Today's The Day!

Today is the day! We finally have our entire show on the field! After a busy week for the show band and excellent rehearsals these past two days we are very excited to have this finished.

Today's rehearsal was from 9-1. It went very well despite the fact that we were missing quite a few staff members. We started in basics lead by our head drum major. We then transitioned into music rehearsal and then finally worked to put the closer music onto the field. We ended with a full run of our show, music and marching. The end of the run felt like such an accomplishment. So excited for our first show a week from tomorrow!

The football game was a lot of fun. The pep band choreography was awesome. We performed well and it was a very exciting game. Although we ended up losing, our team played very well and came back to almost win it. The final score was 20-21.

This week in review:
-Music testing
-Tuesday Practice
-Homecoming Parade
-Pep Assembly
-Thursday Practice
-Friday Practice
-Football Game
-Spiro's Homecoming Party

At the annual post-homecoming game Spiro's night.

 

Homecoming Parade

Today was the annual Kamiak Homecoming Parade! The parade is very short, and usually lasts around twenty minutes, travelling throughout the neighborhoods across from the school. Band kids love this parade because it is a chance for us to go all out in purple spirit gear. I think this year we had more spirit gear than ever. KAMIAK PRIDE! For more photos see the Gallery page.

Photo by Cynthia Davis.

Goddard Day

Yesterday was a long day for the Kamiak Show Band, but it was well worth our time.

After a late night at the football game we were back at Frank Goddard Memorial Stadium for 9:00AM rehearsal. Jack led us in stretches and then we did basic exercises with the visual staff. It was good to have Calvin Fackrell, one of our visual staff members, back for the day (he is currently studying to be a music teacher and cannot be at our regular rehearsals). The basics exercises are designed to engage our core muscles needed for marching.

Following this, we jumped right into drill with Nick Benson. We learned a lot of new choreography for the Tango, which we are very excited about! It still needs practice, but we were able to perform it at the end of the day.

We split off into music rehearsal in sectionals and subsectionals to work on the music for the Closer. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement, by the end of sectionals the music was sounding much better and we were able to put it together after lunch.

Lunch was absolutely delicious. We had burgers provided by our lovely parent volunteers, and desserts, drinks, and fruit provided by the students. Thanks to all of the parents who helped to feed all of the hungry teenagers!

After lunch we finished reviewing the drill. We worked on reviewing both the Intro and the Ravel, and combining all of the drill we have learned so far. It was hard work, but by 5:00PM we were very excited for our performance.

We changed into our uniforms for our the first reveal of our show. It was so cool to look up into the stands and see so many parents, friends, and alumni there to support us. We began with sectional performances by the colorguard, the percussion, and then the winds. All of the staff members were introduced to the parents. Then we performed a musical standstill, which was followed by all of the drill and music we know so far. At the very end we invited Kamiak Show Band Alumni down to perform the fight song with us. It was such a cool experience to see their continued support for the band.

The competitive season is so close, and we are excited to perform around the northwest. Soon we will have the closer drill on the field and in two weeks we have our first competition in Hillsboro, OR at the Sunset Classic!


Photo courtesy of Justin Gaceta

More Goddard pictures coming to the Gallery soon!

A Successful Night!

What a great night for Kamiak High School! The football team won 35-14 against the Lynnwood Royals AND the show band had a great run-through at half time!

Time in class today was spent reviewing our pep music and working through more closer music...it's really starting to come together!

Then, this evening at the football game the band played in the stands and took the field at halftime. I heard from a lot of students that it was their best run-through so far, and that they can't wait to see the video on Monday and observe how the band did as a whole! We are fulfilling our goal of constant improvement. Whew!

We had the student section on their feet and cheering for us. What an accomplishment that is!

The woodwinds were told tonight during warm-ups that some of the sounds we produced were the best that our staff had heard all season. And, the brass was sounding particularly good, both in warm-up arcs and on the field!

Hope everyone is excited about the show reveal tomorrow! 5 pm at Goddard Stadium.

Hope to see you there!
Emma

Thanks to Stuart Pitts for providing great pictures of the Kamiak Brass Line

David Reeves Paid Us A Visit!

This evening's rehearsal went very well. Our music arranger, David Reeves came to practice to give us feedback. It was nice to have musical input from the arranger himself!
At the beginning of the evening we practiced the Tango choreography. It is starting to look a lot better, and by the end of the season we will make professional dancers jealous of our sweet tango skills.
We split around 6:15 into sectionals to warm-up and run through parts of the music. The brass split into subsectionals at 6:30 to work on music for the closer, which will be added on Saturday. Saxaphones are improving on their Tango section and working on the Closer as well. The rest of the woodwinds, clarinets and flute, were also able to work through alot of the Closer.
The last part of rehearsal was done in shakos and marching shoes so that we could get a better idea of what our show is like during a performance. We also took the majority of the Ravel off of the metronome and are ready to perform again at tomorrow night's football game.
At the very end of rehearsal we played a song for the dance team. Traditionally we play a song for one of their football game routines each year. It was fun to rehearse with them briefly!

Good Rehearsal

We spent most of the evening in sectionals. Lowheads and saxaphones were separate from the other winds.

The saxophones and lowheads worked very hard to perfect their music, and it has definitely improved. They were even standing on chairs and playing by the end of the night.

Nick Benson, along with some of our other staff members, taught everyone to Tango! The choreography is coming along nicely, and once we have managed to perfect it (we are in marching band for a reason, not dance), the middle portion of our show will leave a huge impact.

By the end of the evening we were able to put all of the parts of the Tango section together and see how the new choreography looked with the rest of the ensemble. It was definitely a challenging day, and the staff asked us to do things we have never done before, but it was well worth it. We are very excited to see how this section will fit into the rest of the show at Thursday's rehearsal!





Kamiak learns to tango.
Photo by brass instructor, Stuart Pitts.

First Full Fall Week Wrap-Up

This past week has been an incredible journey for the band. With a parade last Saturday followed by our Battle of the Bands fundraiser we had to jump right into this week. Here's an overview:

Monday: Practiced our show music at school.

Tuesday: Practiced the new music at rehearsal. We started to put the drill from the Tango onto the field.

Wednesday: At school we practiced our show music. We focused mainly on the first half of our music.

Thursday: We learned pep band choreography in class and worked on pep band music. We also reviewed football game etiquette and prepared for the first game. At rehearsal we learned more Tango drill and practiced our football game performance.

Friday: At the pep assembly we performed a portion of our show for the student body at a standstill. That night we performed at our first football game! It was definitely a different experience performing for an audience of that size, but it was a lot if fun!

Saturday: We had a successful rehearsal today. We now have 2/3 of our show on the field!

The entire band warms up before our entrance to the stadium.

The colorguard (in their new uniforms) awaiting our first public performance!

First football game

 

Drill Day

Most of today was spent learning and reviewing drill for the Tango. The drill is challenging at times, but every rep looks better. After all of our hard work has gone into the drill it will be incredibly rewarding to perform. We have not yet put music to this drill, however it is coming along nicely and we are extremely excited to see this drill progress over the next week.

The last fifteen minutes of this evening's rehearsal was spent in preparation for tomorrow's football game. We learned how to walk onto the football field for our halftime performance and we are very excited to perform publicly for the first time. In addition to our halftime show, we will be playing pep music throughout the first, second, and fourth quarters. The night ended with a partial run of our show and speeches from our staff members and drum majors.

Tango Tuesday

We returned today from a weekend full of Lighthouse Festival activities to our regular rehearsals. As always, we started off with basics which were led by one of our visual technicians, Ila. We rehearsed music in sectionals after basics until 7:30.
At seven thirty we put the drill from our new music on the field for the first time. The new drill calls for us to tango. We are so excited to see where this drill will take us over the next week!

The trumpets during brass warm-ups and sectional.

The entire brass line at music rehearsal led by our wonderful brass technicians.

Be sure to check out the Show Band Gallery by clicking the link at the top of the page or by visiting www.khsshowbandgallery.blogspot.com

 

Lighthouse Festival Parade

We marched our first parade of the year today. As one of the last groups in the parade, the crowd was excited when they heard us play "You Can Call Me Al" when we marched down Harbour Pointe Boulevard. It was fun to put on our uniforms for the first time, but it was hot and by the end of the parade we were relieved to be able to take them off.

 

Tonight is one of the Show Band's biggest fundraisers, The Battle of the Bands at Rosehill Community Center. The doors open at 6:30PM. Many Kamiak students will be performing including quite a few students from the show band. Tickets are $10 at the door, hope to see you there!

First Thursday Practice

It is great to get back into the rhythm of school and the normal rehearsal schedule. Tonight's rehearsal was the first of many great weekday rehearsals. We started to pull drill off the metronome, and practiced our new music. Looking forward to an awesome season!