Thanksgiving, First Brigs camp

Well the weekend before Thanksgiving was the first Brigadiers camp of the 2008 season. It was also the first time we got to play on our "new" Bb horns that we bought from the Blue Devils. I have to say that I pretty much love the Bb contra. It's about 7-10 pounds heavier than the old G bugle contras we had last year, but the improved sound is worth it. The Bb seems to respond a lot better to the lower end of the range, which is awesome because I play the lower part. As far as numbers go, it looks like we will be putting out a 64 piece hornline. Last year we went out with something like 45 and we still could put out a wall of sound, mostly thanks to the G bugles. only Reading went out with a full hornline. I'm stoked that we'll end up with 10 contras, possibly even 12!! :-D But the corps is looking and sounding absolutely amazing so far. The hornline already has a couple simple chorales and stuff memorized which was unheard of last year. So yeah, first camp of the 2008 Brigadiers was awesome!

So Thanksgiving is over and it was yet another boring break for the most part. I went to Atlantic City with Bombard on that Tuesday. He was down seeing his girl for the holiday so I dragged him away for a day. I blew about $80 which I shouldn't have, but I did anyway. Friday night I went to PJ's with Kelly and then went back to her house to watch a movie. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful week.

Saturday was the 2007 Brigadiers banquet. This was a lot of fun, it was good to see some of the people who aren't marching this year for whatever reason. I was awarded "Rookie of the Year" for the brass section, which I have to admit was pretty cool. Andy Buchmann got "Most Improved Performer" in the brass section. So basically the contras received 2 of 3 awards for the brass. Not too shabby for the best section in the corps :-P

This weekend is a drill weekend. All of our MST's (Musical Support Teams, or small ensembles) are going out and playing at a bunch of the different unit's Christmas parties. Saturday is a rehearsal day for my MST but on Sunday we are play for the Aviation guys. it makes sense to sound the loudest group to the place where the party is in a huge open hanger lol. My group is the brass group, which is basically the people who didn't fit into the Jazz group or the Country group. So we have 6 trumpets, 2 mellos (yes the play mellos and not french horns), 3 trombones, 2 tubas, and a drumset. So basically we're along the lines of a mini-corps from DCA. We don't play the same music as a mini-corps we go for more entertaining stuff. I don't remember everything we're playing, but I do know a majority of it is Blues Brothers stuff. I'm one of the Blues Brothers, they just don't know which one yet.

Sleeping problems...

So yeah it's like 0230 and I am still up. I don't understand why I just can't fall back into a normal sleeping pattern!!! AHHH! It's so frustrating going to bed at 3 or 4 and not waking up until noon. So much of the day is wasted by this and it's pissing me off. I need some sleeping pills or something

About damn time...

Well it's about damn time that drum corps started again. My first camp is this weekend and I can't be anymore excited. One, to not only get out of the house, but very far from the house and two, I kinda miss being somewhere else other than fucking Vermont! Plus, after camp is done on Sunday I'm heading home for Thanksgiving which will be kinda nice. Although it's going to be just like every other time I'm home in NJ. No one around so I'll be stuck at home doing nothing again, as always! But hey at least it'll give me some time to finish reading Stephen Colbert's book, which I've only gone through the first chapter and partly into the 2nd but I love it already.

The one thing I am looking forward to is Bombard and I are going to Atlantic City one night since he'll be with Jes in Jersey for the holiday. It'll be my first time in AC but it should be pretty awesome. I invited Kelly to come along but I don't think she will because of work, but we'll see.

So with camp coming up I've been going over the new exercises that Pete sent out. I'm glad that there are more chorale type pieces than last year. It'll provide some more variety than there was last year. I'm particularly excited about playing Adagio this year. We played for part of the year last year, but for some reason it was dumped. Hopefully we stick with it this time because I really like it as a piece and even more so because of the contra parts. The numbered exercises are different too but not any more difficult or anything. I'm just glad to be back in the game finally.