Final Blog Post of the 2013- 2014 year

Personally, I believe that I have improved a lot over the past year.  For the final concert, I believe that I did fairly well.  When I first heard us play American Idiot, I thought that we were never going to be able to play the song well enough so that we didn't hurt our ears and the audience's ears.  We did more than that; our intonation was not horrible, though we could improve, and we played fairly together with a lot of passion and good musical choices. For example, in the beginning we could have not played that whole part really loudly, also as a whole ensemble we could have maintained good bow position on the string to ensure a good quality of sound and the proper sound wanted.  I liked how we got to choose the pieces we got to play, because it allowed us to be more invested in the pieces and made me feel like this concert reflected the ensemble more on their values and their musical opinions.  In the beginning of the year, I had really bad intonation and I wasn't really invested into my instrument. In 8th grade I thought it would be my last year and I would go to art or take another class, though after being in this orchestra for a year I plan on taking private lessons and hopefully at the end of the summer auditioning for symphony and , I hope, getting in.  Along with my outlook on orchestra changing and developing, I learned a lot musically.  In the beginning of the year I only could do an one octave scale, though know I feel a lot more mature because I am able to be told to play a two octave or maybe even a three octave scale easily and fairly in tune.  Also, I am really happy that I learned playing the violin isn't always about being in tune and having good tone, but it is also about being able to make good musical decisions and insuring that you make though decision as a team.
 The concert on Wednesday just showed the amount of progress we made as an ensemble.  The first concert we sounded pretty shaky, though every concert we kept improving, getting 1's at festival and then finishing the year with a great concert.  Can't wait for next year, it will be great.