Mood Ring
General
What Mood? Focused!
Aug 12th
Why hello again, DS Band! 
As many of you know, the theme of the show this year is moods, and further than that, mood rings! Our show mentions three different moods, with music to accent that mood. Playful, lonely, aggravated. So far this year, quite frankly, I think our band has felt both playful and quite aggravated in some of our rehearsals. We’re a very easy going, but focused band in general, but sometimes in rehearsals we get very… focused on the wrong things. Over the last few days, we’ve implemented new procedures to keep us quiet, focused, hardworking, strong, and self-driven. Full band pushups being and after rehearsal runs being my personal favorites. It’s completely obvious to me and any other spectator that when we have our mouths closed, our legs are pumping and our brains sparking, we aren’t just an average marching band anymore. And that’s just how we want it! Every student would agree, we want to be drastically better than last year, and it will take intense amounts of work, dedication, practice, and most importantly FOCUS! I’d personally like to think of focus as the 4th mood of our show! Playful, lonely, aggravated, focused… Haha, it as a nice ring to it, don’t you think? But I’d have a terribly tough time writing music for it…. Anyhow, I’ve seen almost all of those emotions in our toughest rehearsals. Playful energy, (forget lonely, you’re in band! Most of us try to help ya not be lonely), aggravated at yourself for a mistake, and focused enough to accomplish anything and EVERYTHING! Let’s take it up a level, band! For anyone that may understand the inside joke there, y’all feel free to make any appropriate noise to accompany the phrase! Well, till next time, take it a level up! Byyee!
Collisions of the “Seasons”
Aug 12th
well, it’s been WAY too long since marching season, but even so, we’re still making huge advances. Contest is tomorrow (whoop, whoop), and the founder’s day parade is in 4 day future! Ah, excitement!! Founder’s has always been a fun time for me… our family and neighbors own a BBQ booth, so that’ll ALWAYS be entertaining! i’m so excited to actually be part of the parade i’ve been watching for my 15 years of life, AND its a great transition between “the seasons”. yes, after the competition this week, i guess we’re technically out of “contest season”, but we’ll have some other performances, but the best of all…. the wait will finally be over!! we’ll know the theme of next year’s marching show!! (we know it starts with a PR, if i remember correctly) it’s almost sad how much i miss football season! sure hope i’m not the only one going through withdrawls! what prompted all this self pity was a highlight tape from my football player cousin. he’d sent out tapes of his best plays to colleges in hopes of being noticed by college scouts (and if anyone needs a 6’5″, dedicated, hardworking wide receiver, please feel free to ask) as we were watching the highlights, you see the boys playing their hearts out on the field, you hear the obsessed parents with their insane little noise makers (or in the Dripping Springs case, a gas can filled with deer corn… don’t laugh, it’s real and it works, so good enough), the cheerleaders yelling “tee hee, EXPLODE! tee hee INGNITE! tee hee” (sorry to good to pass up, no hard feelings cheerleaders), and my favorite, the unending melodies of the headbanging stands tunes (crazy train comes to mind here!) sigh! as the year is coming to a close (maybe i’m speaking too soon! still have 2 months left!), we see the seasons colllide! the ending of concert season, and for that matter, school season, and the approach of a long hot summer of marching/football season. but isn’t that what everyone lives for anyway?! our whole town thrives off the energy of football season, no matter what the score or season total is, and i really cant wait for that again! i guess just marching in the founder’s day parade may bring just a little of that back haha, well until the next time, see ya! have fun yall!!
Spreadin’ the Love
Jan 11th
As some of you may know, my family has a long history with the University of Texas… loyal fans, multiple Texas-Exes, Saturday tailgaters for about 12 hour, ect. On Friday night, I was pleased to go to the UT Football Banquet. My whole family was very excited to meet some of the players, but I was even more interested to see some of the band people behind the giant orange marching suits. walking away from getting a signature from Sergio Kindle (how awesome?!) I ran into two UT band members. I congratuated them on a great year, and looked forward in seeing them in years to come… They were very appreciative and were about to walk away when I consciously, nonchalantly added that I was from the Dripping Springs Band.They immediately launched into a volley of praise! How impressive we were and how awesome it was that we put so much time and effort into our successful season. I got that response throughout the night! It meant alot to me that these people would take the time to talk to me and knew from first hand how great band truly is… and they happened to mention they know people in our band as well! It was really fun to see that our acheivements have been spread farther than JUST the high-school world, and to see that people really do pay attention to a tiny little town in Texas Oh, and I even got a souvenier clarinet reed! (Great, I’m a FLUTE player!! What could I POSSIBLY do with an unwrapped clarinet reed?! Well, I appreciate it anyway) Since that wonderful night, seemingly so long ago, I’ve really had some fun with the recognition Dripping Springs has! I’ve been wearing my show shirt around, and I hear people behind me murmer in recognition of our show! That just thrills me to death! Even if they’ve never seen us in person, they’ve heard of us on the news (thank you KVUE for the film in class!) and they’ve seen viedos on Youtube, and they’ve heard by word of mouth. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! I actually got the UIL video of state, and watching all the performances again not only made my day, it made my entire week! Heck, it made my month!! 
Well, I can’t wait to start the new chapter of band! We have some really interesting pieces that I think will do really well!! Well, till next time, BYYYEEE!!!
Dragging Along
Sep 4th
Yes, it’s the only the second week of school, yes , I’m only a freshman, and no, I’m NOT sleep deprived…. but REALLY?!?! I’m not honestly sure what it was about Tuesday, but ohh…. it was not pretty!!! I was my normal (well… as normal as I can be anyway!) self for hour-and-a-half marching practice, up to 6th perios in our 7-period day. Then… <shudder> GEOMETRY!!! <bum bum buuuuuummmmm!> It’s that I don’t like the teacher (really, no offense Coach Jenkins!!!) but really, it’s the LAST period of the day, my least favorite subject, AND I’m one out of only two freshman… yes, not fun. Anyhow, that paled to mere insignificance to the fact that I became one of the undead during 7th period. I was so tired, that when I was questioned as to what “11″ was in Spanish, I answered “Well… um… idontknowimtootiredtocaresoletmesleepokbye.” I slept for at least half my geometry class and almost the whole 45 minute bus ride to my house… and from there, sleeping only long enough to shovel food into my mouth and drag myself back to the couch. And yes, since then, I have become one of the living, but apparantly, this is just AVERAGE compared to other horror stories of band sleep deprivation.
So How’s Band Going for You?
Aug 30th
My most frequently asked question. Actually, I take that back, my second most frequently asked question, second only to “Michelle, what time is it?”
The first week of school is always interesting. Band rehearsals get cut down from 3 hours to 1 hour and 20 minutes in the morning, and this year, we’re staying inside during first period instead of going back outside and marching in the heat. That way, we can have a designated amount of time each day to work on music. Plus it gives us girls about 30 extra minutes to change. How can you not love that? Last week we cleaned the opener and the ballad (which, I’m proud to say, we have completely learned) for the first football game on Friday! We are now getting ready to start learning the closer, which I think already has 18 sets of drill.
Speaking of our very first football game… let me tell you how that went last Friday. We get ready to go on the field for the half-time performance and after a little confusion we manage to get to the opening set. Megan starts us off and we’re doing great until we get to chart 12. That’s when I (and I’m sure most of the band) realized that the left side of the band was going at one tempo and the right side was… well, not with the left side. Fortunately we managed to pull it together in the next couple of sets and finish marching the show, but I have to say, it was not one of our best performances. The good thing is that that was our first football game and we still have an entire season to fix the problem spots in the show. Hopefully, with some hard work, everything will start to improve
So I was reading Allie’s post before me and I thought it would be appropriate to introduce my flutes as well. My marching flute is Beth (get it? Mick and Beth… any Moonlight fans?) and my concert flute is named Coraline (pronounced Coralene, also from Moonlight). Allie and I also have names for our cars and phones and iPods and just about anything else that you can stick a name to, but I won’t get into that.
Hope everyone’s doing well and I’ll see you guys later!
DIY- How To Find A Band Nerd
Aug 16th
As the incredibly obvious title shows, it’s not really hard to spot a band nerd in a crowd… (and yes, we carry that name with pride!!! ) We’re a pretty easy species to locate on a highschool safari, but if you need any help spotting the wild creatures, here’s some helpfl tips from one of them!
1. The tan lines… Check the feet, eyes, shoulders and thighs. If there’s a sock tan, sunglass tan, farmers/ tanktop tan, and short-shorts tan, guess what! YOU FOUND A BANDIE!!! Those long hours in the relentless Texas sun does us some good!
2. By the end of the season, you’ll see that trying to get a band nerd to step off on their right foot is like asking them to stick their foot in their ear… It never works!
3. As much as we hate to admit it now, even THIS freshman can tell that most bandies don’t ever JUST walk… they march! SQUEEZE SWING STEP! TOES UP! HEELS DOWN! SHOULDERS STRAIGHT! CHIN UP!
4. Morning person or not, we get used to the crazy, indesent hours of practice! Band nerds get over that zombie stage of the morning duldroms and learn to deal with it!
5. Students, if you see that students come back from over the summer with one of the symptoms, you’ve caught a glimpse of a band nerd; the loudest, most hyper person you know somehow got louder… The shy kid slouched in the corner can suddenly run longer and harder than you with breath to spare… If you find someone dozing off in class and you suddenly yell “BAND TEN HUT”,even in their sleep they’ll yell“HEY!” at the top of their lungs..
6. Parents, lets say you come home to see your child in a brace, a sling, a cast and about 20 band-aids. You just happen to mention that marching practice is in 15 minutes… If your child is mysteriously healed just for that 3 hours, you not only have a bandie, you have a bandaholic!
To some people, we’re the outcasts, the nerds, the geeks, or the people that have nothing better to do with their spare time (Hahahahahaha! What spare time?!) But to the ones that are closest to us, we’re the commited, hardworking, talented kids that just happen to mention in every other sentence that “It’s just a BAND THING!”