Forum - View topicHow Sound! Euphonium Totally Nails Being a Band Geek
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Red Fox of Fire
 Posts: 345 |
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This series is more accurate than I want it to be. It gives me flashbacks to high school.
It's not that accurate, though, what with their trumpet section being all girls. And I don't think I knew anyone who named their instrument. But people most definitely get tribal with their sections (and our saxophones were not-so-nice people) and the directors would instruct us all together, but when breaking off into groups, we were on our own. The one problem I have with the article, though, is actually the title. I don't think the show nails being a band geek so much as it just portrays being in band. And no, I don't consider those to be the same thing. EDIT: Come on, ANN, if you're gonna censor, at least make sure your filter is grammatically correct. |
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GuruBuckaroo
 Posts: 75 |
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I started playing French Horn in 4th grade. Took private lessons, the whole works. Wasn't quite as heavy to tote as a baritone or a tuba, but the case was awkward as all get-out.
When I moved to a different city at the start of my Freshman year of highschool, I tried out for and started playing quad-drums. Got away with that for about 4 months, too, until I accidentally let slip around our band teacher Miss Cox that I could play French Horn. Spent the rest of highschool and my one semester of college playing it, leading the section more often than not. It's been, wow, 29 years since I picked one up last. My wife keeps telling me she wants to hear me play. I keep telling her it's been 29 years :p |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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It's a little hard to personally own the instrument I played unless you plan on doing it professionally and not as a passing hobby. You can always buy second secondhand for most instruments, but large brass ones aren't the same as a plastic clarinet.
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Godaistudios
Posts: 2075 Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment) |
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There is a lot of nostalgia for me in this show for me as well. I played clarinet for four years, and I loved music enough as a teen to sing in chorus as well.
I started in 7th grade and while I was competent with my clarinet, I didn't put in near the practice time I should have to be any better than 2nd chair. I did my share of solos as a singer though. Still, it's been 23 years since I played, but I do remember the days of both fighting with one another and struggling to play well with one another (and we indeed had those tribal feelings when it came to sections.) That the show fully captures that feeling just makes it all the more enjoyable for me to watch. |
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JadeDahlia
 Posts: 70 Location: New York, NY |
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I was a percussionist in concert band in middle school so I can also relate to this show to an extent, even though there's been very little focus on the percussion section so far. Then again percussion isn't as difficult as most of the other instruments so there's less drama there in general (unless you're stuck with jerks for band mates like I was), though you still need a sense of rhythm.
At my school, percussionists had to play bells (basically a metal xylophone) to learn things like sheet music, music theory, and the same kind of things the rest of the band was learning, along with stuff like drums (mostly snare drum but sometimes drum kit or timpani) and occasionally random things like triangle, mark tree, cymbals, etc. Anyway yeah this show has been making me want to pick up an instrument again, and definitely reminds me of the more positive experiences I had in concert band (though at my school we never did competitions, but we did perform concerts). |
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Sailor S
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I was a tubacabra player in high school, and I was pretty good at it, but I didn't own my own tuba, and they're really expensive even used, so once I was done with high school, I stopped playing and now I doubt I could make much of a sound with it if I tried. Before I graduated high school, I did try out for the Marine Corp band. Sadly, I didn't get much advanced notice on when the tryout would be (basically I talked with the recruiter, and that evening he called and said the tryout would be tomorrow morning) so I was pretty unprepared. But, I guess it just wasn't meant to be.
The instructor at my high school was also the conductor for the National Guard band, so he didn't tolerate slackers. Our high school was pretty well known at the time in the marching band circle, since we usually had a lot of success in every competition we marched in. I also agree with how they showed how Hazuki had real trouble being motivated to practice on her own. The tuba parts generally are really unexciting, and without getting to hear how they mix together with the more prestige parts, it can be incredibly boring to practice. |
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xifeng.hu
 SubscriberPosts: 103 Location: Oahu,Hawaii |
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This show really brings me back to my days in high school when I was a very serious clarinetist. I currently play in two community bands so I can still say I am a band geek. Also this show makes me want to practice my trumpet that I bought a year ago. I'm a terrible trumpeter but I am a good clarinetist (I have played all the music in both bands with out practicing out of rehearsal pretty accurately.
@Sailor S You tried out for the President's Own? Wow, I'm no where near good enough to attempt that. (The Marine Corps band is the most prestigeous band in the USA). I heard that if you miss one note in the entire audition (like every major and minor scale ect.) you don't make it. Also if they make those key chains I think my brother should pick up (or try to) some Sax-kuns for his section and get me a clarinet and/or trumpet one 
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Kaji01
Posts: 7 |
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I was homeschooled for middle and high school, so there really wasn't a band to join, though I did pick up bass at 14 (and still play it some 20 years later).
Never been much for naming things, though I did end up naming one of my amps "Goliath". Considering it's a 95w tube amp that blows out even large rooms when the volume is set to 2.5, I think it earned that name... |
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bobob101
 Posts: 201 |
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Rather than a band geek, I was a band slacker. I was the guy who fell a sleep during practice, would never really practice that hard, and overall be the deadweight of my band. This show is kinda traumatic honestly.
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Kaji01
Posts: 7 |
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Kind of reminds me of the time when the guitarist in my band (who specialized in euphonium and tuba, coincidentally) convinced me to join the county band playing the string bass parts. I knew how to read treble clef reasonably well, but could not sight read bass clef, and the fact that all of my music had the notes 5 and 6 ledger lines below the clef did not help matters any. One practice while I was getting a bit bored of sitting and not playing yet again, I started very quietly improvising a blues bassline underneath the ballad the rest of the band was playing. About 8-10 bars in the director waves everyone off with an angry flourish and declared that if the string bass wasn't going to play the part as written then it had best stay quiet. As I found out afterward, I'd made the further mistake of choosing his absolute favorite piece to do this on. Suffice to say, that was the last week I came. |
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omiya
 Posts: 1849 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Hehehe, I've been in the situation where 2 tubas have been bought for someone who didn't continue with tuba past high school. |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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Weeeeell, this is anime. I saw a while back that someone had gathered the silhouettes from the OP and matched them to all the band members and you can see that the entire band leans very girl-heavy. Kyo-Ani often includes a class list with their shows and having girls heavily outnumber boys is typical. I thought the premise of a nearly all girls bass section was already laughable. It was also nice to see from image above that their band is fairly balanced in terms of instrument composition, although if they don't do auditions, that is also quite unrealistic. Every band I played in had 20+ flutes just because so many people wanted to play it. |
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Sailor S
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There are several levels within the Marine Corp band. The President's Own is one that most people would never get in to, because the only time there's an audition for it is if a current member retires. Once you're in, you're in for life basically. Most people that apply for the band are just trying to make it in to one of the field bands, since the odds of getting into the President's Own are so low. So yeah, I was just trying out for one of the field bands. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Even though it happened decades ago, I can still remember the day my college freshman glee club first tried to sing a Mozart piece. We were doing fairly well at sight-singing until we turned a page and were confronted with two full pages of chromatics ("sharps and flats"). Mozart was changing keys on us, and he "won." We all laughed about it, though, as did the conductor. Singing lengthy complicated pieces a capella is another difficult task for amateurs. I recall our working really hard to sing Randall Thompson's The Peaceable Kingdom. |
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omiya
Posts: 1849 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Nice clip, have an introduction to a choir local to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8UhGLJVqwg |
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