Out of all of the extra curricular activities I'm involved with through my school, Show Choir is my favorite. The concept isn't any more fun then say Jazz Band or Pep Band, all I do is play music which is reason enough to be a part of it. Some might even assume I would like Show Choir less, being in the band, I sit in the back barely visible and, if I do my part right, barely noticed. Yet despite all of this Show Choir is still by far my favorite activity, where I play Bass for the Band the Choir sings and dances too.
My first year in Show Band I was on auxiliary percussion. That first year wasn't as much fun as this past year, I didn't know very many people, my part was rather uninteresting, and I didn't put in enough of my own time/effort to know many other people in the group. This year was different. I knew a lot more people this year, and by the end I knew almost everyone. Also this past season we lacked a Bass player so I was promoted to a much more interesting position in the band. I also spent more time at practice and doing the social aspects of the club.
Being in the band I had an advantage for friendship over the people in the choir. There are only 11 of us in Show Band so by the end of the year we became a very close group, and I would say that a majority of my best friends are in/from Show Band.
In fact, my best memory so far from High School, and maybe so far in my life, was at one of the Show Choir competitions this past February. It was at Brodhead, a medium sized competition that we were all excited about. The other schools that were there weren't from huge city's with big budgets so we didn't feel like we would be at a disadvantage based on that. We played well when we performed at around 3 pm, not our best performance but for sure one of our top three. We felt confident as we went into the awards and the announcements for finals. Our night official started to go well at the first round of awards when we not only made to finals, but won two of the three soloist awards as well as best band. After that we as the band had a mini party and a big group hug in celebration of our achievement. Per tradition all the guys in both band and choir ran out to the woods to pee. A ritual started a few years ago that takes place whenever we get to finals at Brodhead. After this we had a few hours before we performed again since we were going second to last out of six groups that made it to finals. With our free time the band split off to celebrate some more and listen to the comments the judges had given us. Our second performance was our best all year, even compared to our later competitions. We gave it our all, we were all breathing heavy by the end, especially our drummer, and one of my fingers had started bleeding on the strings of the Bass. One of our singer/dancers stood out for an amazing performance as well. In the opening song he dislocated his shoulder. But without missing a beat he popped it back in and sang/danced the rest of the show as if it was nothing.
We were all obnoxiously happy, sweaty, and excited as the second round of awards started. We were packed together in the back left of the gymnasium, clenching our teeth and each others hands as we waited to see how we had done. It started strong for us, best male vocalist within a show, best vocals, best opener. By now we were hoarse from cheering and some of the seniors were already crying. Best choreography, best ballad. And then it hit, Grand Champions. We had beaten twenty other schools including groups that had out placed us in the past, and had swept 90% of the awards for the entire Competition. We were all onstage sobbing and hugging and jumping about in excitement. None of us had expected to even make it to finals let alone win pretty much everything. It was very emotional, I was sobbing and so was almost everyone else. Even thinking about it now is making me grin.
Anyway, that is probably the biggest reason Show Choir is my favorite extracurricular.
No comments:
Post a Comment