Band requirements and Practice 25!

So i fail a lot and totally forgot that i hadn't posted this yet, i appologize that its late!
Band Written Requirements:
1. What has been your biggest improvement this year as a player?
This year i think that i actually improved a lot simply because i practiced more, however i think that my biggest improvement came in my sightreading skills. Last year when we got a new piece in band i would struggle at first and have to hear the piece before i could play it through howveer this year i found that i was able to play through it just at first glance whcih iw as quite pleased with. I think that a huge part of this came from the fact that i really focussed on getting my scales down this year, especially chromatics, as well as did a lot of rhythm study stuff. Now i am finding that i can easily look at a rhythm and clap/play though it with ease as well that i can identify and play though most of the scales without trouble. I still have some issues with sharps but thats something that im going to focus on and try and improve even more for next year.

2. What is the area you most struggle with?
This year i made a lot of progress as stated before and think that i made good headway on fixing most of my "problem places" from last year however the thing i still consistently struggle with is tempo. I always tend to play things fast/want to speed up whcih only causes me to make mistakes. I did it when practicing band pieces at home and i ALWAYS do it when playing tests. Im not sure why that is but its something that i need to work on possiboly by getting a metronome when practicing so that i keep a consistent tempo and stop fluctuating so much.

3. What was your greatest musical highlight this year and why?
I have 3, first at kiwanis because we played rumble soso well! It was fabulous; one of those performances that you finish and just feel a sense of pride because you know youve played it well. Friends from other schools raved about it to me afterward saying that our band was amazing whcih is always really nice to hear. Second woudl have to be playing at nationals because that was just in general a great experiance, especially doing the sightreading portion which surprised me a lot since it actually sounded decently. Wasn't expecting that at all. I really enjoyed doing nationals though, and was super pleased with the silver(: Finally, the final concert was also a highlight. The ending of rumble just fel like an ending if you knwo what i mean? it got really emotional but in a more happy sort of way and was just a really awesome way to end the year.

4. What areas do you feel the band accels at and what area do we struggle? Give specific examples.
I think the band accels at playing things really musically. We are good at capturing the mood and essence of a piece and conveying that to our audiance. We demonstarted that this year when playing rep such as chillers and thrillers and the light eternal etc, the more performance type pieces which had a story-we were always able to convey that to our audiances be it parents, adjucators etc. I think that we need to work on our technical playing, things such as dynamic contrast and articulation patterns etc. All the small nit-picky stuff that are what really polish a performance we are good at but not great. For example in the holst we were able to play that musically but we didnt consistently play the staccattos vs. regular articulation. Its just a small thing, but something taht we could probably work on.

PS. I practiced on Tuesday for my exam for a solid 3hours, i honestly just played the exam stuff over and over again especially the study becauzse i was having some issues with that befiore hand. I just ran the problem spots over and over again. I had relatively little trouble with the chromatics since I'd been working on them all year so i only had to spend a little bit of time running those and then i moved on to the scale. I had a lot of issues with the D sharp for some reason, i would always p.ay it natural because that seemed like the natural movement for my fingers so i just went up and down over and over again, i still messed that up on my exam but it wasnt a huge thing. The thirds were easy enough and then i just ran through the study which was also relatively easy save for the bars with the high Dsharp in them, they were slightly awkward so i ran them a fair bit too. Overall i think that the exam on wednesday went fairly well, i had a few mishaps here and there but i didnt stop playing and it wasnt a huge mess up so i felt good about it overall(: