My Views on Band Seats.

I think it's great.

I think there are tons of people who are placed way way lower than where they belong. It think there are a few people placed higher than they belong.

Clarinet seating in both symphonic and concert band is way off.

Trumpet seating in Symphonic band is bad. I think there are a lot of challenges that need to be, and will be, made there. Katie Learn should not be that low. Neither should Bekka. Those are the really really off ones.

Jackie is second chair trumpet right now. I believe that a few people behind her are better than her. Drake knows. That was not purely based on score, though her score is better than theirs. She surprised Drake with how well she did. Then today, with it behind her first time reading the 1st part, I think she did surprisingly well. I honestly she was going to crap all over it. But she was actually pretty good! She has a much better range that I did when I was a freshman or when I was originally in symphnic band. Her sound is pretty decent. Like I said, there are still people better than her. But I think that being up there, she will quickly get a lot better. Rise to the challenge. Plus the two of us sound pretty good together. Not all trumpet players do. I think I also sound pretty good with Katie. But that's not the point.

Wind Ensemble. Apparently Lortz just happened to forget to explain the trumpet seating. So, I was moved from second to third. I went up to Drake today asking if I could challenge. Drake, with a bit of unbelief, asked if I was challenging Perry. I told him that I wanted to challenge Jacob because he was above me. Drake explained that I did better on the test than Jacob did. I'm second chair. But Jacob is there, because when Perry and I play first together, we sound really, really bad. So, he put Jacob there to play first with Perry becuase they sound good together. Jacob is kinda like an assistant to Perry. Drake basically said Perry gets to boss him around a little. Then, I am on 2nd with Luke because apparently Luke and I sound good together. But Lortz couldn't explain this. That would have made my life too easy.

But yeah. This is how it works. If your test was not so great, that's what happens. If you believe, or likely KNOW you're not where you belong, challenge. Or ask someone to challenge you. I don't know why you would do that. But whatever.

Challenging is really simple. You may be someone who gets really really nervous, but if you practice enough some of the nerves go away.

If you don't like what happened, stop complaining about it and fix it.