verse started, leaving the ears in pain as you try not to wince. They were good kids, and there were some phenominal musicians, but the first half of that track was not a good representation of our musical abilities.

This year, we have the Uijeongbu Philharmonic Symphonic Orchestra, or something like that. I don't remember the exact name, just that they use two descriptive words in their name rather than deciding not to be redundant. They were a decent group-- same organization, but the adults instead. There were still some intonation issues, but not nearly as pronounced. The orchestra had no string basses, but that was not an issue as our own low brass managed to fill the lower registers just fine on their own. There were also a handful of highschool students that were on the same level as the orchestra last year, but since they were few and far between, the good ones blended and the not-so-good ones were covered up enough. What really was awesome though was the Uijeongbu City Choir! Again, I'm not sure of their actual name, but that might be it. They sung in two pieces, but by far the best was the Korean National Anthem. Hearing it with that full choir and our band accented by an orchestra was simply amazing!

Tomorrow we begin the portion of the recording with just us. I feel confident; the only part I am nervous about is a very short solo, mainly because while still figuring out how I was going to do part of it, I got a comment from my commander to get it fixed, and it sort of put a mental stress point in there for me that freaks me out whenever I play it. The last note tends to sound really wobbly sometimes because not only am I out of air by that point, but my heart is beating too hard to keep it steady! I will do fine though. If not, we'll just do another take, so it is not the end of the world.

In the small group portion of my recording, I am with the Woodwind Quintet. Last year we had no oboe so we used two flutes, and I had some of the best tone of my life. This year, we have the proper quintet, but I have a boring part that is entirely up-beats, but I can't complain too much because that also means that I didn't have to spend valuable time working on any tough sections in my practice time.

It will be a packed few days as we go to KBS studios, full of a packed recording schedule, as well as lots of down time as other groups are recording.

Moss Eisley

I just got done with a major cleaning of my room. Well... I just got done with what I am doing tonight in a major cleaning of my room. Now not only can you see my entire rug and vacuum it, but you can see most of the floor around it too. Pretty much all that is left is a huge pile in half of my closet (in my defense, most of it is army gear that I never use but have to store), a small pile, and some stuff under my bed (again, not as bad there either... a big suitcase stored there makes it look like more is under there). That, and the remnants of the clutter on my desk are all that is left. It ended up taking about 3 hours, though at least 45-60 minutes of that was primarily laundry, and I admit, I did distract myself with the computer on more than one occasion. The laundry took forever in itself because today before and during work was the first time I've really been able to take care of it in almost three weeks because every laundry day, and every alternate laundry day I've had, I have had to work when I would normally be washing my clothes. And now that you are so proud of me for showing initiative, I'll also add that I heard there will be light room inspection in the next day or two. :)

A couple weeks ago I found a new band that I really like called Eisley. It features three sisters, a brother, and a cousin, though the two guys don't sing (at least on the album I have). They are a pop/indie band, and though I haven't really gotten much of those genres before, I really liked what I heard when I listened to one of their songs on the radio-- their harmonizations are simply amazing. Their original name was going to be Moss Eisley (named for the Mos Eisley in Star Wars), but obvious legal worries prompted them to drop the Moss. Anyways, if you ever get the chance, check them out.