Love Jazz Choir :)

Monday night, Moonlight Express, my school's jazz choir, hopped on a bus and headed off to the town of Delhi, Iowa. We had no idea what to expect at this year's state jazz choir contest, but we were hopeful. The bus ride was cold, as we were riding on a school bus, and none of the windows were capable of shutting all the way. There was a circle of students in the back of the bus, playing games like 'Never Have I Ever', noisily laughing at the crazy things people have or haven't done. One girl was in the middle of the bus, doing her homework on a laptop that shined a bright light on her face. A smaller group of girls resided toward the front of the bus, quietly giggling about their own jokes. I sat by myself, in the middle of all of this, just observing. Occasionally, someone would yell my name, and ask me if I wanted to join them. I silently shook my head, and kept to myself. These people knew me well enough to know that I'm not anti-social, I'm just quiet.

Once we arrived at the high school, we marveled at how tiny it was. Coming from a big city, or what we like to think of as a big city, it seemed odd to enter a school in which everyone knew each other and the opportunity for new friends was limited. As we entered the choir room, our director told us that this wasn't going to be the most lively audience we'll ever have, but to not let that take away from our performance. On our way to the auditorium, we passed the jazz choir of our rival school. As they passed by, they told us good luck and we said the same, but they looked at us like we were rats. They wanted to be better than us, you could tell, but they also knew that we have a lot of talent.

On stage, we started our michrophone check. What was supposed to be a short, sweet test to make sure everyone could be heard turned into a long, awkward ordeal. Kids from other schools in the audience were laughing at us (note: the audience was only made up of approximately 20 people). By the time our sound check was finally over about ten minutes later, we were nervous and discouraged. But we didn't let that stop us: we performed our hearts out.

By the end, we didn't care what the scores were or who did better than whom. All we knew was that we had made spectacular music for people. And when we did receive our scores, and we got all "ones" and even got a perfect score, we were thrilled. It gave us so much encouragement for the rest of the season. And that is what truly matters :)