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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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.