That 30-second epiphany that defines the clarinet player's life in the band

So earlier today (it's still Monday in my head), we're playing Pinball Wizard at Penn Band rehearsal.  Cool song, right?  Well, I guess.  At any rate the drum major decides to have only the clarinets and flutes play their part at the beginning of the song.  The part is a rhythmic pattern of 8ths/16ths that repeats in each measure and I believe is meant to imitate the guitar strumming.  (As a side note I'll say it took me til senior year to figure out the rhythm... or at least I think I've got it now.)  The action proceeds as follows:

Clarinets/flutes:  (begin playing the part, several measures go by)

Trumpet player:  Wait, that's the part?!? ...... Wow, that's gross!


Major sigh.  In the space of 30 seconds it was plainly illustrated how a) we sometimes get stuck with annoying, boring, or otherwise undesirable parts, but far worse, b) very often the rest of the band doesn't even have a clue what we're playing cuz they can't hear us at all.  This was one of those moments when I'm not sure how much I really contribute to the band.  Oh well.

everything in sync

My brothers got me an iPod for Christmas. It's my first one ever; cute little radiant-purple nano. Since I like to try to be mostly legal with music, I've only got three albums on it so far, all of which I purchased from Amazonmp3. This current lack of variety is but a small issue, though, because walking across campus with music is a million times better than walking across it in silence and thinking only about being late. (I usually am.) Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm living in a movie - the soundrack is playing in my head.

Today (well...fine, yesterday) I was walking on Locust, scheduled day done and already in a pretty good mood. The last part of my scheduled day had been cancelled, it was Thursday so I'd basically reached my weekend, and I had just parted ways with Grace (as she was off to an art class of course) with whom I'd been talking about dance. I started listening to "Rikki" by Mylo. I like to think that some kind of instinctual sense guides humans to move with the rhythm of music they're hearing, but since that's probably not the case, I at least know that I like to walk in sync with the beat of whatever song I'm listening to. Maybe this is a leftover from marching band. For whatever reason, this time, I was walking in sync. I love the song and it fed straight into my good mood. There are certainly some things in my life that are not how I want them to be right now, but while listening to that song, I was immersed in this feeling that everything was in sync, not just myself and the music. So for that little bit, the music freed me from whatever stresses are tying me down and just gave me a happiness.

I'm starting to sound sappy, wow. I'll just say, it was quite a good moment.