Westlake Symphonic Band by Daniel Ottenhof - A personal recount
On August 5th, Forrest Hill School students quietly strode towards the hall. We were naturally quiet-ish as Mr Marwick has been working with us on our noise levels. Sometimes we can be rowdy. This was a bright day, despite the rain, well many thought that because in Arataki we were missing out on reading. But I am not the many and I myself am pretty musical; I loved hearing the jolly sounds of Westlake warming up. We arrived at the hall; sadly I didn't have time to peer for too long through the windows and look at my future. As I entered the hall my sight reached a milestone as I saw the massive symphonic band. It was a wonderful noise they were making tuning their instruments, with notes splattering out all over the place. The first piece had a stunning title, "The Temple of ..." sadly I didn't catch the rest of the name which made it all the more mystical. This piece was actually better than the name. The piece was definitely good! If you heard it on the radio you would think it was performed by professionals. The band also performed a few more pieces but none stood out as well for me as that first piece. The flutes were sparkling much more than the original silver ore they first came from. I had my eyes on all the flutes; they were far more shiny then my old spectacle of a flute. Finally I stopped staring, snapped out of my shiny flute dream as it was time to move on to be absolutely ready for the next outstanding performance.
WBSB by Katelyn Lyford
Today, WBSB came to Forrest Hill School. They played 3 songs for us: Temple, Spacewalk, Fire and September. My favourite was Fire. September was a jazz song from Earth, Wind and Fire; a band from the 70's. The band was full of different instruments like French Horn, Crash Cymbals, Flute, Saxophones, (Tenor / Alto / Baritone) Trumpet, Marimba, Gockenspiel, Oboe, Tuba, Hi-Hat, Triangle, Trombone, Drums, Timpani, Gong, Bass Drum, Xylophone, Clarinet, Shaker, Bass Clarinet and Euphonium. That's a lot of instruments all playing together! And 70 boys all reading music to keep in time together!
Now back to my favourite song - Fire! Why? This would be because of its deep then high pitch, with me imagining a fire burning. Spacewalk made me think of an astronaut in space just floating .. seriously floating! Temple was a song about a school in Hawaii living in the shadow of a huge volcano. The music was very loud and if you tried to imagine hula girls dancing, you would hear why it was a celebration ceremony song. September - JAZZ - it was fast then slow - different paces of music. Mrs Robson was grooving in her chair! I so enjoyed WBSB entertaining me for half an hour on a wet Wednesday morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment