J.C.'s Review
Taking it to the Field –
April 24-25, 2010
As is often the case in April, the local weather was not conducive to outdoor rehearsing, unless of course you are amphibious. April showers forced us to go with “Plan B” which was to invade the great indoors in order to stay warm and dry for our first drill camp. The plan worked out well, allowing us to put about 40 percent of our show, “A Night at the Opera”, on the field.
We assembled the troops on Saturday Morning at Gilmore Middle School for breakfast and stretch. “Plan A” was to rehearse outside in sunny mid 60s temperatures, with a 5 MPH breeze coming out of the West. But alas, it was 40-something degrees, windy, and raining sideways out of the North. So breakfast and stretch were in the Gilmore cafeteria and gym respectively. As always, stretch culminated in our customary “shaky shake” wrist warm-ups led by the Baritone Village. Suffice it to say that the baris need a little help when it comes to leading “shaky shakes”. I thought their effort lacked the needed intensity necessary to really get the wrists loose.
After stretch, the battery and the guard headed to Park High School field house to begin learning drill. The pit set up in the Gilmore atrium where they spent the rest of the day rehearsing. The brass line warmed up in the Gilmore cafeteria before heading to the Park field house at 11:30 or so.
We didn’t start learning the drill from “set 1”. Instead, we bypassed the planned semi-free-form opening visual extravaganza and began learning drill at set 2. More on the opening visual concept later. We motored through 10 sets before lunch, which took us to the end of our opening statement of “Flight of the Valkyries”. This segment culminates in an in your face power block formation on the 50 that should wake a few people up :-)
I would be remiss if I didn’t give Assistant Kiltie Corps Director Jeff “Fish” Troudt a shout out for his fine chili! It kept us well fuelled the rest of the day, and I can only hope that it is part of the menu again in the future.
After lunch we learned drill for about 2/3 of “William Tell Overture”, getting us through the percussion feature. This drill features mostly straight line, block and geometric formations that morph and wheel to the music. I found the drill to be challenging but not so challenging that it will affect our ability to pull it off. At 152 beats per minute, double tonguing “William Tell” on the move made me appreciate the fact that at least my drill step size maxed out at a little over 8-to-5 while I was playing, still, not exactly for the faint of heart. Like I said, it will be challenging and impressive, but we’re up to the challenge.
Our contract for the Park Field House for Saturday only allowed us to be there until 5PM, so at 5 we broke for dinner and reconvened at Gilmore at 6:15. The guard occupied the gym, the pit continued in the atrium and the battery went off to one of the shop classrooms. Meanwhile, Scott Stewart convened a meeting with the brass line in the theatre. First Scott asked for a show of hands of everyone that knows the names of everyone else in the horn line. Not many hands were raised. Then he asked for a show of hands of everyone that knows the names of everyone else in their section. More hands were raised this time, but there were still plenty of un-raised hands. Since we will be spending so much time together this season, and since it is a lot more fun if you know everyone, we took the first steps toward the goal of “everyone knowing everyone”. We broke up into sections, and had everyone introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about what we do outside of the Kilties. It was extremely cool! I learned that in the mellophone line, we have an aspiring music teacher, an aspiring architect, a young mathematician, a ski instructor, a devoted grandmother, a criminal science major, a scholastic color guard instructor and a principal software engineer. And every one of us plays a mean mello! How cool is that?!
When we got back together in the theatre, Scott explained how the planned opening visual statement will be staged, and what our parts in the drama will be. The opening formation will find the color guard in a tight block near the end zone on the old starting line side of the field. The brass line will be stationed at the other end zone. As the opening strains of “Flight of the Valkyries” are played by the front percussion section, the two sides approach the 50 yard line, heading toward a battle with each other. In Norse mythology, a valkyrie, or "chooser of the slain", is one of a host of female figures that decide who will die in battle, bringing their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla. The individuals on the field marching into battle will explore the many emotions that must be felt before a battle, knowing that the Valkaries are approaching and unsure of their mortal destiny. Fear, exhilaration, anticipation, excitement, reflection, loathing, bravery and confusion are among the emotions that will be portrayed as engagement with the enemy nears. It is going to be fun getting into character for this portion of the show.
Then Scott got the whole corps together and showed us the animated drill design for “Flight of the Valkyries” and “William Tell Overture”. It was cool seeing the “press box view” complete with green lined field black and yellow brass/percussion, and red and white guard members marching the drill to perfection to synthesized music. It gave us all a better idea of what the transitions between sets are supposed to look like. Scott then complimented us on our rehearsal etiquette, which allowed us to learn drill at a record pace for the Kilties. It was all time well spent, and served to get everyone fired up for Sunday.
Our 9-5 Sunday rehearsal brought the entire corps together at the Park Field House. Breakfast and stretch once again culminated in our customary “shaky shake” wrist warm-ups led by the Mellophonium Pandemonium section. Now I don’t like to brag, but the mellophones brought the execution of “shaky shakes” to heights heretofore un-reached. The perfect outward facing circular formation was only surpassed by the levels of enthusiasm and intensity that were brought to the exercise. The standard has been set, and the “shaky shake” gauntlet has been thrown ladies and gentlemen.
The rest of the morning was spent learning the rest of “William Tell” drill. This portion of the show features some very impressive guard formations fronting a study in triangle oblique movement and rotation. I see about a gazillion reps of this part of the show in our future. A long oblique triangle push followed by the rotation of said triangle followed by the counter-march split into two triangles is about as exposed as it gets. But it is going to be impressive when it is clean!
After lunch, we spent about an hour and a half roughing in the opening battle scene movements and field positioning. This part of the rehearsal was a lot more difficult than it might sound. We experimented quite a bit, allowing the staff to gather enough data on how far each individual can travel from our opening formation to allow them to define a modified “set 2” formation that will be workable and effective. Next camp, we will start adding the characterization and backfield brass features to this part of the show.
At around 3:30, we began running full corps drill segments, first marching and singing, and then marching and playing. I thought that Valkyries and William Tell through the drum solo were quite well performed. I was particularly impressed with the guard. The individual talent level of this year’s guard members is really high. The 18 person opening rifle work section made me sit up and take notice, and the way this guard hits their drill formations impressed me as well. The last third of the show was not quite at the same level due to the fact that we had far fewer reps of this portion of the show, but it got better with every rep. At 4:40 we lined up for a complete run through of “Ride ‘em Willie” and when the last pose was struck, the last sticks clicked together and the horns snapped down, we all felt pretty darn good about ourselves.
Scott pulled the corps together for announcements and said he was proud of our work ethic and disciplined approach over the weekend. He was excited and pleased that we were able to complete 40% of the show in April. I think we all are excited and pleased. We all feel this thing building into something pretty special. We can’t wait until May 8th and 9th when we can take it outside, clean it up, refine the battle scene, and add Bohemian Rhapsody drill.
Drum Major Mike Taylor closed camp by conducting “Slow Syne”. On this day, I personally dedicated the playing to Kiltie alum Tim Coughlin who marched baritone with the Kilties in the late 1990s. Tim passed away unexpectedly on Friday April, 23. He was 58. Please keep Tim and his family in your prayers.
WWBD,
JC
P.S. We have 1 baritone opening left in the 2010 Kilties. Now’s your chance!
