Resumes

When your entire life is music, you try not to see farther than the next performance. Since I have essentially less than a year until I have to audition for music school, all these performances count in a BIG way. The longer the resume is, the better your chances are. It makes an impression before any sound is made. If you show up with merely high school band on your resume, it won't really matter if you play the Mozart Concerto (watch the video, turn up the volume, keep watching, and you'll understand). Ever since I realized this, I've taken every opportunity that comes my way. There are days when I nearly go insane between the rehearsals and such, But in the end I think it'll be worth it.

So what have I done? Well my primary instrument (my "day job", if you will) is clarinet. I play that in the Wind Ensemble (top band), and we play some seriously difficult music. Last year, I took basic music theory and learned tenor sax for the jazz band. This year, I opted to double as many more advanced musicians at my school do. Normally, these wind players double on another wind instrument in the Concert Band, but that seemed a little too expected for my tastes. So I now spend every first period in percussion class, banging away. I decided to march mellophone randomly, so now I have a little brass experience. My school drama department did the "Wizard of Oz", and I spent entirely too much time being a "pit winky", or a member of the pit orchestra. I'm a member of the League of Extraordinary Percussionists (the "LEPpers"), and to be honest, I have no clue how I got into that particular ensemble, since my audition was bad paradiddles. The most recent accomplishment was entrance into the Gainseville Youth Symphony Orchestra, another miracle audition. When I'm not playing, I'm organizing the band's endless amounts of music and equipment. In short, if it makes noise or is connected to making noise, I do it.