The First Two Days

Ahh… band camp, the rite of passage into the notorious PVHS Marching Band. I still remember my first ever day of band camp ever when I was going into high school those 4 short years ago. Looking back I can see how much I have changed since then and how the band was helped bring me out of my shell, but enough about me, on to the first 2 days of camp =).

THE FIRST DAY:

It was an honor to be chosen as a unity leader this year and I felt extremely excited get to help break in the freshman. I showed up to camp early (as I must every day for a quick meeting on how the day will progress and such) I felt a strange combination of excitement and nervousness  as all the people entered the band room, some for the first time. When the time arrived and I met the group of people that would be in my unity group, I was very happy to be with some of my good friends, but also freshman that were willing to engage in our crazy band way of life. We played some games and came up with our hybrid insect and soda name, the DIET CANTS >=D, I saw my group laughing and I felt more confident about being a unity leader. It feels so good to know that when we graduate and pass the torch down to the next leaders of band, that not only will the next leaders be ready, but that the people they lead will have enthusiasm for band. The camp went on as all the other ones did, rookies learned stuff, veterans reviewed stuff, and we all came together and had our first official drilldown, in which I happily placed second. When we broke off into sectionals and we got to mingle with the new trumpets and see their skills, I was genuinely impressed by how good we sounded, and I can tell that this is going to be a very good year for us trumpets. This day went incredibly smooth and was by far the best first day of band camp ever; I can only hope all the days are like this.

THE SECOND DAY:

As with the first, came into camp early today, ad actually hitched a ride on my way there with our band director Mr. R, and it was funny to see the faces of my fellow band mates as we rolled up blasting AC/DC music. We did our little unity leader meeting and started the day with warm ups and exercises after the rest of the bandies came. We played some more games in our Unity groups and my group was able to place 3^rd, which was something to celebrate considering the game we played was human knot.The day was even smoother at first, and this was the day rookies learned to march. We had a few stumbles along the way but the rookies picked it up in a relatively fast manner. We had two drill downs today (which I surprisingly took first place in both) and I now feel the need to break a former band members record of first place ribbons >=D. In trumpet sectionals we went over some pre game music and we got to hear how we really sound as a horn section, and we sounded pretty good. I am really looking forward to see how these new trumpets will grow as players. We ended the day by marching ad on big unit across the football field, as we will do many more times this year. Band camp is going perfectly at this point and I am excited for band camp.

Also for the record, I love being part of a group that officially has the right to say “this one time, at band camp..”