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WOWZER it’s been a long time since i’ve done anything with this blog! i haven’t stopped being a proud band kid-- after my high school marching days, which is when I started this shebang, I had a wonderful four years of pep band in college, but i graduated in may and am no longer doing anything band-related at the moment (though that’s not to say i never will again! i still have my trumpet and community music groups seem like a great way to meet people...) so as if this blog wasn’t already dead (which it, uh, totally was) i can say it pretty much officially is now...

thanks so much for all the follows, reblogs, likes, messages, and general support throughout the years, everyone! this blog isn’t super huge by tumblr standards but it got way bigger than i ever expected and has posts that have blown up much more than anything else i have on any social media, so it’s been really cool!

if by any chance you’d like to keep up with my adventures, even the non-music-related ones, my latest blog is biggirlbigcity.tumblr.com! I recently moved to, well, a big city and am excited to capture my adventures there-- hope to see some of you there!

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If anyone noticed that I had this blog password-protected for the past few days, I’m sorry about that, it’s back to normal now! I just went through a bit of a rough breakup and just wanted to lie low for a while so in the heat of the moment temporarily shutting down all my tumblrs seemed like a good way to do that, but now that I’m feeling a lot better I realized that was, uh, sort of unproductive xD;;

... Still no guarantees if actual content will be appearing again any time soon (since in less than two weeks I’m leaving to study abroad!) but hey, at this this blog has returned for your viewing/reblogging pleasure :p

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So pep band elections happened at the end of the semester! They were really quite fun, between highlights like the free pizza, getting a shout-out in a candidate's speech for social chair (as the only other person in the room who had been on last year's beach trip with her), the surprisingly hilarious running gag of different people asking every candidate the same exact questions down to wording and intonation, and unashamedly ogling my trombone section crush (who was in flannel and looking INCREDIBLE) literally the entire time...

All in all I'm happy with the people who won positions too!

Social chair went to the same two fun and friendly and great people who did it last year, secretary to a super ambitious freshman who impressed the room by showing that she already knew nearly everyone's name, librarian to another ambitious freshman who seemed very dedicated as well as a good friend of mine who hadn't even wanted to run but was actually nominated minutes before the votes were cast because everyone thought she'd be such an amazing fit, liaison to the incredibly outgoing girl who shows up to every single event and is literally friends with everyone in the band, social media coordinator to the deserving girl who unfortunately didn't win social chair, and treasurer to another really great candidate as well. The only one I was a tad apprehensive about was director, actually-- the new guy definitely seems really confident and competent, but I've always felt some subtle weirdly hostile vibes from him, including a recent instance where I heard him mention my name to another band girl and instinctively looked over, where he made direct eye contact with me and flatly said "Yeah that's right, I'm talking about you" before immediately turning away again without ever explaining what he'd said--but after a mutual friend who knows him from outside of band confirmed that he actually acts that way to literally everyone I'm feeling better. :p

With this exciting new set of officers I can't wait to see how the next semester shapes up!

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As of this year my college trumpet section officially has a Facebook page! At first I was just kicking around the idea with a few of my closest section friends after practice one day, but as soon as we conquered our fear of inviting the incredibly talented, intimidating, and fairly socially aloof seniors to the page as well, it was a reality! ... Plus a great excuse to friend all the members of the section I'd been too afraid to friend before, haha.

True, "The Best Section In The Pep Band" hasn't exactly been lively (for example, calls for bonding activities like getting our faces painted as a section or going to the Halloween store together didn't really generate much response, if any) but I'm really hoping for more next semester!

And hey, if all else fails, next semester the scary seniors will have graduated and the only seniors will both be close friends of mine, so planning get-togethers  will definitely be a lot less terrifying. xP

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I hadn't thought about it, but when I moved in last semester on the first day of my sophomore year, the very first thing I did when I was officially back on campus was hang out with the pep band. For some reason we had been recruited to hand out T-shirts--no playing even involved--outside a big speech that was being held during freshmen orientation, and though I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go it actually ended up being incredibly fun, enthusiastically screaming out sizes, competing with the people around me to see who could work faster, tossing bundled-up shirts at super tall freshmen guys like footballs and vigorously high-fiving when they caught them... since joining the pep band was one of the first things I did my freshman year, it just seems fitting that band got my second year off to a good start too. :) 

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apparently watching Drumline 2 once every semester is becoming a pep band tradition and honestly even though it's not even anywhere near a good movie I am 100% okay with that 

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My little sisters are on the high school basketball team so when I was home for winter break I went to all of their home games and I would always run into kids from the school that I knew, including so many of my beloved marching band children, and it was so amazing! There was the section mate who earnestly told me "I'm section leader now and we tried to organize another Trumpet Stupid Hat Night in your honor but realized we couldn't because you were the one who had lent us all of your hats!" and the section mate who screamed and barreled towards me and threw me into a tremendous bear hug against his giant lacrosse player body and the bassoon player who excitedly told me all about how he'd recently gotten into his first choice college and the clarinet player who revealed that he had recently joined the track team and the bass clarinet player who was thrilled to see me even though I didn't even think he would remember my name...

It's so nice coming back somewhere and feeling like you're really still loved and welcomed there ;w;

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Recently it was a friend from my high school trumpet section's birthday and one of our section babies (who had been a sophomore when we were seniors) posted the picture from our trumpet breakfast at the local diner on her Facebook wall with the comment "Happy birthday from the trumpet section, we miss you!!" and I THINK I LEGITIMATELY TEARED UP

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There's this freshman percussionist in my band who I don't know very well and have never been formally introduced to or had a proper conversation with but he stands behind me at practice and always has the hugest smile and is infectiously enthusiastic and he's always cheerfully gushing about something to his section mates or making effusively good-natured jokes and whenever I bump into him while putting stands away or pass him a piece of music or accidentally catch his eye while leaving the band room he's always incredibly sweet and friendly and polite, and he's so extremely kind and excitable that I actually started thinking he was just acting that way ironically to fuck with his friends, but recently I crossed paths with him outside of the band room for the first time, while I was heading into the dining hall and he was with a friend and leaving, and when I saw him out of the corner of my eye I immediately prepared to look down at my phone so I wouldn't have to awkwardly decide how to acknowledge this person who wasn't even my acquaintance, but before I could even do that he saw me, stopped his conversation with his friend, went out of his way to come up to me, looked me in the eye, gave me his brightest grin, and chirped, like I was his oldest friend, "Hi! How are you doing?" and honestly it completely made my day, and maybe even my week, and destroyed any doubts about his unbelievable niceness being a joke... I feel like the world could use more people like that ;w;

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Last year three kids from my high school band came and visited me at college and toured my campus and GOD I REALLY HOPE ONE OF THEM ENDS UP COMING HERE??? IT WOULD BE INCREDIBLY NICE TO HAVE A FAMILIAR FACE FROM HOME 8+ HOURS AWAY AND IT WOULD INCREDIBLY NICE TO HAVE A YOUNGER FRIEND TO HELP OUT AND LOOK OUT FOR AND MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL IT WOULD BE INCREDIBLY NICE TO HAVE ANOTHER PIECE OF MY HIGH SCHOOL BAND WITH ME IN MY COLLEGE BAND!! SO MY FINGERS ARE CROSSED 

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when our pep band was printing the annual newsletter that we send to alumni and parents asking them to donate money the printing place fucked up and accidentally gave us everything printed really nicely in full color instead of the black and white that we had already paid for and now we're half afraid that the people we're reaching out to are gonna see our fancy newsletters and assume that we're too rich to even need donations 

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is it a universal constant that all majorette coaches are always completely and utterly batshit insane or does the fact that my high school had a different one every year i was there--ever since the first set the precedent by stealing all of the team's equipment then abruptly quitting and leaving the state entirely with no way to contact her, never to be heard from by any of us ever again-- just make us special 

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AHHHH I'M SO UPSET... my family is big on museums so over break we went to the Met and I was so excited to see this instrument exhibit they had and we finally found it and I caught a glimpse of a bunch of awesome things, including tons of trumpets and cornets and bugles that were especially incredibly relevant to my interests... aaand then the second thing I saw was the sign saying the exhibit was closed for the day. :(

I WAS SO LOOKING TO ADMIRE THOSE INSTRUMENTS TOO

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Every time I talk about band to my non-band friends about band without even thinking about it I throw in a bunch of self-deprecating remarks ("Take Music Theory? I can barely even read music!", "I could never explain to someone how to play the trumpet, I don’t even know what I'm doing myself", "I'm terrified every time I go to practice because I'm clearly the worst one in the section", etc.) so one day after one of these customary put-downs a friend of mine (who played the trumpet for a year in third grade but hasn't done anything band-related since) finally said "You know, with the way you always talk about being so awful, I feel like even I could play the trumpet better than you"... and I actually got really pissed at him xD

I have no idea why, because I genuinely don't believe I'm particularly skilled or knowledgeable about music itself at all, but at the same time I'll be damned if I'm still not proud as hell of what little competence I've got! :o

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hey guys! ahhhhh so i’ve been inactive for, uh, quite a while again ;w;

i have some posts that i literally wrote back in january and just never put up for some reason so i’ll be queuing those up starting tonight but once they run out... ah i’ll try to scrounge up some cool new material since y’know it’s summer and i finally have time to breathe but like... it being summer also means that i haven’t got a whole lot of band adventures to be talking about

so yeah, there’ll be some new things coming your way-- no guarantees they’ll be any good, but there’ll be there! i’ll try to keep up the activit after then but no promises!

as always though, love you guys and appreciate all the support--seriously, the notes never stop, even when this blog has been dead for months, and that’s the coolest thing!

and also as always, if anyone ever wants to talk about anything, band-related or not, i’ll be here~

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The day is coming up when my high school band's drum major will be some kid I've never even heard of and honestly I'm terrified 

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I have such a weird relationship with jazz music like the songs I know I love so much but I don't know how to find new ones outside of band so I never listen to jazz on my own but then I'll be watching a movie and all of a sudden start screaming at the top of my lungs because In The Mood is playing on the background smh