Mt. Carmel Band Boosters

Ever since the beginning of the season, our biggest competition has been gunning for us. Maybe it's just me, but I believe after our first win, we felt entitled to win everything, and we haven't been making the most of every moment that we have had together.

We have three weeks left in the season and two judged performances of the field show left. Guys, that's no time. Before you know it, we will be at the Arcadia awards ceremony freezing our butts off, crossing our fingers, and waiting to hear the words "AND GRAND CHAMPION SWEEPSTAKES GOES TO...... MT. CARMEL!" Imagine the crowd erupting, and everyone crying after beating our competition we've lost to for the last 10 years. This is OUR year. We have one of the best shows around. We know it, and we need to perform it as well as possible.

Would you rather look back on this season and say, "We almost had them, if only we would've worked harder, and been focused for that extra couple of hours"? Or would you rather say, "We performed the heck out of that show, and we could not have done any better"? What I'm trying to say is what Mr. Mac has been saying all along. Being mediocre takes the SAME amount of time as being awesome! So, why not be just be awesome? Don't do it for your section leaders, Mr. Mac, your parents, or anyone else for that matter. Do it for yourself. Just because we lost one tournament doesn't mean we can't make a comeback at our final two competitions. Remember that losing only one tournament doesn't make us a bad band! We lost the field tournament by 4 points out of one thousand! That is so close! So, seriously, winning is not out of our grasp. All we have to do is put in 3 more solid weeks of rehearsal, and on that bus back from Arcadia, no matter what the outcome may be, we will feel the same sense of accomplishment.

When I added up how much time we have left, which is just around 24 more hours of rehearsal, it made me look back on all the time I spent in marching band. If you didn't already know, I was taken out of the field show as a freshman because I didn't understand how much band meant to everyone. I messed around, and honestly, I completely wasted the valuable time I could've embraced that season. To this day, I regret it. Being removed from the field show made me rethink if I really enjoyed band, and why I was in it. I figured that if I really loved band, I would work hard to make myself and the band better as a whole. That being said, these last couple of years have tested my hope of winning any kind of a tournament, and I know that probably a lot of us lost hope. Even I felt a little hopeless at times, but I still tried to make the most of every opportunity.

This year, we've been given a great show to perform, and it's our opportunity to turn things around. This year we can do it. We just have to get the work done. It might be hard, but trust me; it will definitely be worth it. Just make the most of every moment, so when you look back, you will be proud of everyone and all the work we put in. Let's arrive at Mira Mesa next week and show the judges who's boss.

Something incredibly ironic always happens when our band starts winning at tournaments. Instead of marching off the field excited and pumped up after an awesome run-through, people become extremely critical of both themselves and the rest of the band. I hear people complain about the tempo, the quality of our sound, missing step-offs, and numerous other parts of our performance. And what always ends up happening? We all watch the tapes the following Monday, and all of the minor details you thought were such a big detail on Saturday night are forgotten. You realize, looking at the big picture, our performance wasn't nearly as bad as you made it out to be. In fact, it turns out that most of the scores actually increase by a significant amount.

To be completely blunt, this drives me crazy. I guess the reason it bothers me so much is because I feel like people are focusing so hard on the negative aspects of their own personal performance, instead of realizing how fortunate we are to have such an incredible show this year. It's not every year we beat our biggest competition at our first tournament. It's not every year we evoke such excitement and pleasure from the audience, let alone satisfaction from the judges. If you don't believe me, talk to any other senior or Mt. Carmel graduate and I guarantee you they can tell you which shows stood out the most based on the success it achieved.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be critical of ourselves, or that we shouldn't hold ourselves to high standards. I'm not saying we should be arrogant about our winnings either. But before you start ranting to your friends about how much we "sucked", especially after we take home 5 3-foot-tall sweepstakes trophies, think again. Sure, we didn't "technically" have competition, but I think we all know which band showed up that night and won it overall.

No performance is flawless. There will always be a few mistakes here and there, and each week, the only thing we can do about them is remember not to repeat them. A year from now, you're not going to remember that one time you forgot your step off at letter I in the third movement. The only things you'll remember are the happy memories you made along the way, and the way you felt after you walked off the field.

If there is anything you take away from reading this, just remember to savor every single moment you're on the field performing. It's funny-I'm finally coming to terms that marching season is halfway over, and everything the graduated seniors have told me is starting to come true. The season is flying by; after this week, we're halfway done with all the tournaments. So why spend the last few weeks we have of the season acting negative and being stuck on insignificant mistakes? Stay focused, work hard, and continue to push through the rehearsals, even when it seems the most difficult.

Enjoy every opportunity you have left to put on your uniform and step out onto the field. Don't let the limited time we have together go to waste. I'm so excited for what the future has in store for us, and I'm already incredibly proud of where we've gotten so far.

Keep staying humble. But let's kill it at Poway.

It's been about a month since school started, but it feels like it's been forever since band started. We've spent hundreds of hours at school rehearsing, and hopefully a significant amount of time at home practicing, and some of you may be starting to question why you signed up for band in the first place.

There is no denying that band rehearsal can seem tedious and repetitive. I think we've all noticed by now that "one more time" is actually code-language for "we'll do this again until we've got it down". The static of the long-ranger and the eerie echo of your section leader telling you to set have been engraved into your brain. Oh, and I don't think anyone at Mt. Carmel can count to 8 as well as we can. Nevertheless, we aren't here just to melt under the heat of the sun and listen to the monotonous sound of Reed's taps during basics on a daily basis. It's much more than that.

For those of you who've gotten to experience that infamous "feeling" after a solid performance, you'll know what I'm about to talk about. But for the freshman and other new kids that aren't quite sure what that is, I'm here to tell you that the "feeling" that everyone seems to bring up is the reason why we're all still here. For some of us, the feeling is knowing that you've nailed a set, played your music beautifully, or the satisfaction of pleasing a crowd. For others, it's the comfort of being surrounded by your closest friends doing something that you love. It's different for everyone, but the whole concept of "the feeling" is mutually agreed upon as the reason why we love band.

With our first tournament in less than a week, I started thinking about how fast these last three years of high school have been for me. It hit me that the Westview tournament on Saturday really is the beginning of the end of something that has been such a significant part of my life. It's so cliché, but band really has been the most influential program I've ever been a part of. The people I've met and the things that I've experienced through band have shaped who I am today.

That being said, there's nothing more I want out of my final year in band than to relive that feeling once again. Not only do I want to experience it, but I want everyone, including the freshmen, to get that same indescribable feeling I got when I stepped onto Poway High's field in Sunrise, Sunset for the first time over 3 years ago. Personally, I believe that this year's show truly has amazing potential. In order to reach it's full potential, we need to agree as a band to work our hardest in order to maximize our chances at being successful. Whether this means practicing a few extra minutes a day to get that run down, or quieting down the talking when Mr. Mac is giving us instructions for the next set, even the smallest things we fix will have a huge impact on the final outcome of our season.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend hundreds of hours practicing and rehearsing only to reach mediocrity. The question is, are you willing to give it all you've got to achieve excellence?

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