Show Band Awards Night & Season Wrap-Up

Wednesday was the annual Show Band Awards Night in the Kamiak Commons. At the beginning of the evening, we watched a slideshow featuring pictures from throughout the season that was put together by Alex Brinkley. Then each student was called up and received a Participation Award from Mr. Bathurst, and the drum majors were thanked. The Student Leadership Committe was also called up to be recognized.

Our head chaperone and the band liaison both took time to recognize our wonderful parents, boosters, and volunteers. The staff thanked the parents for trusting the staff with their children, and for allowing us to have such a successful season.

Colorguard Awards were given next, by guard director Jon Brown. This was followed by the percussion staff and percussion awards. The visual staff, brass staff, and woodwind staff also gave out awards.

Many awards were given out to the colorguard, percussion, and winds, including Most Improved, Best Marcher, MVP, Most Inspirational, Most Outstanding Section (shout out to the Lowheads!), and awards for Most Outstanding in Class.

Mr. Bathurst called all of the staff members up to be recognized and gave them giftcards. The students also had a surprise for the staff. They wrote little thank you notes to the staff to show appreciation for their dedication to the show band this year. Each staff member was presented with a ring of thank you notes.

It was great to get together as a band for the last time. It was fun to eat cake, see the staff dressed up, and recognize each member of the band. We ended the night by watching our finals performance from Championships. Some of the sections gathered together with their staff afterwards to thank them one last time.

SEASON RECAP & HIGHLIGHTS:

• Band Camp was August 13-17, 2012. A very successful camp, a great time, skit night was awesome, the dance was incredibly fun!
• This season we had the hardest-working show band ever to pass through the halls of Kamiak High School
• September 14, 2012 - First pep assembly day and first football game!
• September 22, 2012 - Goddard Day & Alumni Reunion! We were very excited to reveal our show to the parents and the community.
• September 26, 2012 - The Homecoming Parade!
• Our first competition was the Sunset Classic in Hillsboro, Oregon on October 6, 2012. We placed fourth in finals with a score of 77.05
• On October 13, 2012 Kamiak took the Sweepstakes award at Tumwater High School with a finals score of 87.4, also taking the awards for Best General Effect, Music, Marching, Colorguard, and Percussion
• Our third show was the Puget Sound Festival of Bands in Everett on October 27, 2012. Kamiak took second overall with a score of 87.08 along with the awards for People's Choice, High Colorguard, and High Percussion.
• Championships weekend was November 2-4, 2012. Kamiak took fifth place in Championships, competing against the best bands in the northwest and received a score of 87.45! This is the highest Kamiak has ever placed at the NWAPA Marching Band Championships.
• November 7, 2012 Kamiak Show Band Awards Night
• For photos and videos from the season check out the Photo Gallery

DATES TO REMEMBER:
November 13 - Winter Percussion Open House
November 14- Jazz Night
November 15 - KPAB Booster Meeting
November 20 - Winter Percussion Open House
November 27-29 - Winter Percussion Auditions
December 6 - Band Concert
December 16 - Messiah Concert

Last Thursday Rehearsal & Senior Ceremony

Practice began at 5:30PM as usual. We were lucky enough to have the turf field, which isn't soggy, and the weather held up too.
We worked through basics, and you could feel the excitement in the air. After basics we headed to music warm-ups, brass and woodwinds separate. During woodwind warm-ups, they did a round where just the seniors played, since it was their last rehearsal ever. The brass were reminded that this was the last time this group would ever rehearse together at Kamiak.

Everyone joined again to work on choreography with some of our visual staff. We then set to work on the Closer and the end of the show, working hard to perfect it. Half of rehearsal was spent on this portion of our show, because up to this point it was the weakest. After spending so much time running it this evening, and having Nick Benson on the field, we feel a lot more comfortable with the section and are excited to perform it this weekend.

We also worked on the Ravel (the middle of the show). Our show improved a lot musically today, and our dynamics are better than ever.

At 8:20PM we did our last full-run at Kamiak.


SENIOR CEREMONY
At around 8:30PM the seniors left the field and went into the stands to watch the rest of the band perform the Closer without them. The seniors made sure to cheer very loudly.
After the brief performance the students met on the track, seniors on one side, everyone else on the other. Mr. Bathurst began this part of the ceremony with a speech, thanking the seniors for all of their hard work and leadership over this season and over the past four years. Stuart Pitts, a brass/visual technician also gave a short speech. He had been the head drum major when the seniors were freshman. He talked about how much they had done for this program, how proud he was of the show band,and how far the band has come. He thanked the seniors and said that he was honored to have had the opportunity to work with this band.
There were tears on both sides of the form as everyone met in the middle to hug the seniors. More hugs were given at this senior ceremony than any other in the past. The band truly has become a family this year.

Following the senior ceremony, most people broke off into subsections. It was a fantastic night, and one that will be hard to forget. We are very excited to head down to Championships tomorrow and give it our all.



These three seniors wore the show shirts from their freshman year, "On the Edge"

More photos hopefully coming soon!

Puget Sound Festival of Bands (Everett Show) Recap

A video of our Prelims performance yesterday at the Everett Show.

Video and photos courtesy of Cynthia Davis

Traditionally, the Puget Sound Festival of Bands is a favorite among students. Because we do not host our own show and this one is so close to home, we think of the Everett Show as our "home show." Many former band students come out to watch us perform each year. From 1994-1997 the PSFOB was actually held at Goddard Memorial Stadium, which goes to show how meaningful this perfomance is for Kamiak students (for a history of PSFOB click here).

At 9:00AM we showed up at Kamiak for a morning rehearsal on the turf field. It was raining pretty hard, and we were a little worried about how the weather would be for our performances. We ended practice an hour early, at eleven, so that we would have time to dry off before leaving for Everett.

At 1:30PM the buses departed for Everett Memorial Stadium, and by 2:30PM Kamiak was in uniform and ready for warm-ups.

Our prelims performance was scheduled for 3:54PM, and we walked off of the field knowing that it had been our best perfomance in uniform. After our performance we took a group picture. Prelims scores were announced with Kamiak taking second place both overall and in the Open Class, receiving a score of 85.05. We also received the awards for High Percussion and High Color Guard.

Dinner break was until 7:15. Our finals performance was at 8:24PM. Warm-ups went really well and there was a lot of excitement among band members. We felt good about our performance.

After finals we returned to camp briefly to put away our instruments and then headed out to full retreat. We received medals for second place which were given to us by members of Cascade's band.

Sweepstakes- Central Valley 89.35
2nd Place- Kamiak 87.08
3rd Place- Sunset 86.08
Kamiak also took the People's Choice award and the awards for High Colorguard and High Percussion.






Thank you to everyone who came out to the competition!

Competition Tomorrow

Our second competition is tomorrow. Although rehearsal yesterday was a little rough, we are very excited to go to Tumwater and show off our new choreography.

We have a rehearsal at Kamiak at 8:00AM.Our Prelims performance time is 2:15PM hope to see you all there! We estimate that our finals performance time will be around 8:30PM and will be followed by the awards ceremony. Last year we received first place in our division and second overall.

This show is much closer to home than our Oregon shows, thanks to everyone who is coming to support us!

IT'S A SHOW DAY!

We will do our best to make updates to this post throughout the day. Thanks for supporting us!

5:40AM We arrive at Kamiak to load the buses. Lots of excitement in the air!

6:13AM Buses depart Kamiak for Hillsboro.

9:30AM Bathroom break at a rest stop about ten miles from Vancouver.

10:26AM Arrive at Hillsboro Stadium. Pumped to unload and get ready for our first prelims performance.

1:30PM We have finished our first show and are sitting in the stands getting ready to watch a few bands. Our prelims performance was decent, and we are ready to come back tonight and give it our best.

3:08PM Kamiak places third in the Open Class prelims performance with a score of 74.4. We perform eighth for finals. Our gate time for finals is 7:00.

7:47PM We walked off of the field feeling really good about our show. We are headed to the awards ceremony now.

8:39PM Kamiak takes fourth place with a score if 77.05

9:15PM After a short pow-wow, Show Band departs for home!!

1:30AM We arrive at Kamiak after a long day.

Four of the senior girls show off their footie pajamas at the rest stop on the way to the competition.

 

Big Day Tomorrow

We have the whole show off of the metronome. Today's half-day rehearsal was very exciting and we took some big steps towards a successful season. Our show chairs arrived as well. The colorguard and some of the winds were able to rehearse with them after our lovely parents put them together. Although the rehearsal was long, we were able to maintain focus and end with a successful run.

Tomorrow is our first show! We are very excited to perform our completed show for an audience for the first time. At five thirty in the morning we will arrive at Kamiak, board the buses, and leave for Oregon by six.

Our prelims gate time is 12:40PM at Hillsboro Stadium. Thanks for all of the continuing support!

Goodbye Metronome

This evening we said goodbye to Dr. Beat for two thirds of our show! We are very proud to say that our entire closer is met-free. At tomorrow's rehearsal we will pull the metronome off of the Tango and our show will be complete.

At 5:30 we jumped straight into music sectional warm-ups. We then worked our way backwards through the closer, until we we relied entirely on the hands of our drum majors. Tonight's rehearsal was one of the best rehearsals in a while. The full run at 8:30 was very exciting, and tomorrow's full run will be even better.

First October Rehearsal

This week is another crazy one! With our first show this coming weekend in Hillsboro, OR we still have a lot to work on before Deux is performance ready. There are three rehearsals this week in addition to music testing for the Tango.

Immediately following basics block we jumped into music rehearsal. We tried something new, warming up in a cricle. It helps us to hear the parts around us so that we can play more in tune and with better dynamics. We pulled the final part of the Ravel (one of our middle pieces) off the metronome. The winds started on the baseball field to make some minor adjustments and at around 8:00PM joined the percussion on the football field. Our final run through was pretty successful and we are excited to take the Closer off of the metronome on Thursday.

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.

 

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

 

Band Camp is Over!

What a great 3 weeks it has been! The band has accomplished so much and come so far since that first day of Pre-Camp!

Today we were able to debut drill, music and choreography to parents that is the first few minutes of our show. And of course there was the annual moment of extreme confusion when the parents came onto the field to learn a little bit of drill. My personal favorites were a father holding a piccolo, two parents taking the back podium and combining forces to conduct, and a mom learning the play the bells in the pit! The chaos was wonderful and much deserved!

The rest of the day was spent in morning/afternoon blocks. Morning block was spent marching for the winds and battery, and warm-up for the pit (which I was able to sit in on, they were able to master all 12 major scales today, nice job!). Afternoon block was a re-warm for percussion and warm up for the winds, including a nice visit from our friends on the football and volleyball teams. Everyone then moved into full ensemble and we chunked through the show and were able to do a couple runs before most of the parents showed up! Then, we blew our parents away with our progress and got our show shirts (wheewww)!

Everyone has worked so hard for the last 15 days! We've survived heat, rain, and clouds, everything but snow (we live in Mukilteo, so don't hold you're breath though)! Rehearsal has been crazy productive and Nick continues to remind us that if we keep rehearsing the way we have been we are going to be unstoppable! This is so true! I know that every single member of the show band will be able to look back at the end of the season and be proud of what we have accomplished and how far we will have come.

For now rest your bodies and enjoy the next couple days off!!!
See you on Tuesday, I'll be ready, hope you are!

Emma

 

Parents learning how to march...something all the students love. We get to become the teachers!

The Last Full Day of Band Camp (Wednesday)

We started off in the PAC with plans to watch a drum corps video (Cadets, 2011). Due to technical difficulties we ended up on the field a little earlier than anticipated. Hopefully we can watch the video at another rehearsal!

 

As usual, we spent the morning in visual rehearsal with Calvin and the rest of our field staff. After basics, we were able to put the music to all of the drill we have learned so far.

After dinner we met for quick sectionals, and came together at around 7:15 for full ensemble rehearsal. Before full ensemble began, we sat down with our instructors and listened to a recording the new music we will be playing. It was a very exciting time and we made a lot of progress tonight.

 

We ended the evening with two full-runs of all of the music and drill that we have learned so far (about half of our show). There were a few parents and several students from last year who came out to watch us. Afterward, Nick Benson told us during wrap-up that we are on of the best rehearsing groups around and that if we continue to rehearse and progress like we are now, nobody will be able to stop us from reaching the top. Most sections broke off after wrap-up to talk about the evening and the season ahead. Everyone left the field on fire tonight with a common goal in mind.

 

Many of the seniors went out for Dairy Queen after rehearsal to celebrate the last full day band camp rehearsal ever.

The trumpet section gathered around Calvin, our field tech, to celebrate a great rehearsal.

End of Week Deux

What a week! We accomplished so much, the most I have ever seen accomplished in one week in my four years!

We were able to memorize all of the music we have up to this point, put drill to almost all of it and meet all of the goals for the week. Friday's goal was "Push to the End" and that we did (the football pep performance was great everyone)!

Last night right before rehearsal ended we did two full runs of the La Vie en Rose (Intro) and the Intro the the Ravel on the field, and the staff were very pleased with the way that it looked and sounded!

Overall, we had a great week of rehearsals, got so much done and made some great memories. Calvin singing during morning block, anyone?

Hope everyone has a very restful weekend and comes back ready to work hard for 4 (deux squared) more days on Monday!

Emma

P.S. Nick posted next weeks schedule, check it out please!

https://sites.google.com/site/khsshowband/updates/week3schedule

Get Excited!!!

Hey all!!!
Only 3 weeks and 1 day until the first day of Spring Camp!
Hope everyone is ready for an awesome season to start, especially with the release of our show theme, DeuX!

Can't wait to see you all soon!
Emma