OPHB!!

Wow, what an amazing week at the Ontario Provincial Honour Band!!! I had so much fun and it was great to be able to perform with Ontario's best. Here are some of the highlights from the week:
- (Question from the audience at one of our performances): "How much people is in your band?"
- (Question from the audience): "What's the difference between the four valve and the five valve tuba?"
Jeff: (smirks) "One has four valves, the other has five."
- hey, does this smell like chlorophorm to you?
- raiding the cabins with foam swords and dart guns
- gay porn
- British foozball commentators: "There appears to be 2 balls now; that's not something the French are used to seeing."
- jokes about Kirshean
- "guys...I think I just accidentally raped Dave"
- the hunt for grilled cheese

Thanks to all who made the week so wickedly awsome.

- Dave Ross

Not Dead Yet

Well, despite my lack of posting for more than a month, I am still alive. Even more pleasing is that fellow trumpeter Alex Zeldin is not dead as well. My reason for not posing in so long, you ask? To tell the truth I don't think I've had any sort of opinion, major event or even a thought since school started, weird how the system does exactly the opposite that it's setting out to do.
Anyway, yesterday was Markham Bowl which was lots of fun, the seniors lost but the juniors won, so I can't complain. But Markham Bowl isn't really about the football for most people anyway, for most, its about the booze and drugs. For me, it was really nice to see all of those people who have graduated last year and came back for commencement and Thanksgiving. The whole situation reminded me of that line from that song, "...you don't know what you've got 'till its gone." Or I guess in my case the song would say, "...you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone, then comes back and reminds you what was gone and what you miss about it." I don't think my version would be very catchy but at least it's applicable to what I'm talking about. All in all a great start to a long weekend.

- Dave Ross

"Iceburgs aren't melting, the water is being liberated." - Jon Stewart

Drop Everthing And Read

New at MDHS this year it the implimentation of the DEAR program. It's one of those "kids need to read more programs." Which is great, reading is good. However, the way that this program is implemented is a result of school board members who have been hit over the head a few too many times. Here's the low down on the DEAR program at MDHS: 20 minutes of silent reading per week, the reading cannot be related to school work (so it doesn't give you time to catch up on your homework), the material can be a book or magazine (so that means I can read a copy of sports illustrated swimsuit edition, right? Come on, I buy it for the articles!) and the time is taken out of classes on a rotating basis.
The biggest problem I see with the program is that could you honestly tell me that it makes sense for your gym, music, or shop teacher say, "okay kids, stop lifting weights/playing music/building and pull out your novels and read." That's just stupid. In these situations it's just too hard to execute.
As well, what about classes such as AP physics? I remember people from last year telling me that if you left that class to go to the bathroom you'd be screwed and not know what's going on. In classes like that the effects of the DEAR program will be hit hard. Teachers already have tight timelines for teaching the curriculum in the time required, now they're adding another obsticle.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out and I sincerly hope that this thing will get so much bad feedback that it will flop.
Speaking of which. If you are as angry about this as I am, please direct your emails to one or both of these addresses (I know I will):
Bill Crothers, Trustee: bill.crothers@yrdsb.edu.on.ca
I don't know who this goes to, probably someone in the administration: markham.dhs@yrdsb.edu.on.ca

- Dave

Timetable

Here it is, my timetable for the next year (subject to change at owner's discresion)...

1. Economics- Biadi (anyone know who this is?)
2. Data- Thompson
3. Lunch
4. Music- Thomas
5. World History- Bower

6. Physics- Nowikov
7. English- Marlatt
8. Spare
9. Lunch
10. Calc.- Macmillan

Leave a message if you have any of these classes with me!!

- Dave

The Post- Symposium

So I've spent the past week of my summer at U of T at a trumpet symposium. What is a symposium you ask? In Greek times, it was a drinking party, but for the trumpet symposium's purposes it was a social gathering with a free exchange of ideas. I've never been one to beat around the bush, so I'll just come out and say it right now: I was at a trumpet geek conference! Okay! Happy now!
The idea behind the syposium is that they bring in two of the world's best players to talk about how to be a better player and a better the musician. One of the trumpeters is a world reknown soloist (formerly with Canadian Brass), Jens Lindemann and the other is a reknown orchestral player James Thompson, who has played with bascially every major orchestra on the East coast of North America.
One of the best parts about this symposium is that there are masterclasses where you get up and play a solo for Jens and another one later on for James, then they tell you how to make it better. I must say that it was much more nerve- racking then I thought it would be. I guess it's because it was just me up there, and there is no where to hide if you make a mistake or don't feel confident about a section, so you just have to lay it out there and rely on your hours of practice. Despite all that, I got through the pieces, which always could have gone better no matter how well you play it. I got some good advice on play which was always welcome.
The other really big highlight was the concert at the end of the symposium on Friday night which was one of the best concerts I've been to in a while. There were solo performances by James and Jens as well as a 30 person trumpet ensemble.
Without going into any really nerdy details I'll just say that it was a great week. Oh! And Jens also got super tastee by playing God knows what note, but it was well above a Dubba C (possible a Dubba F or G). TASTEE!

- Dave

Midway

So it's just about half way through summer and I can't help but think to myself, where has the time gone? It seems just yesterday when I was sitting around bored at school picking my nose but alas, now I am home: bored and digging for nose gold.
On a slightly different note, I am now employed. Working at the Garden Basket cutting up vegetables and various other tasks. And before you ask, yes, I work with Jordo. If you've ever heard one of Jordo's sassy rants about how much that place sucks to work, there's more truth his rants than you think. Yes, most of the managers are total jackasses or morons. There mostly the kind of people who, when you're rushing to close the store to get home, they're riding your ass to finish so they can get home but do nothing in the way of actually helping to get the work done other than yelling at you to get everything done. Here's a free hint for them: we are going as fast as we can, we want to get home too! So stop telling us what we already know to do, and give us hand!! Other than work and such, my summer has been pretty uneventful. I've been playing a fair amount of trumpet in prepareation for the symposium at U of T, which there is sure to be much to post about. As well, I've played a lot of Donkey Kong Country 2 because I downloaded an emulator to play it on pc. Wow, that game is so incredibly awsome. Anywho, I'm out.
-Dave

Blog Rant #1

Well it's summer. For many people that means: summer jobs, days at the cottage, eating spaggetti -o's while watching Jerry Springer for 4 hours, or altering you sleep schedule so that you are able to play online games with people from Australia. For me it means all of these things and a hell of a lot of trumpet playing. But even still I find the summer to kind of slow and I still feel that I don't do anything.
It was then that I found a lot of my time during the summer could be spent on trumpetherald.com, the website where a community of trumpet geeks can gather in an electronic format and discuss all about a variety of topics like: "what kind of mouthpiece should I play on," "what kind of horn do you use," "lead pipe swapping," "best horn for lead playing?" "backbore size" ect., ect. If you've noticed a bit of a problem about all of these topics, good for you. If you didn't see that here's why.
1. Playing a wind instrument is a very individual thing, everyone plays in a unique way, so, the best lead horn for some people may not be the best lead horn for you. Same thing with mouthpiece, lead pipe ect.
2. Perhaps if you spent half as much time on the equipment that you do have instead of frigging around with a million different horns and mouthpieces you might actually get better by getting to know your own equipment instead of constantly switching equipment.
3. From what I have seen, about 90% of the trumpeters on trumpetherald.com have more money than brains. Ok, so this guy has 12 horns and 20 mouthpieces but I'll bet that he can't play any of them for shit. Maybe you should sell that gold plated custom Lawler trumpet and buy yourself some brains and time in a practise room.
4. PRACTISE MAKES YOU BETTER. Screwing around with equipment doesn't. So...go practise!!
Now I'm not trying to bash the whole idea of the trumpet community on trumpetherald.com, I'm just saying that perhaps if there were more discussions lets say on uh... trumpet playing rather than equipment, you'd get better.
Now I know that trumpet players a notorious for this kind of stuff but other wind players can get sucked into this stuff, so try to aviod it as much as possible and just play.

- Dave