Reader Response Exp.

Kyle Manalo 

Ms. Asuncion 

English 9H, Block 2 

1 October 2015 

Weekend Full of Band 

It was finally Friday afternoon. I have the whole weekend in front of me, but it wasn’t going to be a normal weekend. This weekend I’m competing in first marching band competition. Before the competition, Rock Ridge has a home football game to play. 

It was future Phoenix Night so the eighth graders from Stone Hill will play music with us in the stands. About an hour before the eighth graders come, we start getting dressed. A marching band uniform has several different parts: the jumper, jacket, shako (the hat), gauntlets, and gloves. This was the first time we’re going to perform in our uniforms. Each person’s uniform is tailored to fit them perfectly. That might sound cool but sometimes it is uncomfortable and it gets really hot inside. 

When we heard that the eighth graders are in the auditorium we stood in the hallway waiting for them to come out. We also set up the tunnel of death. The tunnel of death is basically where we stand on each side of the hallway and welcome the students. We didn’t welcome them like, “Welcome to marching band, we hope you join next year,” it’s more like, “Join marching band! Just do it!” After we welcomed them, we went to the band room and played some warm-up exercises. We also taught them some chants that go with our stand tunes. Then, we go into sectional time. 

We trumpets were just trying to have some fun and get to know the eighth graders. In the process we were also telling them a little bit about ourselves. To make it a little bit more fun, we start teaching them some dances that goes with the music. After about 20 minutes, we start heading to the stadium. 

Now we're in the stands and it's cramped since we have a band that is double the size than normal. I look behind me and I ask an eighth grader, "Do you know what's the one rule in the stands?' 

He says, "What?" 

Then I yell, "Get hyped!" Sadly, not many of them followed that rule. The eighth graders only learned 3 stand tunes so we played those 3 most of the time. Around the 5 minute mark in the second quarter, the marching band goes to the field to start warming up. 

We do our normal warm-up exercises then work on our show music. Once it was half-time, we began our show. We all thought that it was one of our best runs, which is great for the competitions the next day. After the performance, we go and eat. We don’t play in the 3rd quarter.  After we ate we went back to the stands and play the 4th quarter. Now it's just the marching band playing because the eighth graders only had to play the 1st half.  On top of a good performance, Rock Ridge even won the game. After we put away the equipment, uniforms, and instruments, we went home, just to come back the next morning. 

The next morning I arrived at Rock Ridge around 8. Everyone is still tired but there is a sense of excitement. Even though we are tired, Mr. Ratcliff still makes us go outside and work on our show. After that, we get our stuff and load the buses to Woodbridge for our first competition of the season. 

For the first and last 10 minutes of each bus ride we have something called silent bus (pretty self-explanatory). For the 90 minute bus ride to Woodbridge, we (the trumpet section) start making a mixtape/rap. The mixtape is not that good but it sure is funny. Once we get to Woodbridge, we start eating lunch. After lunch, we start getting dressed. Then, we go start finding to warm-up. When we're warmed up we head to the field for our first competition of the season. 

We stand on a hill that goes down to the field for about 15 minutes until it's show time. We felt like that performance was great but we need to tweak some things. Personally, I felt like that my individual performance was one of my best. Right after we finished, we marched straight to the trailers that we use to transport our equipment. After we got our plumes (the feathers on top of our shakos) taken off, we headed straight to the buses to change. It was so hot outside that everybody was sweating. It was not pleasant. Once we've changed we eat a snack and leave for Martinsburg, West Virginia for our second competition of the day. 

Like the last bus ride, we have silent bus and we work on the rap. Everyone was tired so it was quiet. The trip from Woodbridge to Martinsburg was also about 90 minutes. Around 5:15 we start getting dressed while we are still on the bus, Mr. Ratcliff's orders.We had to get dressed on the bus because we only had about 30 minutes to get everything ready. We do our routine and start heading to the field. We felt like it was a good performance but it could've been better if had more time to warm-up. When we got back to the trailers, Mr. Ratcliff told us that we are 2nd grand champions at Woodbridge. That means that we had the 2nd best score in the whole competition. We were all so happy about how we did in our first competition of  the season.  

After we went to the buses and got dressed, we went to the stadium to buy dinner and watch the rest of the competition. We watched some other high-school bands with some cool show themes, until we got to the finale and watched a college marching band with a jazz theme. The band wore fedoras and white button-ups rather than a regular marching band uniform. The band played songs like "September" and "Uptown Funk". That performance was amazing, they included an actual band with guitars and they incorporated dancing into their performance.  

After their performance, it was the award ceremony. For this competition we are in group 4 open, so we were just waiting for our group. 

"1st place in group 4 open..." says the announcer, "The Rock Ridge Phoenix from Ashburn, Virginia!" Not only did we win in our group, we were also grand champions. 

On the bus ride back to Rock Ridge I tell my friend, "Well that was fun," and he says, "That’s only the beginning."