Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Changing Leaves

Well it's officially fall!

Regardless of how you feel, fall comes when a Cabela's employee says so, and I'm telling you it's fall.

My favourite time of year.

Along with hunting season, back to school, a new pipe band season, the leads change colour..... Wait I mean the leaves change colour... And I get this calm sense that it's business time.

Yes a small and massively lame crack at the big news this year. All over lead drummers are stepping down, retiring, or just letting someone else take over.

I suppose the biggest news impacting us would be the grade 2 moves. Mr. Harvey Dawson has taken the reins of Penetangore (Ontario) I'm excited to see his corps but a little disappointed we won't see another Kirkwood corp for awhile.

The biggest Grade 2 news impacting us would obviouslÝ be Blair (Buzz) Brown taking over the corp at City of Regina. Ian Aastrom and I have had a long standing and friendly rivalry which saw our corps duke it out locally, nationally, and at the World's.

I'm gonna miss Ian's challenges. He always put a great corp out and we were just two young corps struttin our stuff. Trying to make the best music we could.

But, with Ian's stepping down, up comes another great turn of events. Winnipegger Blair Brown has taken on the corp with Ian playing in it. I couldn't be more excited!! My generation has never seen a Buzz run corp on the prairies and I know the boys were very excited last night.

Hopefully our friendly rivalry will continue as this will certainly create a new challenge for me and the goon squad.

Stay tuned as tomorrow I've got some news regarding a grade 2 performance coming up.

Enjoy the fall!!!! Stick the landing :D


Cheers,

Sean

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The New Season Upon Us

Good morning everybody!

Long time no chat. I took a few weeks off of bloggin/social media to let my brain cool down.

Since then the grade 2 band has decided on another Scotland/Maxville appearance, the grade 3 band had a phenominal showing in Calgary Canmore winning Calgary and coming 3rd in Canmore, and the Juvenile band almost doubled in size.

I just wanted to mark a milestone this morning. Last night at Juvenile practice we had chanters, pads, and tenor sticks all at one table, and they played Mary's Wedding, at tempo, together.

I think this was probably one of the highlights of my drumming life to date. I know all the instructors were incredibly proud to have taken these kids from scratch and have them play together.

Have to thank Scott, Ian, Kyla, and Megan for all their hard work. We have a ton of new kids and we are contantly looking for more so if you're interested pop down to General Byng school on Mondays around 6 30 and check it out!


Johnston out

Sean

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

2011

Morning folks!

The new season is upon us.

Of course the Grade 3 band just wrapped theirs up this weekend in Calgary Canmore. The band won Calgary and paced third in Canmore. Couldn't be more proud.

They did however come home with horror stories of freezing to death. Oh well!

Grade 2 had it's first meeting last night. Nice to see we're all eager to get back to work. Lot's of decisions were made. Principally travle ones.

Scotland again. One week this time. No pre contests as we can't afford it. The bigger decision was to not go to Vegas.

The invite to the Vegas contest was a real honor however with a very small amount of travel money to us, we had to decide between Scotland and Vegas. It's to bad as the two trips would nearly cost the band the same amount.

The grade 2 pipe corp will once again grow. Starting roster is around 25 with players coming from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Minnesota, and now Ontario. The drum corp will start with some where between 9 and 11 sides, 3 tenors and 1 Chris Brown! This shows we're on the right track.

Grade 3 will again grow! Bigger pipe corp bigger drum corp. More on that once they're back to work.

There's a big weekend coming up. The Selkirk Settler's parade is Saturday which is a major part of our promotion of Scottish Culture. Honoring those that paved this great community is a high priority in all three bands.

Also the Saspb Golf Tournament is saturday. If you want to play just email me at sean@saspb.com. Then clean your clubs and prepare to be owned by the Fidlers..

That's the update. See you soon!

Cheers,

Sean