Monday, August 20, 2007

Band Camp Begins

Today was the first day of band camp and a soggy one at that. As everyone in the band knows, the 2.5" of rain that fell in the metro Detroit area seemed to congregate at Hurley Field. Luckily, we were able to use the gymnasium to learn some fundamentals, and only had to spend less than an hour of the afternoon in the rain, which ranged from a light mist to something else entirely.

Band members had a good first day. Rehearsals and sectionals were run pretty well, and everyone was impressed with the effort of the the freshmen. It's no easy task to get thrown into a 100-member group with confident seniors barking responses. Good job, Frosh.

We have some excellent help from the outside as well. Birmingham High School Director of Bands, Tim Cibor, is here for most days of camp. Also assisting are UM School of Music students Annika Voss and Matthew Landry. Last, the drumline will receive instruction from local musician and teacher Adam James. It's hard to stress how advantageous it is to have these sets of eyes and ears with us for the week.

I also escorted 18 awesome upperclassmen/section leaders/drum majors to Echo Grove Camp & Conference Center on Sunday for teambuilding/leadership training. With the exception of some rain--catch the common thread, here?--we had a great time. I was impressed with how well the group worked together. If all goes well, I'll post some pictures from our outing.

Hope for a dry day tomorrow...

Mr. Shaw

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