Welcome to Gaia! ::

a couple stupid packets.
one's got jingle bell rock, i'll be home for christmas, let it snow, and god rest ye merry gentlemen, it's from the hal leonard jazz library and everything's arranged by different folks, but ALL the arrangements suck.
then we've got one with the most wonderful time of the year, blue christmas, jingle bells, silver bells, the christmas song, and there's no place like home for the holidays. all of these arrangements suck as well.
then there's a big band christmas II, which is actually decent. it's a medley (or maybe not, is a medley only 3 songs?) of here comes santa claus, santa claus is coming to town, have yourself a merry little christmas, and auld lang syne.
whew, that was a long message. sweatdrop

If it's any consolation, I've only run across a few good arrangements of Christmas songs. I think the biggest problem is that they've been played to death.

Agreed. The last two years at band camp, I've gone through the audition process, been mildly disappointed becuase I ended up on 3rd, and then we start playing the music. And the 1sts have stuff that's about an octave higher than mine, which is very bad.

What are the Chair thingys (^^; )

Junior and Senior years of high school I played first trumpet. I first principle chair and second chair.

Chairs are actually you seating assignment. It makes sense if you think about it. What chair are you from the first player of the part? If you are the guy next to the first person playing second trumpet then you are second chair second. See?

Right now I'm a freshman in college and I'm principle third in our band. Not too bad considering I have to compete with all of the music majors who have years more experience than me. smile Plus I get all of those cool harmony solos.

But I really did love playing first trumpet. There's nothing better than being a section leader. smile

Christmas music-wise, my band just played Carol of the Bells for our concert a few days ago. It was a lot of fun, and we got the most applause for that piece. ^ ^

I've been playing trumpet for seven years now (longer than my mom expected me to!), and plan to play it in college, though I definitely won't be majoring in music. Up until this year, I've always been a Third Trumpet, but this year, I was moved up five chairs (!) to Second Trumpet, 1st chair. whee

I think it's great, since the First Trumpets go way too high for my tastes...Even though I can now play a lot of the notes that they do, thanks to jazz band, which has really helped to develop my range (it's my first year in jazz band).

My trumpet gets so beat up, though...So does my case...*thinks her duct-taped case is the best* One of these days, I'm going to get my mom to go to this place that my band teacher works with and try to get another silver trumpet (which will be my third owned trumpet, since I stopped renting after the first or second year of playing).

Man I haven't been here in forever...So I'm just gonna say what's happened to me this year band wise.

I got the solo during marching season. Playing it at UIL was the best moment of my life practically..
I'm 1st chair Wind Ensemble, 1st chair Full Orchestra, and 2nd chair Jazz Band. We had our Christmas Concert on Tues and when I lestened to the recording of it I couldn't believe it was us. It was awesome. Ok..I'm gonna go now and hope that I remember I'm in this guild later on. I have such a bad memory... sweatdrop gonk

No fair! 'Carol of the Bells' was played by another band in our school. My band played 'Farandole', which is six and a half minutes of almost nonstop eighth notes/16ths runs at a fast tempo (160 bpm). By the end, the only one happy and hyper is a tenor sax player.