Januray 23, 2011 Concert at the Aud

The Concert was a success! We began the concert with Watermelon Man. Some of the feedback we received for that song was that some people didn't like the slower version that we were trying out. Overall we played it very well, but now we're going to stop playing it for at least a month because we've had it all year! The next song we played at the concert was Open Your Eyes You Can Fly. I thought it was the best we'd ever played it, and the crowd loved it as well. I soloed for this song on flute and Teegan soloed on Trombone. I think it as nice to find a song where we could put in the flute! The next song we played was Blue Bossa. Having the saxophone play with the piano at the beginning was a good idea because it sounded great together. Lastly we played Leap Frog. We still need to work on dynamics for this piece, but we had a good ending, which is what we've mostly been working on. We we also leave Leap Frog alone for now and find another song. And that was the end of our concert.

January 25th

So we had our winter concert on sunday. Over all it went well. There are things that we need to work on. One thing that we need to work on is dynamics. We need better louds and softs. I had one person form the audience say that the drums were just alittle on the loud side so they couldn't hear the other instruments. Another thing that some of the members need to work on is their confidence on stage. We need to work on solos, making sure that they are solid. And for our next performance is a better organized set list with who is doing solos and order of everything.

It was a suprise to hear how well we play Open Your Eyes. It was in my opinion one of our best performances.

I feel as a solo play I played very well, though Ineeded better dynamics.

I was given some suggestions as for new songs from my family.
- Pink Panther
- Hawaii Five-0 Theme

-Laura

Sunday

Sunday was cool. Perhaps one of the best jazz performances at the Aud Theatre.
We started with watermelon man. This was in my opinion the shakiest. I blame myself. We had slowed this one down (slowed it down RIGHT! right funky.) I like to really dig into this one when we're rehearsing. I lay into the hats and snare, really bite at the cymbals. According to my colleges this was NOT too loud. However, in the different acoustics of the Aud, and in the opinion of our lovely leader I was washing out over the rest of the group. So i had to pull back. I ended up rushing it and not put as much cool fills and stuff in due to lack of comfort.
From there we moved onto newer stuff, Basa and Eyes. Eyes went really well, I manned the keys. It really grooved and I felt like it was possibly our best. This is impressive to note due to the fact that we had just recently started playing it. Blue basa went down okay. Solos were good and the aux suited it without overshadowing it.
We ended with Leap Frog, a standard for us. It went very stellar overall. A little generic dynamically but very solid nonetheless.

keep it funky
The Docter

Concert & Such.

Yeah so as most everyone knows, I wasn't there for the concert Sunday. But in fact I did hear it went extremely well, and I'm supposed to write out about the last rehearsal or something, but I did that on Friday. We decided earlier today that were taking out Leap Frog and Watermelon Man and bringing them in later like, maybe at the end of the year or something like that.
And so I don't really know what to write at this moment, so yeah uhhh.
I've noticed after our performances people always come up to us and normally tell us things they liked or disliked during our performances normally its always good things said.
I hope by the end of the year we progress and get better.
:)
thaanks.
Carissa.

Don Amero Concert

Anyone who hasn't heard of Don Amero is not cool. He's totally sweet.
This was the second annual concert we have done with Don. Although this post is about our performance I must say that he is a phenomenal performer. His songs are very tastefully arranged and presented.
Now, down to business. We pulled out a lot of Christmas repertoire in addition to our older pieces. Auld Lang Syne was a highlight for me. Laura played through the head solo the first time and she really rocked it. It takes guts to be able to do that in front of a big audience like that, especially considering how little time she had to prepare it. Mad props.
We kind of ended up winging how we set up. It worked though. We were pressed back into a corner, practically on top of each other. The bass amp was set up high and partially turned which made things easy to follow for us drummers. I thought we adapted well and pressed forward.
One unfortunate thing about our arrangement was that it was difficult for the drummer to make eye contact with the pianist. Communication was a little difficult but no major falls occurred.
Over all it was a rewarding experience and we received good feedback.

your igloo buddy
DOC

concert

The concert on Sunday went excellent in the the fact that we played through open your eyes with ease and it went quite swell. Are best peace had to be leapfrog even thought that we have been playing it for the WHOLE year. I think that we should ditch it and watermelon man for a while. Then bam we bring them back at the end of the year. It will Be flawless. We should work more on open your eyes even though we just got it. It went fairly well for the most of the part. I learned that i need to work on my soloing a bit. what should we work on next?

Teagan Cole

January 21

Well today, we figured out the set list we were going to do for the show. And so we practiced. We started with Leap Frog and lead onto Blue Bossa, then followed with Watermelon Man, and then we did Open Your Eyes You Can Fly, and then ran Blue Bossa yet again, because Tyson didn't play the first time. *sadface* I think we are going to do swell at our performance Sunday ! *happyface*

January 19, 2011

Today we focused primarily on two songs. A piece we have been working on for awhile now called "Blue Bossa" and a newer piece called "Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly". Blue Bossa went essentially well but we need to work on more dynamics to make it more of an entertaining piece for the listener. Both solo's went well but I personally feel that mine could use much improvement. As for "Open You Eyes" it is going quite well for the first time we've tried running it and it is a fun piece to play. The solo's in "Open Your Eyes" are both quite good.

- Jordan

jan 17

today we went over the peices for the concert this Sunday.we need to work on blue bossa and open your eyes.  Next class we should defiantly go over those two.  leapfrog and watermelon man went exquisitely.




teagan

January 13,2011

Today we warmed up then started class at 11:25 and we've decided that this will be our starting time from now on.  We started class by playing 'Leap Frog'.  We've really improved on our ending and it's sounding really good!!! Next we ran through Watermelon Man, and Blue Bossa.  Lastly  we decided to finally try out 'Open your eyes you can fly'.  We split into two groups and worked on the bass line and the melody.  We now understand how the first part of the song sounds and we'll work on the second part next time.

By Katie Trussler

Jan 11

today in class we pretty much kicked mega butt. allow me to elaborate.
we started off wailing on leap frog. this piece of music didn't know what hit it. it was like "woah man you rocked!" so yeah. it was nuts. we worked a section with the drum solo. i was intense on the solo sections pretty much killin it every time. threw in some duples and other nuts stuff. it was awesome. we also worked on the coda ending because it was a little sloppy. but we made it so crisp it was like someone ironed it. with an iron.
we started to work on blue basa but jononathan had to go conquor egypt or something so i had to fill in. i sucked. in a way i rocked. but in the wrong way. so we gave up.
we then did some watermelon man slo funk remix (done up by me on the drums). it was totally nuts. groovy and whatnot. it may have been a little loud. but then is anything too loud? probably actually. whatevs. we'll fix er up.
we ended off the day trying a new piece called open your eyes or some other crap like that. it was okay. we decided it should be a funk piece. wich i dug of course! its a lesykinator one but he was still off destroying grandma walruses or something. so i filled in. cuz i rule. it was okay. we decided we'd split apart next class (rythemn section and melody peeps) and work it like that.
so yeah. that's how it went down. eat it.
peace
dawkta slo funk