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 Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 9:19 pm
I've always been interested in what other school's orchestras are like. I know some of you have mentioned it briefly, but I wanted a more formal discussion.
My school is tiny to begin with so our orchestra is really small and informal. We don't even have chairs. And we only started electing officers my sophomore year (who do not do anything except organize the end of the year gift). We have three violas (including myself), one cello, four 2nd violinists, and five first violinists. No bass and one first & second violinist who just don't give a flying monkey and pretend to play.
Do some quick math and we have about thirteen members. Our teacher, Senor Vieira (sp?) comes from Venezuela, Italy or wherever and has whipped our butts into shape. He gives each section private lessons, which is really nice but he usually ends up making me cry. He's very strict and a lot different from the conductor we had the year before.
Well, that's basically my orchestra. In a nutshell.
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Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:19 pm
We're from the same school (^^^NotAmy333 and myself...also SpiralAlchemist) and Mr. V is a crazy b*****d, but he's an amzing teacher. His methods are just...hurtful...sometimes. Our old instructor, Mr. Harris, was a kind and gentle soul (except that one day where he bashed the hell out of an umbrella...) and I miss him very much. Before the viola, I played percussion and he was always very supportive. He was like a second father to me.
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Paper Street Soap Company Captain
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Posted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 6:05 pm
My school has a terrible orchestra. No one puts any effort into playing, some people even talk while we're supposed to be playing. Everyone is munching away on chips and the like because symphony orchestra (our middle level orch) is right before lunch and of course we're eternally stuck with the last lunch hour of the day. I can never seem to concentrate during that class because I usually have a stomach ache from being so hungry by that point. Oops! I'm starting to digress. Our orchestra teacher is beyond useless. She has no control of the class and isn't really that great of a teacher. She expects us to learn everything we need to know from our private teachers and all we do in class is rehearse the same dull music over and over. The worst thing is she never checks to see if the viola part is interesting. As long as it has a good 1st violin part she doesn't care about the rest of us. Back in middle school I had a teacher that was strict and lots of people hated her (mostly the kids who misbehaved), but she was a great teacher who made sure the music we played was fun for all of the sections and I loved her. If only she would switch jobs with my current teacher...
Pardon me for going into a long rant, I just can't help it.
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Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:53 pm
Our orchestra was pretty fantastic until this year. We had the best teacher. He was really good at getting us to play to our best potential. But he retired D:
But we've got around 50 people in both our orchestras, Spartan and Concert. Concert is our more advanced class, and we're working on Fingal's Cave right now, but our teacher doesn't know how to break down and rehearse sections, so its going to be rather embarassing. We also have a small chamber orchestra, which i think has around 20 people in it. We're going to state next saturday for music festival. We're playing the St. Paul's Suite by Holst. I adore it XD
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Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:15 pm
 ...the worst feeling is not death....it is knowing that you are not needed....The school I go to now, doesn't have an orchestra, but my old school had two different orchestras. We had advance and immediate and we always had a competion to see which one was the best. Both classes learned hard pieces but were at different levels at playing.Sometimes we would add different instruments into the songs to make it more moving.The winning class would get to go to where the nationals were at or where ever the teacher will take us.One time, she took the winning orchestra to disney world.My opinon about both classes is that, they are both the same, but can learn to play at different speeds. ...that you are alone in this world...and that you no longer have a reason to live...
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Posted: Mon May 04, 2009 2:57 pm
This is my freshman year of high school, so it's the first i've spent with this orchestra. We have about 30-ish players total and 5 of them are violas. Our teacher is new this year but i hear that she was better than the teacher last year 3nodding She's taking us to San Francisco! mrgreen But anyways, i think we all get along pretty good.
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Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 8:39 pm
My School has three orchestras: Beginner, Symphony, and chamber. The beginners are really all just violins, and next year almost all are going into band >.<. Im in the symphony Level. We're not bad, I guess. At our Big Ol' UIL competition we have got strait 1's ever since the school opened. We have only got three violas, one bass, three third violins, more than 15 2nds, and a bunch more of 1sts. We have got an awsome teacher named Mrs. Garcia/ Mrs. G. She ownzzz, but is leaving next year to spend time with her three year old son.
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 7:25 pm
In case anyone cares, Fingal's Cave sounded pretty good for a high school orchestra XD
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 8:05 pm
well school is over for me, but i will tell you wat it was like at middle school
school
so we had to share our room with the choir and band got their own room X(
i dont like my orchestra, they dont practice, and wenever we have a concert coming up, thy still dont practice
but there was this one time, we were at a festival, and we got a full score for our preformance, i was so suprised becaused we sounded horrible, we got lost one time but we came back together and some of us were out of tune...it was crazy...O_O
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 2:46 pm
This year, a lot has changed. One of our 4 violas left, but we got a new one. Last year, we had 4 cellos, now we have one. One violin left, we got another one, and one guy, Gary needs to leave cuz he sucks and nobody likes him. We also have one bass
In our sixth and seventh grade ochestras, we have a harp and like; 9 basses!
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Posted: Wed Jan 13, 2010 6:58 pm
My school orchestra is HUGE because the director is like, 25 (but really good!) and we play Guitar Hero after every concert. The only issue is, most people sound like crap. The cellos can't keep their mouths shut while we're rehearsing, only 2 violas ever practice (me & Westy) and the basses can't do anything anymore because they kept playing badly and screwing the rest of us up. (The violins are pretty much the same as the violas...no practice). On the other hand, Advanced Ensemble is really good (I'm first chair!) and our music is pretty advanced.
Summary: My orchestra is huge but we suck (but we all heart the director!)
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Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 9:46 pm
We have no basses =( It's quite sad. We've got a fairly large orchestra, so many that all the violins can't play when we are in the pit for the opera. The great thing about being in a small section is being needed <3 Disadvantage: Unexpected solos when half the section is gone XD The whole 2 of them. I got to know the section leader for Firebird quite well =) It's funny being the only viola major but being a freshmen so all the other students are better than me XD
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Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 5:55 pm
We had a great orchestra. heart The viola section is awesome. The viola section is alittle unappreciated.
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