bedlamsbard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bedlamsbard) wrote2010-06-10 01:52 pm
bedlamsbard) wrote2010-06-10 01:52 pm
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I -- did not hate the Glee finale, just parts of it, and some parts of it I really did like. SHOCKING.
The major problem I have had with Glee, all along, is that it's unrealistic. Which, well, it's a TV show, what do I want out of it? The thing is that I did do high school band (in a small rural town, at that), and I had a lot of friends that did choir (although my high school didn't have a show choir, so I can't speak for how different those two experiences are), and Glee is so over-the-top most of the time that watching it makes me scream. Especially parts where I just want to leap up and yell, "But that's now how high school music competitions work!" (I have given up on character with Glee, but the high school music competition thing drives me insane.)
I really liked high school, and I really liked my high school band. We didn't have much of a budget, so we didn't march the way most bands do; my freshman year the town and the parent group, after something of a kerfuffle following the Veterans Day parade, which we marched in street clothes because it's too cold in November to wear our pep band polo shirts, managed to raise enough money to buy us jackets. (That's what you can see in my icon, vaguely.) The following years contained constant bitching about the jackets from students that had come in after the kerfuffle, which was mostly carried on through the letters to the editor section of the local newspaper. We only wore them twice a year, on the two occasions we marched -- once for the Rodeo Parade (we used to wear the polo shirts), which was our only actual competition, and once for the Vet's Day Parade. We only had a handful of other competitions for concert band -- two, I think. But we were good. But again -- we had no money. We got invitations to go and play in various places across the country, but we had no money. My band director? Was also the band director for the middle school's three bands, the high school jazz band, the pep band, the marching band, and the two high school concert bands. No money to do anything else, no time to work with the students we had.
In conclusion, the show that I would like to see would be the Friday Night Lights of high school music. Preferably marching band, but I'm a little prejudiced, since I was a band geek myself.
The major problem I have had with Glee, all along, is that it's unrealistic. Which, well, it's a TV show, what do I want out of it? The thing is that I did do high school band (in a small rural town, at that), and I had a lot of friends that did choir (although my high school didn't have a show choir, so I can't speak for how different those two experiences are), and Glee is so over-the-top most of the time that watching it makes me scream. Especially parts where I just want to leap up and yell, "But that's now how high school music competitions work!" (I have given up on character with Glee, but the high school music competition thing drives me insane.)
I really liked high school, and I really liked my high school band. We didn't have much of a budget, so we didn't march the way most bands do; my freshman year the town and the parent group, after something of a kerfuffle following the Veterans Day parade, which we marched in street clothes because it's too cold in November to wear our pep band polo shirts, managed to raise enough money to buy us jackets. (That's what you can see in my icon, vaguely.) The following years contained constant bitching about the jackets from students that had come in after the kerfuffle, which was mostly carried on through the letters to the editor section of the local newspaper. We only wore them twice a year, on the two occasions we marched -- once for the Rodeo Parade (we used to wear the polo shirts), which was our only actual competition, and once for the Vet's Day Parade. We only had a handful of other competitions for concert band -- two, I think. But we were good. But again -- we had no money. We got invitations to go and play in various places across the country, but we had no money. My band director? Was also the band director for the middle school's three bands, the high school jazz band, the pep band, the marching band, and the two high school concert bands. No money to do anything else, no time to work with the students we had.
In conclusion, the show that I would like to see would be the Friday Night Lights of high school music. Preferably marching band, but I'm a little prejudiced, since I was a band geek myself.
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This was my high school band (I played trumpet). In this school district, it's football, show choir, band and academics, in that order.
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Oh, the stories I could tell about how my high school band got fucked over for one reason or another. (Sometimes by Mother Nature; in the same year, we had the steam pipes break in the old band room, then the water pipes break in the new band room. IN THE FIRST WEEK IN THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL. *froths at the mouth*)
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Apparently Show Choirs with big budgets do Glee type things? And are on Oprah? Wearing full on costumes and singing Vogue? (youtube). I know the local CAPA school here does crazy performance art types things.
ETA: Yeah, I think the Lima kids who spend a lot of time not having money should maybe have a reason for their ability to procure costumes, but the Carmel kids seem to be in a really wealthy district, I think. (I may have just watched the whole run of Glee in two sittings.)
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I never even heard of show choir until this year, but then again, small town rural high school.
The costume and budget thing in Glee doesn't bother me nearly as much as the fiasco they make of the whole competition process. Also the fact I'm starting to wince every time Sue appears on screen. High school music competitions? Do not work like that. At least for concert band and choir, and it drives me mad that they (the PTB, I mean) take the competition so -- lightly? The way that competitions worked for us, you went up on stage, you played/sang, and then the judges (band directors whose own bands weren't competing, sometimes university professors) would come give you feedback, and then you'd get your rating on a scale from 1 to 5. (It does not speak well for me that I cannot remember whether a 1 or a 5 was preferable. A 1, I think.) And then you'd get the placings, after everyone competed, and the competition in the show is just so -- laughable, almost all the time. Carmel being the exception. *sighs* There would definitely be more than three schools at both regionals and sectionals.
(As we can tell, I was really, really annoyed by this.)
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I want to say that the real hs in our district had a show choir. Though they graduated about 900 people per year, so they also had things like a hockey team, and three dance teams, and a ranked debate team (which I was on and well, if show choir competitions worked anything like debate, there would be a whole lot more competition (though we only got token feedback.) Our judges were always college kids who debated.
What I think is really rather weird, is that they haven't embraced the crazy drama that is both a road trip and spending a weekend in a hotel with your teammates. I mean, I remember sneaking out of the hotel to eat waffles with ice cream on them at midnight.
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From what I remember, the real drama happened with the musical theatre kids, but my band tended towards relatively laid back because we didn't have the opportunity for much intensity. From what I've heard from kids who went to schools where the bands were much more intense, well, the drama was strong with them. *grins*
My high school was -- we were a 2A school, graduating about 200, and still the biggest thing in the county. (Like I said to
Oh, yeah! Crazy drama on trips = awesome. Maybe next season? I mean, come on, band trips were insane, and we were relatively tame. There's a story about a couple of the sophomore boys from our Disney trip (two occasions when we actually got the money to go somewhere, Disney and All-Northwest) trying to make popcorn by lowering the bag out the window onto the big heat lamps on the roof of the hotel (or something) with dental floss.
I keep getting the feeling that no one who's involved with that show actually has any idea of how high school functions. Or cares. *sighs*
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Theater kids get all the best drama.
We had debaters that were rather Jesse-esque. They were going to places like Duke and Stanford on full debate scholarships. I think we had two teams go to State my sophomore year. The popcorn things is amazing. Our drama tended to involve sex and drugs and why, no matter what, you should not sleep with your debate partner of any gender.
I think that the writers must have all gone to private school and are just faking the differences. That why they don't quite get how not having money works, and plus, there isn't really any competitive writing clubs, I guess? So maybe they didn't do anything competitive in hs.
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I definitely went to band with some Jesse-like people -- we've never sent anyone to Oberlin or Juilliard that I know of, but there were definitely a few band and choir divas in my acquaintance that went on to performance majors.
I...huh, I honestly can't remember much band drama, though I'm aware there was some. On the other hand, I swear I was the least-informed person at my high school; I usually read about the drama a year after it happened in the school newspaper. Or, um, at the senior luncheon the year I graduated. That was an eye-opener. I had no idea all these people I was graduating with got up to that sort of thing! (Sex, drugs, drinking; I don't know what I was thinking everyone else in the high school did with their free time.)
There are HS journalism competitions, but that's all I know of off the top of my head. *sighs* They probably just think it's too much trouble to actually make their show reasonably realistic.
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The year I transferred, I think 13 kids overdosed on chiva (mix of heroine and coke). They were rich kids, so it made the cover of Newsweek or US News. We were like the highest drug through-fair in Texas that year. We did send kids to Oberlin, I know, not sure about Julliard. I got to hear all the gossip because everyone knew that I had no one to tell, since I didn't really go to school there. Of course, I actually knew the guys who stuck a goat in the library, and actually, the guys who stole a truckload of toilets and planted them in the principle's front yard.
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For some reason, I got the impression from the first few eps of Glee that they were trying to set it in a more rural setting? And then later on they switched to suburban/urban. I might be making the rural thing up, but they seem to be confused on whether McKinley High is a small school or a large one and also...they have no idea how high school works. (Like, seriously, they are getting jazz band and orchestra people to come in and accompany? Okay, but...no, okay, I want more explanation there than we actually got on the show.) I wish they'd stuck a little more with the earlier struggles to balance between extracurriculars, because that was at least realistic. If over-the-top, most of the time. Or the struggle to get into college.
Oh, wow. The...hmm, the only major prank that got pulled when I was at high school that I can think of was the time when someone hauled out two hundred tires and planted them in front of the doors to the school. The principal was furious -- and then they eventually figured out it was a senior prank. Three days later or something, they counted and realized the number of tires was the exact number of people graduating.
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I was in band at a 4A school for 2 years and then wen to the residential high school of Louisiana - LSMSA - for two more. Hi
1's are what you want in band. 5's are what you want on the AP. The times I got those confused...
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Man, if I could remember it that way, that would be useful! (I never thought of that before.) My band director's translation for getting a V in a competition was "Why are you here?"