Winter Percussion

Though for most kids the busy season is over, our award-winning winter percussion has been hard at work. This year's show is entitled "Free." This past week alone, these dedicated students worked on Friday and Saturday.

While they were at practice on Friday, the rest of the band kids were playing in the pep band cheering on the boys basketball game. The Winter Percussion rehearsed from 2:00PM-9:00PM.

On Saturday they spent ten hours rehearsing in order to hold up their reputation as one of the best Winter Percussion groups around.

Championships Recap

Bus One leaving Mukilteo on Friday (photo by Cynthia Davis)

On Friday after school we loaded the buses and trailers for our trip down to Hillsboro. By 3:30PM we had left the school and were on our way to Oregon. We hit traffic, so we were a bit late to stop for dinner at Exit 108. Our original itinterary had us stopping for dinner at five, but because of the traffic our dinner break was from 6:15-7.

It had been raining pretty hard, and after the staff checked out the field at Tenino High School where we were supposed to rehearse, we decided to skip it and push through to Hillsboro. We had a quick bathroom break about an hour after dinner and arrived at Glencoe High School in Hillsboro at around 11PM.
After unloading the buses we had a quick meeting with Mr. Bathurst to discuss our plans for the evening. Lights out was at 11:45PM.



Back of the line for breakfast!

Wake-up call was at 7:30AM, followed by breakfast at 8:30. By 9:30 we were headed to Hillsboro Stadium for an early warm-up block since we had missed our rehearsal the night before.

Our morning rehearsal/warm-up block at Hillsboro Stadium (photo by Stuart Pitts)

After our morning visual and music warm-up block we headed to lunch. At 1:15PM we were back at camp, changing into uniform for our Prelims warm-up. At 2:00 we walked to our warm-up area. Our Prelims performance was at 3:45.

Headed to our prelims performance (photo courtesy of Stuart Pitts)

We did not feel great about our prelims show. The whole show had just felt a bit off. After going to the awards ceremony, we received fifth place with a score of 86. Only .5 away from Evergreen High School! We had never placed this high before and were very excited to perform in finals.

Dinner was cooked by our lovely parent volunteers. We ate burgers, salad, veggies, and pudding. A few alumni even stopped by the camp to say hello.

As we prepared for our finals performance there was a lot of excitement in the air. We were ready to give it our all. We headed to our last warm-up as the 2012 Kamiak Show Band.

Nick says a few words before we head to our finals performance (photo by Stuart Pitts)

We walked off of the field after finals feeling great about our performance. It had definitely been the best run of the season. We circled up to listen to a words from Stuart Pitts, Nick Benson, and Mr. Bathurst. All of them were very excited and very proud of what we had accomplished this year. A lot of tears were shed. After this we broke off quickly into sections and subsections, thanking the staff and each other for everything put into this program.

We changed out of uniform and headed off to the awards ceremony. We were happy to learn that our score had jumped to 87.45 and we had finished fifth, higher than the show band had ever placed!

These seniors got Nick Benson a birthday cake, since his birthday was the day after Championships.

At around 11:20PM we left Hillsboro Stadium and headed home. We stopped twice for bathroom breaks. One in Toutle Creek. We arrived safely at Kamiak at around 3:00AM (because of daylight savings time).

Thanks to everyone who supported us this year. Every staff member, chaperone, roadie, volunteer, and fan means the world to us. We could not do it without you!

Check the Gallery for more photos from the weekend.

Friday!

Tonight we hit the field on a Friday for the fist time in a long time.

Nick Benson met early with quite a few of our members to work on choreography. It was definitely much improved and should look great tomorrow!

Most of rehearsal was spent reviewing and perfecting the Closer. This was followed by a quick music warm-up. Calvin, one of our favorite staff members, came in from college and showed up at our rehearsal tonight. We are thrilled to have him back for the weekend. After music warm-up we moved onto the turf to finish off the last half hour of rehearsal.

Tonight's rehearsal was definitely not our best, and it was frustrating for everyone. Nick gave us a talk before our run-through and we are ready to show up tomorrow morning and have the best rehearsal and performance yet.

We are very excited to be hosting Central Valley High School for the competition this weekend. CV took first place at the NWAPA Championships last year. Each of the Kamiak sections put together treats for the corresponding CV sections as a way of welcoming them to our school. We also invited them out to watch our run-through at the end of the evening, and allowed them to use our field for their senior ceremony. We are excited to cheer them on tomorrow and to watch one of the best bands in the northwest perform!

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!

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