Solo and Ensemble

Today, the Solo and Ensemble Competition was held at Oshkosh West High School, which is about ten miles south of Neenah. I was scheduled to play my solo at 9:42 but ended up playing it at about 10:42, since the room where I was to play was behind schedule by about 40 minutes and then my accompianist had a schedule conflict, and I had to sit through the two horn performances that were scheduled after mine. I was hoping to play marvelously, but instead, my mouth was dry and I played the solo at about the level I was playing it within the first or second week of deciding what to play. The judge scored me at a 2, which says that I did a mediocre job. I am inclined to agree with the judge. I played the solo 100% in every one of my practice sessions in the two weeks before the competition.

At 3:42, my horn choir was scheduled to play. The actual perrformance happened at around, 3:50, which wasn't as bad. We played through the three movements, and then our lively judge asked us some questions about our horn playing. She acted incredibly inthusiastic, but near the end, she gave some hints that our performance was sub-par. She told us that class A pieces were very difficult (they are the hardest class) and they take much more work than horn in band and that we probably should have started practicing earllier. While our band does perform more difficult horn music than what she was suggesting, she is right about our practicing: we only practiced in the morning before school, which didn't yield much time and only in the last two weeks before the competition. Judging by her comments, I think we will recieve a 2 rating as well.

So, overall, it was not the best Solo and Ensemble competition that I've performed at, and it was the last one, but I think I will get over it.