The Rolla High School band has been practicing since the last week of July, even before school started, on their fall routine. Taking only a few days learning the music and blocking, they have spent many more weeks perfecting the routine.
“Currently we are working on the third movement, we just finished it. Now we just have to work on perfecting it and we should be starting the fourth movement soon. And we are really just trying to clean everything up, getting ready for competition. The first one is October 1st, ” Atonia Bayless says.
A movement is a lot like acts in a play or movie. It breaks up the story line so you can follow it better.
“A movement is just all the different songs, like you start out with one song, and we consider that first movement, and so on. It takes the entire season to perfect a movement. We learn it within a week or two but perfection is constant, and there is never one run that is like ‘okay, that was good’. There’s always that one person who is off step or that one note your could have played wrong,” Bayless says.
Besides having the regular band that plays the clarinettes or trumpets, there is always a percussion band. Which consists of drum line.
“I play snare on drum line. The drum line don’t do much for the third movement because it’s the ballet of the show. We have some impact moments in that but generally we don’t play much. First movement is like the intro so there are a few features. The second movement is fairly continuous, there are only a few measures involving us. The last movement is the percussion movement itself, so that’s our biggest movement there,” Kelton Heaven says.
Every year the band has a different theme for their routine. Last years theme was Event Horizon, which told a story in space. This years theme is very creative.
“This years theme is Japanese. So in Japan they have a lot of old shrines and they also have these trees which they believe spirits are kept in. A lot of the times some tie notes to the trees because it’s their ancestors. In the show, it’s about a girl who goes on a journey and pretty much does what she is not supposed to. It starts out, she was told to never touch the trees and then she touches it and all the spirits come out. At first you think all the spirits are bad but it turns out that some are good. And in the end she makes her way home,” Bayless says.
Every year the band goes to four competitions, last year they went to two and got 2nd place in both. This year they have high hopes to winning;
“I really just want to beat Willard again because it’s a good feeling. But I think we can do it, we just have to get our focus and dedication and get that locked in. Then once we have that, we are set,” Heaven says.