A Brief Introduction
Hello, and welcome to my second blog post. This post may read more as a story, but if you follow the same steps I did, I am sure that you will be able to reproduce the cacophonous performance that was my rendition of “Symphonic Highlights from Frozen” at my high school’s winter concert. The inspiration for this post comes from my friend Collin, who turned to me after the song and said through tears of laughter, “Wow. You screwed that up.” I say, he was right.
*TL;DR – I sucked at our concert. If you don’t want to read, listen to the professional recording and then listen to what I played in front of a packed auditorium and have a good laugh for yourself.
Some Background
I was in 5th grade, starting out on a musical journey that would lead me to where I am today. Mr. Rankila was my band teacher. I asked him if I could play the trombone. He said, “No. That’s too hard, and you aren’t good enough. Try the trumpet.” So I gave it my best shot and practiced my trumpet a whole 5 times that year. Yeah, we weren’t very good.
I continued to play the trumpet throughout middle school. I think we were so bad that we made Mr. Rankila quit. He went on vacation one day and never came back. We then went through about a bajillion substitute band teachers over the course of 3 years (I told you we were bad) before we were lucky enough to land on Mrs. Amy Graf. Mrs. Graf turned our music program around, and we went from horrendous, to unpleasant, to slightly below average, a HUGE improvement.
The French Horn (and a million other instruments)
Our band was tiny. Very small. Miniscule. To broaden our sound, Mrs. Graf had me learn the french horn. I switched between my trumpet and the french horn during the concert, and I was pretty good if I do say so myself. Sadly, Mrs. Graf moved away, but this time, we were lucky to have an even better teacher take her place, Mrs. Britany Turinske. Mrs. Turinske kicked our band up a couple notches from slightly below average, to quite good, to FREAKING AWESOME. In this new era of Northwood Band, I played the trumpet, french horn, trombone, baritone, and the tuba.
Preparation
We are back to the present day. We started the school year by preparing for our winter concert. I play the trumpet for two songs, then french horn for one, and finally tuba for the last song. We will focus on the song I played on the french horn, “Symphonic Highlights from Frozen.” With Frozen II coming out around the same time as our concert, this was a great addition to our lineup. In this song, I had a solo. Right at the end of the song, everyone builds up to one point, and then it gets quiet, and then I play and launch us into the final part of the song. Here is a professional recording of the build up:
So you can see that something dramatic is supposed to happen here, right? Well, here is what is supposed to happen:
Sounds pretty cool, huh? I thought so too. So I get to play this at our concert. Right on! I practiced quite a bit until I could play it just like the recording, well, almost like the recording. During practice the day of the concert, I nailed it. Finally it was concert time.
Concert Time
You could say I was nervous. The first two songs on my trumpet went great. I put my trumpet down, picked up my horn, and waited until Mrs. Trurinske started conducting. The song went pretty well, I was doing everything I was supposed to do. And then it came to this part. Everyone built up the moment pretty well:
What happened next, I can only describe as shameful. All alone, for my solo, my big moment, I played the following:
I don’t know how it happened. If you want to re-create this wonderful moment, I suggest you just blow into your horn as randomly as you can and it will probably sound better than what I did.
In Conclusion
Tonight was my last winter high school concert performance, and it was one to remember. Today’s post was more of a reverse guide. If you do not want to suck at life, don’t do what I did, and you’ll be fine.
If you would like to continue to receive the latest and greatest life tips, like and subscribe to my blog. Thank you for checking this out.
EDIT: I was encouraged to include the senior picture we took before the concert. I am the one in the obnoxious suit. Yes, I was wearing that while everyone watched me step on a goose.
The Ultimate Guide to Life 
Oh, Haakon. As someone who was sitting only a few feet away from you, I can confirm that yes, you completely botched it. I do enjoy how you’re using this as an opportunity to laugh at yourself, not get really angry or sad about it. When another kids in the band (*cough* Brady K. *cough*) only squeaked, they (BRADY) decided that the best reaction was to talk to the two girls next to him and make them laugh while we were playing. I appreciate your decorum and the language you used in this post. 10/10.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember Mr. Rank… he was nut-job. He terrified every kid by yelling in their face and spitting at the same time. I do love your solo. I might not have the musical ear that you might have, but that was very bad. Still proud of you. I think that you should talk more about Zoey and Brady talking all the time; I know Margaret does.
LikeLike
Sadly I did not go to the concert and missed this great moment. At least you will forever have a great hilarious story to tell in the future. I also do remember going though all the band teachers and that is something that definitely drove me to quit band.
LikeLike
I was also playing on stage at the time of this incident and I feel like you accurately portrayed its dramatic nature. I could feel everyone around me tense as it happened. Mrs. Turinske didn’t react as much as I would have expected, but she did have a look. I feel like we recovered very well afterwards, and everyone forgot about your solo after she started freaking out about First Suite. I like the fact that you brought up our school’s bizarre history with the music program, since I experienced it as well, and it reminded me of the wild times of 5th grade/middle school band.
LikeLike
I’m reading this at home and laughing aloud at your vivid recollection of the concert. Weird, though, that I can read and laugh while looking at my screen and my housemates don’t care. But once I played your recorded botched solo and the notes began to sound from my laptop, the furry four-leggers awoke from their naps and discordantly howled along with your horn. Unfortunately, I am not tech-savvy enough to capture that in a video. But I can say that your wonky instrumental notes seemed to speak to the canine soul. Either that or they thought a stray cat was prowling in the living room…Best of luck to you at the spring concert!
LikeLiked by 1 person
My classmates and I replayed your recording on repeat and laughed hysterically at it. Hence, the reason we were reminded to work hard during class. I think you should continue your musical journey to college.
LikeLike