Jazz

A snap of the finger at a repeated rhythm. The subtle hit of the bass, the snazzy sound of the saxophone, the precision attack of the trumpet. These are just a few of the things people love about jazz. Don't go thinking I'm only saying this because in the jazz band at school. I'm saying this because this is one genre of music that most large crowds can listen to and not complain with each other.

I heard jazz before last summer. I heard a few bands play. But, I never really unlocked the spirit of jazz until August of 2009. I went to the jazz summer camp (not as dorky as it sounds) at my school and we just played. We jumped right into the songs. I was taken by surprise, being a 12 year old kid, I had never just started into the song. Scratch that, I had but when we did it in the concert band at my elementary school it sounded terrible. No one knew what their part was supposed to sound like.

But this was different. Everyone knew what they were playing. They just looked at the music and played it. Not to the full potential (which we did by the end of the week) but over enough to amaze me. I had never heard a full jazz band live and this was awesome. One of the other things that made it awesome was that I was the only trumpet for a few days. I had to figure out what to do by myself (and from the help of Mr. Kooi).

When I was in concert band, I didn't practice much. I knew the music and it just kind of came naturally (I mean that in the most unsnotty way possible). In this band, you weren't required to practice so, naturally, I did practice. As my parents will tell you, I worked on those pieces until I got every bit of them right. Another thing concert band didn't have were trumpet solos. I got to solo for twelve measures. It was awesome, just making it up as I went along (which is how I've gotten through life so far), I had never felt so much freedom on the trumpet.

Just hearing all of that was great. Ever since, I have been obsessed with a few select trumpeters such as, Louie Armstrong and (my personal favorite) Dizzy Gillespie. I hope that one day, I can be listed as one of those trumpeters. It is one of my great dreams.

But for now, I'll settle for getting through middle school.

What is it About Movies

What is it about movies? I mean, think of the concept. You walk into a dark room with a bunch of complete strangers, you sit there watching a sixty foot screen with moving pictures and the problem is, you keep going back. Why haven't we caught it. You pay money for this.

I'll tell you why we haven't caught it. Because we can escape. We can go to another world (Avatar), watch chipmunks sing (Alvin and the Chipmunks) and watch a raging battle between a man whose head looks like the head of a snake and a boy who has a lightning bolt scar on his forehead; all while safely drinking your Coke and munching on your popcorn. I am one of the billions that have fallen under this wonderfully addicting curse.

Sadly some of the movies we go to see aren't worth the $9 we spend on them. There are those we only see because they put the best and only good 3 minutes in the trailer. And there are those we know will be terrible but, for some reason, we still see.

Then there are those that we'd pay $100 dollars to see. Those are the movies the audience instantly connects with. Or they're just a great escape and an amazing visual adventure. I wish there was a good movie detector (Oh yeah, Rotten Tomatoes). Sadly, each critic has different genres they prefer. Unfortunately, the sad truth is they aren't you. Sometimes the unanimous vote isn't always the right one. I wish there was a way for me to stop seeing bad movies.

To never set foot in the theater of a terrible movie again.

I will be anxiously awaiting a breakthrough in the movie industry.

But until then I'm anxiously awaiting the midnight show of Iron Man 2.