World of Pageantry

at our school wind ensemble we dont really compete for chairs in the clarinets. everyone supposedly gets a chance to be first chair. thats what my teacher says. but i havent seen that yet. the person who is always first chair isnt all that great. and the person who is second chair cant play all of the runs. as with me, ive been first chair in the bands before wind ensemble. but once i started in wind ensemble things changed and now since we are 'all going to get a chance to be first chair' it seems that only one person is getting to be the concert mistress. now its second simester and i think its fair for our teacher to let some other people get some glory. am i really asking too much?

well i didnt relaly fully understand your whole story....

but if you guys had tryouts.. than the perosn that got first chair got it for a reason.. so i think they should stay untill another tryout or something.. but if it really bothers you why dont you talk to your director about challenges and something.. maybe you can get another chance.

Rotating chairs... We had that last year. Most didn't like it, though, because there were some that couldn't hold the 1st spots, and some were bored of the 3rd parts. It didn't affect me because I played bari sax. This year, our new director didn't do rotating chairs. We all tried out for chair placement and for what ensemble (Wind Ensemble or Symphonic Band).

Some might feel that a person who's always 1st is unfair. Either the director feels that other person deserved it, or he/she has always been lucky. If you want, you could trade parts, but you might get caught. The 2nd alto and I (I'm 1st alto this year) alternate between top and bottom notes on some of our warm-ups, like chorales and interval exercises. Maybe that would help rid some of the jealousy in the people from your band.

well the person who got first chair didnt get it for a good reason. i think our teacher is afraid of her. a lot of people are but im not. and that our teacher has a very short term memory so he forgets that he has to switch us. the only problem why i dont remind him everyday is that the other two clarinets complain about me always wanting to be first. but fair is fair...

I know how you feel man. At my school there are four flute players in the wind ensemble including me. With the results of our last auditions I got third chair. I think that our director somewhat favors the first chair girl. It pisses me off though because the songs that we are playing for concert season, I can play better than she can. She doesn't really care about the songs as long as she's first chair. I can play the runs and hard stuff and she can't. But when she does something wrong he yells at the whole section, when in reality she's the only one messing up. So I decided to challenge her for her chair. For those who don't know what challenging is, it's this thing where we go into another room push record on this tape recorder thing and play a fast scale excercise without saying a word. Then the director listens to the tape after school and decides who wins the challenge without knowing the order of who's playing when. I think it's a fair deal.

yeah, it is fair for one person to always be first chair. Do your freaking audition, then deal with where you sit. The more complaining and ego self-inflating you do, the less you will enjoy your experience in the group. So just play your part to the best of your ability and dont worry about anyone else.

jrichmond68 wrote:yeah, it is fair for one person to always be first chair. Do your freaking audition, then deal with where you sit. The more complaining and ego self-inflating you do, the less you will enjoy your experience in the group. So just play your part to the best of your ability and dont worry about anyone else.

yeah. listen to this guy. he knows from experience!

Hoshwa wrote:

jrichmond68 wrote:yeah, it is fair for one person to always be first chair. Do your freaking audition, then deal with where you sit. The more complaining and ego self-inflating you do, the less you will enjoy your experience in the group. So just play your part to the best of your ability and dont worry about anyone else.

yeah. listen to this guy. he knows from experience!

HAHAHAHAH KILL YOURSELF!!!!!!

One person always being first chair is fair if it's earned through auditions, or if you know the person is the best anyway.

Rotating chairs? That's the first time I've ever heard of that.

If there are solos, we usually split the solos between the first couple of chairs. In middle school, we used to get first one a certain piece, and second on another, because usually the parts are just different notes, and people want to play "first"
In marching band however, whatever part you get at the beginning of the year you're stuck with the whole marching season. Freshmen and newbies get 2nd, while upperclassmen and others get 1st. We put a section leader and a few strong players on second though, so it doesn't lag.

jrichmond68 wrote:yeah, it is fair for one person to always be first chair. Do your freaking audition, then deal with where you sit. The more complaining and ego self-inflating you do, the less you will enjoy your experience in the group. So just play your part to the best of your ability and dont worry about anyone else.

yeah sure its fair when we do the audition but we dont do auditions. our director dumps the music on the floor and since the first chair person is in the front then she gets to the pile first and gets all of the first parts. she doesnt want anyone else to even attempt to try her part. so none of the rest of the clarinets get a chance to challenge her. i really dont like to brag but everybody else in the class knows that im better than her but theres no way to change chairs.

ok, if you really believe that you belong in first, and have this ridiculous rotation situation, you should stop being afraid of stirring up the water, walk up to the first and say, "hey, I think I deserve to be first and don't think it's fair for you to be first. I'm challenging you." Then see if you really deserve first. If youdon't have challenges, just talk 2 ur director and I'm sure him or her will understand. Don't be afraid to create waves, best player gets first part, fair and square. It's not fair or right for someone who works their butt off with practice to have to step down to second part because someone else who doesn't practice, "wants to play first part". If someone wants first and doesn't put in the time, plain and simple they don't deserve it.

in my opinion, the people who really want to be 1st chair but arent dont make a big deal about it (dont attract attention that they think they should be first chair). show that you are there to play and learn music not to be 1st chair

this is kind of random, but right now, one of our sections is having major drama because of the person that got put in first chair. they arent even talking anymore. and people say that guard is all about the drama!!

at our school the person that played first chair last year gets it at the beggining at the year then you can challenge them for there positions